Playfair
Premium Member
With all the buzz about LED lighting, especially for moonlight (very cool looking, BTW!) what was lacking was a way to dim these lights via X-10 lamp modual through a controller.
Since the moduals Triac only works on resistance, the trick was to run LEDs off AC line voltage without a reduction transformer. I did this by using sizeable resistors (one to limit current to the LEDs, the other to "fool" the lamp modual since it needs a "load" in order to turn off). The resistors do burn off about 2 watts of power, so they get pretty warm.
Parts list:
-10 Blue LED's (Mine came from Allelectronics.com)
-6000 ohm 5 Watt resistor
-3900 ohm 5 Watt resistor
-Full wave bridge rectifier (this makes the leds blink at 120hz instead of a noticeable 60hz)
-1/4 amp fuse (pretty important due to light guage wires)
-wiring and connectors
Here's the wiring schematic of the "powersupply":
Since the lamp dimmer only sees resistance, so it has no problem chopping the AC waveform to dim the circuit. The LED's themselves are simply wired in series, all 10. I choose to have to "blocks" of lights (one on each end of the tank), but they are still in series. I used 1/8" black plastic pieces and heated the leads of the led's so they could push through it forming their own "sockets". The soldering was done from behind, then another plastic piece was hot glued over it. There's enough lead on the LED's such that they can be bent to highlight different sections or corals in the tank.
Here's a pic of the finished "kit"...
Here's what one light bar looks like after being attached (I love "servo tape" from your local RC hobby store!)
Finally, here's a 2sec exposure of the tank lit by the lights during full moon. It's probably just a little dimmer than the 15watt blue party bulb I have been using, but it's a much nicer light.
Total parts cost was about $25, not including the lamp modual
Since the moduals Triac only works on resistance, the trick was to run LEDs off AC line voltage without a reduction transformer. I did this by using sizeable resistors (one to limit current to the LEDs, the other to "fool" the lamp modual since it needs a "load" in order to turn off). The resistors do burn off about 2 watts of power, so they get pretty warm.
Parts list:
-10 Blue LED's (Mine came from Allelectronics.com)
-6000 ohm 5 Watt resistor
-3900 ohm 5 Watt resistor
-Full wave bridge rectifier (this makes the leds blink at 120hz instead of a noticeable 60hz)
-1/4 amp fuse (pretty important due to light guage wires)
-wiring and connectors
Here's the wiring schematic of the "powersupply":
Since the lamp dimmer only sees resistance, so it has no problem chopping the AC waveform to dim the circuit. The LED's themselves are simply wired in series, all 10. I choose to have to "blocks" of lights (one on each end of the tank), but they are still in series. I used 1/8" black plastic pieces and heated the leads of the led's so they could push through it forming their own "sockets". The soldering was done from behind, then another plastic piece was hot glued over it. There's enough lead on the LED's such that they can be bent to highlight different sections or corals in the tank.
Here's a pic of the finished "kit"...
Here's what one light bar looks like after being attached (I love "servo tape" from your local RC hobby store!)
Finally, here's a 2sec exposure of the tank lit by the lights during full moon. It's probably just a little dimmer than the 15watt blue party bulb I have been using, but it's a much nicer light.
Total parts cost was about $25, not including the lamp modual
Last edited:
