Adding more drivers to one bluefish

[Cflo]

I have a nanobox duo (retrofit kit ) with separate moonlight that I want to add two more v3 arrays to.  The power supply is a 48V "large" unit from nanobox.  I do not know much about leds, but from what I understand I cannot drive more than 16 leds per each ldd driver.  The white channel is already using 10 leds. How do I attach another driver for the white channel so I can run 20 leds? Can someone please break it down for me? 

[Water Dog]

Maybe @DaveFasoncan help...

[RollaJase]

I'm powering 6x V3.1 arrays off of 6x LDD 700H drivers. The white/lime channel is split over two drivers, royal blue also, violet on their own driver and cyan/blue on the last driver. Looks like Dave's retro kits use LDD 300H, 500H and 700H drivers (based on the pic on the website), this will impact your upgrade options. You may need to swap out 1 or 2 of these drivers for a larger option to get the required performance out of the arrays . Dave will be able to confirm which channels will need the drivers swapped out and can probably provide the required ones with the purchase of additional arrays. The bellow picture may be of some help to you.

[Cflo]

16 hours ago, RollaJase said:

I'm powering 6x V3.1 arrays off of 6x LDD 700H drivers. The white/lime channel is split over two drivers, royal blue also, violet on their own driver and cyan/blue on the last driver. Looks like Dave's retro kits use LDD 300H, 500H and 700H drivers (based on the pic on the website), this will impact your upgrade options. You may need to swap out 1 or 2 of these drivers for a larger option to get the required performance out of the arrays . Dave will be able to confirm which channels will need the drivers swapped out and can probably provide the required ones with the purchase of additional arrays. The bellow picture may be of some help to you.

How did you split the drivers  so that two drivers that operate one channel into the bluefish? Did you have to splice wires going into the bluefish? 

[RollaJase]

1 hour ago, Cflo said:

How did you split the drivers  so that two drivers that operate one channel into the bluefish? Did you have to splice wires going into the bluefish? 

I'm not using Dave's driver board, I'm using one by O2 Surplus (who is a member here and on RTR etc.). This driver board has 6 channels and has jumpers that allow you to link channels together so they can be controlled as 1 from the BF Mini. For example, instead of me having duplicate channels in the BF Mini I only see 4. Channel 1 and 2 are for whites, the BF sees these as one channel, same as channel 3 and 4 which are my royal blue channel. I'm not sure if Dave's board has this functionality but for 2 arrays, potentially upgrading to 4 arrays Dave's board shouldn't cause you any issues short of needing to upgrade a few of the drivers (which are plug and play). May be best to send an email through the Nano-Box website if you are looking for a quick response.

[Cflo]

21 hours ago, RollaJase said:

I'm powering 6x V3.1 arrays off of 6x LDD 700H drivers. The white/lime channel is split over two drivers, royal blue also, violet on their own driver and cyan/blue on the last driver. Looks like Dave's retro kits use LDD 300H, 500H and 700H drivers (based on the pic on the website), this will impact your upgrade options. You may need to swap out 1 or 2 of these drivers for a larger option to get the required performance out of the arrays . Dave will be able to confirm which channels will need the drivers swapped out and can probably provide the required ones with the purchase of additional arrays. The bellow picture may be of some help to you.

How did you split the drivers  so that two drivers that operate one channel into the bluefish? Did you have to splice wires going into the bluefish? 

 

I actually have an o2 surplus board,  i just didn't want to have to build a whole new board and i might want to keep it for a future project. My board has a separate moonlight channel.  Say I just want to ditch the moonlight and use that 300H driver for the extra whites/lime of the two new v3s, do you think I could jump the two 300H drivers together on Dave's board? I've been emailing nanobox but most messages have been short and nonspecific.  

[RollaJase]

So on the O2 board you have the jumper pins as per below.

The 'channel select' and 'channel gang' are the ones you want, the above picture is how mine came as standard. Basically what you do is set them up as per below.

