The complete LED & Dim4Controller Led Guide

[Deckoz2302]

Haha no, I live in an apartment, and the lower floor has a storage unit that I keep my tools and car stuff in.

[Milad LEDGroupBuy.com]

You are dimming meanwell "p" drivers with the DIM4? Didn't realize that would work.

[Deckoz2302]

hmm. I thought the 'eanwell p's could take analog or pwm?

[Milad LEDGroupBuy.com]

hmm. I thought the 'eanwell p's could take analog or pwm?

 

I heard the same thing but Ive never seen it in action. Have you tested it yet?

[Deckoz2302]

Nope I haven't. Lol, this could be fun. Hmm. I think I may cancel my order for them and play it safe with the cheaper dual capable analog/pwm buckpucks(buckblock & flexblock)

 

Also the dim4 relays have been ordered. I will be wrapping the stand in oak between tonight and tomorrow. And hopefully will have it stained and poly'd up by Friday.

 

I will probably solder the led fixture tonight and route wires through the heatsink.

 

After that ill show wiring up the driver project box w/120mm fan to keep drivers cool and dim4 box. Once again sorry for lack of updates, I'm really just waiting on parts(some was laziness of ordering some parts).

 

But the list of things going on the new tank.

Dual phosban reactors(one split for rowaphos and purigen or carbon, other for seachem denitrate)

Two vortech mp10s

This awesome led fixture

 

Reef angel < I have the controller however install is on hold until after xmas when I can buy the add on modules to make it fully functional the way I want it(wireless vortech control, salinity, ph temps ect ect modules)

A

[Cintax]

It wouldn't shock me if the differance between the 'D' and 'P' Mean Well drivers was an RC circuit to smooth the PWM signal into an analog-ish voltage.

[Deckoz2302]

Cintax, that's really what the difference is. And I've read that the driver will accept either signal, however the p drivers do not dim smoothly when supplied an analog signal, although it 'supposedly' will work.

[Cintax]

I chose the 'P' variant because I was interfacing it to an Arduino and a NPN transistor and a +10 volt power source seemed like a much easier way to interface the Mean Well driver to the Arduino.

 

I'm excited to see how your project will end up.

[Deckoz2302]

Yea makes sense. Ill eventually have the switch to arduino when I set up the reef angel. But for now I will be using the dim4 until I can afford to buy the rest of the reefangel modules. Then ill be using the dim4 for a mini spice garden since I love cooking with fresh spices. Anyway im out sellin that redbull guess I should get off the phone and do some work huh

[Milad LEDGroupBuy.com]

Yea makes sense. Ill eventually have the switch to arduino when I set up the reef angel. But for now I will be using the dim4 until I can afford to buy the rest of the reefangel modules. Then ill be using the dim4 for a mini spice garden since I love cooking with fresh spices. Anyway im out sellin that redbull guess I should get off the phone and do some work huh

 

DIM4 Spice garden build? I like to see that too!

[Cintax]

A nice mixture of deep red and royal blue LEDs would grow plants pretty well. Blue stimulates production of Chlorophyll B in plants and coral. The red stimulates production of Chlorophyll A. I personally grow hot peppers but I love fresh spices. My summer garden also has a wide variety of herbs. I'm with Milad, I think you should do a spice garden build thread when you do it.

[Deckoz2302]

I surely will. I grew some veggies on my patio this summer and had some yummy meals and thought man I wish I had fresh spices. Ill do a build thread when I get the tank running on reef angel. But what forum subcat?!

[Deckoz2302]

 

buckpucks

Dim4

[Cintax]

Wow. Those buck packs are tiny.

