that's a very high voltage for a notebook supply, some other device perhaps. keep an eye out for local electronics recyling drives, they are a treasure trove of old powersupplies, LOL
Meanwell LDD driver: for those who want to dim to 0 using Arduino
- Thread starter pwreef
- Start date
that's a very high voltage for a notebook supply, some other device perhaps. keep an eye out for local electronics recyling drives, they are a treasure trove of old powersupplies, LOL
daplatapus
New member
Ah, ok. That makes sense. Thanks for the heads up. I was originally looking at ATX connectors but thought the DB ones would be easier to mount on the side of my heatsink.
Any other type of connector out there I could use? As you can tell, electronics isn't my strong suit.
I was using notebook adapter as a reference to brick style power supply the one I found on line for $20 is ...36V 4.16A AC/DC Power Adapter I know that cuts it really fine. I am only lighting supplement lighting for a little extra actinic. I might have to remove 1 led to lower the power needed to 31.5 then it should all work
mm.reefs
Member
My favorite part is the breadboard in the cereal bowl.
The "Tutti Frutti" hammer is awesome!!!
Powergate sells them. You could pick up the LDDs & power supply at the same time.
eg http://www.powergatellc.com/mean-well-gs60a48-p1j-power-supply.html
daplatapus
New member
Thanks rrasco. Looks like the XLR is the way I'll have to go...
first my choice also was ATX connectors, they are made by Molex. They have pretty big chose, and they are specifically designed for power connections. but could not find the one that designed for connection between devices and looks nice.
From BigAls store I saw very powerful Marinland fixture and they are using these aviation style collectors.
So I decided do not create a new bicycle
and go the same way. From ebay they have a bunch of them with different numbers of pins.I bought 8 conductor 20G thermostat wire from McMaster to run my lights because it's cheap:
http://www.mcmaster.com/#70985K76
and also got some really cheap barrier terminal blocks that I'll mount on the LED side of the heatsink to do the connection.
http://www.mcmaster.com/#7618K615
I don't need for it to be removable like a DB15 or DB9 (or Cat5).
To hold the wires and make it look neat I drilled a hole and installed one of these cord grips. I needed 16 conductors, so 2 thermostat wires fit inside 2 of these cord grips nicely, and it looks nice from the outside too.
http://www.mcmaster.com/#69915K47
iced98lx
New member
Prior to some sort of sheathing.
If anyone is looking for a way to control a lot of these things independently, I'm using this: http://www.adafruit.com/products/815 with success. 16 channels, daisychainable.
:beer:
nkd5024
New member
I've been stalking this thread for a while now and have noticed that there are a lot of people who are looking for a simple way to control their leds using the LDD drivers with/without an arduino.
I was thinking of making a pcb with space for 4 LDDs plus an arduino clone that would be programmable on the board. This would eliminate the cost/space of an actual arduino and could easily provide the 4 pwm channels for the meanwells, a ds18b20 for temp monitoring of the leds which then could control the fans. The firmware side could be super simple and just provide ramp on/ramp off or also include the weather functions that iIm putting into my controller. The cost of the board should only be around $14 more than the standard ldd breakout boards.
I was thinking of making a pcb with space for 4 LDDs plus an arduino clone that would be programmable on the board. This would eliminate the cost/space of an actual arduino and could easily provide the 4 pwm channels for the meanwells, a ds18b20 for temp monitoring of the leds which then could control the fans. The firmware side could be super simple and just provide ramp on/ramp off or also include the weather functions that iIm putting into my controller. The cost of the board should only be around $14 more than the standard ldd breakout boards.
nkd5024
New member
The atmega328 only has 6 pwm pins but I could break them out so if you wanted to run two more ldds on a standard ldd breakout you could do that. If you want more than 6 we'd have to add in a pwm chip which would add to cost. I was thinking of throwing on an optional rtc for anyone wanting more advanced code.
I'm thinking about using cat5 also. What kind of distance do you have between your LED's and the drivers? Thanks---Rick
I've already posted something similar. It's the Typhon/LDD combo from a few hundred posts back.It costs a bit more to build than you proposed, but it's "caveman" simple to operate since it carries it's own firmware, an LCD, and menu driven GUI.
nemosworld
Active member
not to change the subject, but i got an email from a vendor in my work email and when i checked it out, i found these:
http://www.micropowerdirect.com/Pages/Product/Prod LED.html
what's intersting is that they go to 57 volts, i know you guys said that the ldd's work some special magic where we should only worry about current as the ldd handles the voltage, if that's true then clearly the ldd is better, however if voltage does play into things, then 57v would mean atleast 1-2 more leds per string correct?
http://www.micropowerdirect.com/Pages/Product/Prod LED.html
what's intersting is that they go to 57 volts, i know you guys said that the ldd's work some special magic where we should only worry about current as the ldd handles the voltage, if that's true then clearly the ldd is better, however if voltage does play into things, then 57v would mean atleast 1-2 more leds per string correct?
