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Custom LED Drivers, anyone?


MeepNand

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I haven't posted in here in a long time, as I have been busy meditating in the mountains and training. :P But I noticed some nice LED driver ICs from Linear recently, and wanted to do some stuff with them, even though I don't have an aquarium right now.

Linear offers a number of different options for their LED drivers, but most notable are the Buck-Boost style of drivers. Meanwell LDDs are Buck LED drivers, meaning that the input voltage must be higher than the output voltage. Buck-Boost allows the input voltage to be in a very wide range, with maximum efficeincy achieved near the LED string voltage (but still topping 90% efficiency in most cases).

Essentially, this lets you use a cheap computer power supply instead of the usual expensive 36v or 48v supplies. A 12v 800w supply can run you around $25 compared to the usual $50+ for a 48v 10a supply.

Boost LED drivers can also do this for a much lower price, but if you have <12v of LEDs, they won't work.

 

Post below what you want to see in a driver. Specify things like # of LEDs or voltage, current, number of channels, and price.

I can make these to be whatever you want it to, with any current rating and/or voltage rating with any input.

Drivers should only cost around $5-8 for Boost or Buck drivers, or $8-15 for Buck-Boost LED drivers. Multi-channel drivers would cost more overall but less per channel.

Drivers can be as little as $2.50, for something like a 28v 1A Buck driver.

 

If anybody would like to test/obtain some LED driver boards, PM me. There will be some cost involved to purchase stuff, but I will see how much I can offset the costs with my own money. I'm not going to be doing this for profit, just for fun.

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jedimasterben

Meanwell LDB-L drivers are the same general format as LDD but are buck-boost. http://www.meanwell.com/search/LDB-L/LDB-L-spec.pdf

 

Don't forget that the good efficiency of the drivers will be completely offset by the horrendous efficiency of a $25 computer power supply, not to mention poor voltage regulation and quality.

 

Not trying to bring ya down or anything, just pointing a couple of things out. I know the fun of it for you is designing and making your own :)

 

If you're thinking of starting with a buck driver, then look at the Allegro A6211. They're dirt cheap and configurable to output current from like 300mA to 3A, with the same general voltage input/output as the LDD-H.

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Meanwell LDB-L drivers are the same general format as LDD but are buck-boost. http://www.meanwell.com/search/LDB-L/LDB-L-spec.pdf

 

Don't forget that the good efficiency of the drivers will be completely offset by the horrendous efficiency of a $25 computer power supply, not to mention poor voltage regulation and quality.

 

Not trying to bring ya down or anything, just pointing a couple of things out. I know the fun of it for you is designing and making your own :)

 

If you're thinking of starting with a buck driver, then look at the Allegro A6211. They're dirt cheap and configurable to output current from like 300mA to 3A, with the same general voltage input/output as the LDD-H.

Dang, those weren't around last time I was here! :D

I've designed for the A6211 in the past and got a board that was around $2.50 in components.

I thought that a CPU power supply would be as good/bad as the 48v ones, is there any particular reason why they would have poor efficiency?

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