So, Channel Select directly relates to the channels on the BF mini, removing a jumper means the BF mini's signal won reach that channel therefore the LDD drivers won't output any signal (when an LDD gets power but no PWM you get no output). In my case, I've removed the channel select jumpers for channel 2 and 4. Then what you do is jump 1 pair of the channel gang pins between the two channels. In my case this is a jump between channel 1 and 2 and between channel 3 and 4. What this does is send the PWM signal from channel 1 through channel 1 and 2 and the PWM signal from channel 3 through channel 3 and 4. Then it's as simple as logging into the BF Mini, navigating to settings/lighting/channel settings and in my instance clicking on channel 2 and channel 4 and turning off 'display channel'. This removes channel 2 and 4 from view so it doesn't clutter anything up. I didn't bother with a separate moonlight channel, I just use the night settings and have my blues on at 1%.

 

As for swapping drivers and such, off the top of my head I can't remember how to calculate the driver requirements for the number of diodes. I was basically given a shopping list and went out and got what I needed (shopping list was not from Dave). The board you have is the same or similar as what Dave uses in his fixtures. The drivers are just scaled based on the LED requirements.Based on the image on Dave's website of the retro kit it looks like the drivers he is using are as follows.

White/Mint = LDD 300H (power comes into white, jumped to mint and then goes to white on other array and jumped to mint)

Royal Blue = LDD 700H (power comes into royal blue on one array and then goes to the other array)

Cyan = LDD 500H (power comes into cyan on one array and then goes to the other array)

Violet = LDD 500H (power comes into violet on one array and then goes to the other array)

Moonlight = LDD 300H

 

Cyan and Violet will be fine running 4 arrays off the 500H drivers (I have 6 arrays on a 700H for each channel). The White will definitely need to be upgraded to a 700H and I'd say the Blue may need to go to a 1000H if that is supported. Without doing the math I can't be 100% sure. @DaveFason or possibly @jedimasterben would have to comment here.

[DaveFason]

Sorry bud you have sent limited information on what you exactly wanted to use and what you currently had on hand. Like I said in the emails you will need...

• Extra Driver board - Up to four/five drivers
• New power Supply - Higher wattage and amperage 
• Wiring for connecting boards together

There are so many variables until we know exactly what you are using. You can use jumper wires to connect the PWM cables and DC power to the both boards. You can wire ALL the violet, blue/cyan and mint together into one long series if you feel good with soldering. You can run the second board on a separate power supply if you wanted. 

 

There is also a wealth of information on this thread of DIYing LED. 

 

[Cflo]

Thank you everyone for chiming in.  Everyone has to start somewhere. This is why it would be best for me to just use the existing driver board and jump an additional board to power and dim two other v3s. The current board does in fact already have an LDD 300H for white/lime,  Royal blue 700H, cyan 500H, violet 500H, and moonlight 300H. I do not need this to be a super high powered fixture.  It is a retrofit for a sunpower. If I need additional drivers per channel  (most likely white and RB) then I will.  If I can somehow ditch the moonlight freeing the 300H driver so I can now use that for the whites on the two additional v3s I will.  I'm just looking for a simple option to power two additional v3s hopefully with the same drivers, power source,  and driver board. If this is too much, i may just use the O2 surplus board and start over.  What is the simplest option?

[DaveFason]

3 hours ago, Cflo said:

Thank you everyone for chiming in.  Everyone has to start somewhere. This is why it would be best for me to just use the existing driver board and jump an additional board to power and dim two other v3s. The current board does in fact already have an LDD 300H for white/lime,  Royal blue 700H, cyan 500H, violet 500H, and moonlight 300H. I do not need this to be a super high powered fixture.  It is a retrofit for a sunpower. If I need additional drivers per channel  (most likely white and RB) then I will.  If I can somehow ditch the moonlight freeing the 300H driver so I can now use that for the whites on the two additional v3s I will.  I'm just looking for a simple option to power two additional v3s hopefully with the same drivers, power source,  and driver board. If this is too much, i may just use the O2 surplus board and start over.  What is the simplest option?

No way to power the two extra arrays off the same power supply and drivers. You at a minimum have to add two drivers, new power supply and driver board. 

Cyan - 1 Driver

Violet - 1 Driver

Mint - 1 Driver

Royal - 2 drivers 

whites - 2 drivers

[Cflo]

Ok that's what I was thinking. The power supply is definitely the 350watt 48V? Should I just duplicate the other board besides the scw? I mean get the same drivers as the other board?  This would just be a 4up.

[Cflo]

I just want to clarify that basically if i have an adequate power supply i can daisy chain these ldd drivers so that they share the burden of the load and multiple drivers can be used on the same channel for the bluefish.