[Deckoz2302]

Yea they are pretty tiny, but they go upto 32volt so should power 5 or 6 leds depending on the strand

 

Here I used the same soldering techniques as earlier in the thread, just remember to tin your tip before each solder

 

 

[Deckoz2302]

Stand is stained just need to seal and poly it and also the hellion sitting on the floor that has to be into everything I do haha

 

 

Pigtail for the led pendant, ends will have bullet disconnects and wireloomed, its just electrical taped in a step and labeled so I can easily label positive and neg and differentiate channels

 

Now for the actual pendant I used 22ga solid wire which my runs between the leds are no more then 2.5 inches. which in they're short length should easily support upto the 2.1amps on the white channel. While for the runs to the drivers to prevent voltage drop I used 18ga stranded as each pigtail is about 4ft in length. I will be using a 15 pin molex connector to connect to the project box, the connector will enable quick disconnect of the led, fan, and tempurature probe wires

 

So next up is actually wiring the drivers and relays to the dim4 in the project box

[Milad LEDGroupBuy.com]

We need updates, shouldnt it be lit by now?

[Deckoz2302]

Haha yea its lit, was just waiting for the relays. Anyways here you go

 

I am using a cooler guys fan controller, that requires 5v and 12v. I did not realize this until i already had my power supply for the dim4. I was going to make a voltage regulator then realized I had an old verizon car charger. Which itself is a voltage regulator as a car runs on 12v and my phone gets charged on 5v. so 12v in, 5v out.

 

Heres the Dim4 wired up. Red and black wires are 12v in. Then each of the purple and grey are the dimming wires for each buckpuck. The open pegs on the right are for the relay controls which i will show how to wire & tap into your driver power when I receive the relays

 

Here is the project box closed, There are two 4 pin molex connectors, one provides 12v which gets split between the dim4, fan controller, and verizon jury riged voltage regulator. The other 4 pin provides 24v from a 24v 6.5amp power supply to power the drivers. The 15pin connector has 12 pins filled, 8 for led wires, and 4 pins to molex connector for the heatsink mounted fan controller. also I used 1inch 4-40screws and nuts through holes in the project box. Also To guide the screws onto the buttons on the dim4 I used the plastic standoffs that came with the dim4 because they fit perfectly around the buttons. Also Ill be adding a 40mm fan to cool the drivers. if you look above the molex connectors I already marked a where i will cut a vent out.

 

Im waiting on a replacement fan and fan controller as one of the two led tempurature fans was loud as a banshee and the controller was dead on arival. So you will see them missing, also the shroud is not complete as I was working on plumbing the stand.

 

Un lit - dont mind the pizza crumbs in my sink haha

 

Xml t6 5000-8000k @ 2100mah

 

Blue 470nm @ 1000mah

 

True Violet 420nm @ 700mah

 

Royal Blue 445nm @ 1000mah

 

All channels lit

 

and a better pic of the stand

 

ps, this thing is a cannon haha. it lights up the pond outside, I wonder if i should do optics. The true violets have built in 60deg optics so I may end up going with that depending on the spread once its mounted over the tank, which I might try to mount it today if I complete the shroud

[acropora1981]

great build

[Deckoz2302]

Hey atleast someone likes it lol Im a perfectionist so I've been taking it all slower then most would like lol.

 

Anyway Im about to start putting the shroud together but first I figured I'd share the test hang, need to go get some black tubing to cover the thread rods holding up the pendant and cut out fan holes, think I may use black acrylic, or paint the acrylic black shroud black

 

[Deckoz2302]

Shroud with drying glue. No need to make this waterproof or seamless using weldon. As I'm painting this satin black. So the quick easy supoerglue did the trick. I may eventually do something different with the shroud

 

[Coastie]

1) That thing is so bright it hurt my eyes looking at it in a picture.

2) whered you get the hanger support?

 

*edit* curved shelf arm from lowes.... I'm an idiot. I can read, promise.

 

Great build and thread!

[Deckoz2302]

If you go into the modular shelfing isle in home depot or lowes, it is one of the shelf arms. And yea. I think it may be about 7000 lumens.

 

And thank you! Lol I tried lol

[tinkerer]

very nice build thread. thanks for all the great pics.

[Milad LEDGroupBuy.com]

That arm is making the build look so good.