LED controllers - dimmers / timers

February 19, 2009

I've been thinking about ways to cost-effectively control my LED array. I'd like the ability to set on/off times with dimming associated with each. Do you know if a product that would work. I don't want to spend a ton. I'm not a fan of C++, and I know essentially jack about other programming languages.

I haven't seen a pre-fab solution, and I'm having no luck finding a simple, programmable dimmer or voltage regulator. I was thinking if a pre-fab solution doesn't exist, then maybe a programmable potentiometer or a programmable dimmer. Maybe something like these items:

http://www.relaypros.com/mm5/merchant.mvc?..._Potentiometers

http://www.relaypros.com/mm5/merchant.mvc?...ry_Code=DIMMERS

They both look a little scary to me. It seems there should be a form of potentiometer available where I could program in different actions and times. Maybe it could replace the manual pot that comes on the wired 10k ohm buckpucks. The end product would need to be self contained, rather than connected to a computer.

Thanks,

J.

February 19, 2009

If those dimmer boards cannot drop the output voltage down to 5v, they are useless.

If you don't mind dealing with a little bit of fairly simple programming, look into the Arduino developement platform. It's cheap and easy to work with, and with the addition of a real time clock, you can have a standalone light controller that will ramp up and down at preset times. There are a few of here that have been tinkering with them (me, cdelicath, and Vancoover Reefer among others) if you need some help. It will be far cheaper and a lot more flexible than what you are looking at currently. Push comes to shove, I could probably write you a little basic program to get started and then you can modify as you see fit.

February 19, 2009

If those dimmer boards cannot drop the output voltage down to 5v, they are useless.

If you don't mind dealing with a little bit of fairly simple programming, look into the Arduino developement platform. It's cheap and easy to work with, and with the addition of a real time clock, you can have a standalone light controller that will ramp up and down at preset times. There are a few of here that have been tinkering with them (me, cdelicath, and Vancoover Reefer among others) if you need some help. It will be far cheaper and a lot more flexible than what you are looking at currently. Push comes to shove, I could probably write you a little basic program to get started and then you can modify as you see fit.

Sweet, evil. Thanks! I'll do some research tonight.

February 19, 2009

You know, I have seen about 1,000 different arduino projects on Make: Blog and I always skip over them because most of them are dumb and I don't really know what the board can do.

However, your post makes me want to know more.

February 19, 2009

Look up Vancoover Reefers thread in the DIY section for his DIY reef controller. He has been making some interesting progress on that. He is using an Arduino board too.

February 20, 2009

Hmm after doing some reading on the Arduino (and Wired) boards... Wow, it seems with some basic programming knowledge you could easily have a cool little controller on your hands. My interest was purely for controlling my LEDs, even if it's from my computer, but these things can do so much more!

As far as controlling LEDs though, is there some way to dim them without using PWM with one of these little controllers?

February 20, 2009

Hmm after doing some reading on the Arduino (and Wired) boards... Wow, it seems with some basic programming knowledge you could easily have a cool little controller on your hands. My interest was purely for controlling my LEDs, even if it's from my computer, but these things can do so much more!

As far as controlling LEDs though, is there some way to dim them without using PWM with one of these little controllers?

Is there a reason you'd prefer not to use PWM? I wonder how the pulsing would affect the life of an LED.

February 20, 2009

The pwm signal does not get translated into the LED. It is strictly for the input to the driver. There are ways to drive an analog output with a digital source (digital potentiometer) but these are expensive, and offer no benefit to what we are doing.

February 20, 2009

Just so you all know, I had no idea about the Arduino or programming it until i started this project in Dec 2008. I used to program industrial PLC's which is totally different so i was pretty much starting from scratch.

If you can put in the time to search you can easliy cobble together a small program to do whatever you want.

Mine is slowly coming together. Its probably not how the pros would program it but so far its working fine for me. Just work on one bit at a time. Once you have that working, then move onto the next bit..

Ok so here is abit of code i modified to learn how to fade in and out. Please feel free to use this as a starting block and play with it and see what you can come up with:

// Fading an LED in and out.

// This will fade in the led over 5 steps with a delay of 1 second between each step.

// Then the led will fade out using the same principle

int value = 0; // variable to store pwm value

int ledpin = 9; // light connected to digital pin 9

void setup()

{

// nothing for setup

}

void loop()

{

for(value = 0 ; value <= 255; value+=5) // fade in (from min to max)

{

analogWrite(ledpin, 0); // sets the value (range from 0 to 255)