New touch screen controller with 4 x 48volt DIY PCB LED driver.

[sialkoti]

LED technology is constantly improving so are the skills and ideas from LED DIY enthusiastic. I have looked in to LED lighting systems to lit my reef tank quite a while ago, in fact I got in to the hobby due to my interest in this technology. There are several reasons to choose LED technology over various other forms of lighting systems such as Metal Halide, T8, T5, latest plasma lighting units etc. I will not be addressing such reasons but would love to discuss points as this thread develops.

 

LED controller, driver and LEDs themselves are only for the trail purpose to see how they will behave as and when certain commands are given by the user. I am not interested to see any PAR readings since this trial version will not be used over any tank and only cheap LEDs have been used.

 

I have no such experience on the hardware side of this DIY project but have constantly improvised ideas towards this newly designed LED driver and controller unit.

 

This is by NO mean a DIY thread but to gather some valuable information to further enhance my future projects. Future projects will be based on XP-G and XP-E LED format until something better comes along

 

Any comments are more than welcome and as this would hopefully help all of us.

 

 

LCD Touch Screen :- Cheap from eBay

 

This touch screen was only a cheap a quick option to go for but once I am happy with all settings, I may change it to a colour touch screen panel.

 

 

Backside

 

 

Daughter board which will fit to the touch screen panel and custom made to suit my needs for the current project. Up to 32 driver boards per controller - i.e. in theory you can control 32 lots of drivers on the serial 'bus'.

 

 

Another shot

 

 

Bare PCB board before any hardware installed

 

The driver itself

 

 

Power supply up to 48V DC.

LED Load up to 85% of power supply.

Typical driver efficiency 90-95%

Current output 700mA / channel with 4 output channels per driver board. We can raised this up to 1.5Amp.

Controller is programmable to suit whatever requirements. Has a real-time clock with battery backup and EEPROM memory to store program settings.

 

 

 

Foot print for these PCB driver board is approx 2.5 x 2.5 x 2.0 (inches including PC cooling fan housing). I had to install a small heatsink as when pushed to max, drivers started to get hot and LEDs started to miss behave. Adding a small PC fan which get its power feed from the same PCB board has dramatically reduce the heat produced by the 4 drivers in such a tight space. I have tested my LEDs at full tilt for over 12 hours after installing PC fan on the driver board and magic no flicker at all. Drivers are cool as a cucumber but LEDs themselves do get quite warm yet not very hot on small heatsink.

 

 

 

 

 

LEDs:-

 

Since this project is only for the testing of these drivers and controller, there is no point spending too much money on expensive LEDs. LEDs, I have been using are left over’s from various past research projects and if there is any failure (not that I ever had before :fun2:), I am still a happy man.

 

 

PSU

 

I have used Meanwell PSU 48Volt 170 watt. Since each driver is rated @ 48Volt and to run few of these PCB drivers I bought myself small PSU for testing.

 

 

 

Rest:-

 

When powered up for the first time the touch screen will come up with following calibration command. Once the calibration is done it will take you to the main menu.

 

 

 

Main Menu (sorry about the picture quality)

 

This main menu would give you four options which you maybe able to see. Each main menu command option has several sub menu options.

 

 

You could adjust screen resolution to suit your needs for the touch screen controller as some touch screens are notorious to read when other light is present in the room or around the screen. The touch screen controller would also stay lit or goes off at your selected time command.

 

 

 

 

 

Clock:-

 

My PCB driver board already has real time clock backed up by battery so any stored commands would remain safe just in case any power failure occurs.

 

One of the sub menu also have manual options which enables you to select your own setting such as;

 

Day / Night

Dusk / Dawn

Cloudy / Auto

 

 

Selected option both blue and white @ full tilt in manual mode

 

 

Both Off

 

 

 

 

Various settings between white and royal blues

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I hope you all enjoyed it.

 

 

Future plans.

 

I have few other projects in the pipeline where I am thinking about placing everything on a 150mm x 150mm PCB. I may install 10 x Cree’s XP-G and 10 x Cree’s XP-E LEDs. I am looking for a new layout for 20 LEDs per panel and if anyone could draw me a decent sketch up, I would highly appreciate it.

 

This is just a mock up design for 5 x XP-G and 5 x XP-E LED driver board but need to improve as requested above.

 

Once again please feel free to add your comments as I am only human being and we all need guidance every now and then.

[ulver982]

Amazing work! Hope to see this in action on a tank. Did you get the dawn/dusk, cloudy etc programmed?

[evilc66]

Sweet. Glad you got it finished.

[sialkoti]

Sweet. Glad you got it finished.

 

Hi Evilc66,

 

Could you kindly reply to my PM please? It's still at teething stages and could do with some suggestions on how further to improve or what functions could be added?

[sialkoti]

Amazing work! Hope to see this in action on a tank. Did you get the dawn/dusk, cloudy etc programmed?

 

Yes I did. You can see from the option menu on the touch screen controller that it has cloud cover option. It could be set and stored or random choice could also be selected. For the could cover royal blues goes down to around 38% and white goes down to around 10% for 20 seconds to 60 seconds intervals. You can set and choose yourself how many times and what time cloud cover should come ON etc.

[sammy113]

Very Cool! I'd love to have one of those controllers

[GreyFox]

Does this support

meanwell dimable drivers? Also you needa let us know how you made it:P!!

[Apoptosis]

Very nice! Following!

[sialkoti]

Very Cool! I'd love to have one of those controllers

 

You are more than welcome to try one. I am not 100% happy with the functions at the moment but should be done once I am back from Germany.

 

Does this support

meanwell dimable drivers? Also you needa let us know how you made it:P!!

 

Never looked in to this but it shouldn't be any serious problem to make it Meanwell comptiable. I will have a look at as I got 2 x ELN-60-48P drivers stitting in the office doing nothing

 

Very nice! Following!

 

 

I do have a family and business to run Sir but will try my best as soon I am back from Germany.

[gambitsa]

You are more than welcome to try one. I am not 100% happy with the functions at the moment but should be done once I am back from Germany.

 

 

 

Never looked in to this but it shouldn't be any serious problem to make it Meanwell comptiable. I will have a look at as I got 2 x ELN-60-48P drivers stitting in the office doing nothing

 

 

 

 

I do have a family and business to run Sir but will try my best as soon I am back from Germany.

 

 

Awesome work sialkoti

 

I was wondering if you could give us more details on where you got the PCB & LCD from and how it was programmed? I am interested in getting one, though I would probably need more than 4 banks (i have a 4ft, not nano) - or you could build one for me and I could buy it from you