Ah.. I thought by cutters you were talking about somewhere that would cut heatsinks.. didn't realise it was somewhere you could buy lighting. Curious to see how you go. I need to spend a couple hundred more on LEDs myself shortly, will be interested to see how you go with getting comparable pricing/products.
Reef Discussion
Have a look at these two place's, see what you think...........
LEDsales
Cutter Elec
Both in Aus which is a gooder thing
LEDsales
Cutter Elec
Both in Aus which is a gooder thing
I also stumbled across this page
Light Spread in LED compared to Mercury vapor and High pressure sodium street lights
Using LED's in street lights may sound off topic to fish, but there are some really handy calculations on the page to help work out the "spread" of an LED at a certain height. Found it searching for info on 10W Cree's
Light Spread in LED compared to Mercury vapor and High pressure sodium street lights
Using LED's in street lights may sound off topic to fish, but there are some really handy calculations on the page to help work out the "spread" of an LED at a certain height. Found it searching for info on 10W Cree's
Yeah, not the place to buy drivers :)
For drivers I found this place
RS Online
Global company but have a store in Melbourne. Find these places but not really sure what I'm looking for lol. Need to take shopping!!
For drivers I found this place
RS Online
Global company but have a store in Melbourne. Find these places but not really sure what I'm looking for lol. Need to take shopping!!
Happy to help ;)
There are too many scary avatars around her at the moment - I won't be able to sleep!!
Just made for an Arduino based controller :D
Just out of interest, I bought my drivers as part of a group buy on the 'Other Site' - the 60-48P cost $25!! and that was from Cutters. Their individual prices are ridiculous but I am not sure how much they are prepared to bargain for 10 or so??
Not really too much to help you at his place.
To drive the LED's you need a constant current - the light intensity is based on the current and not on the voltage. If the source is not constant the light will go dim/brighter depending on what the source is doing.
There are quite a number of options, including DIY, to get drivers, but then you need to get a power supply. This supply needs to be variable (read more expensive!!) as the voltage needs to be closely matched to the forward voltage of the LED's in the string - if its not the extra voltage gets burnt off as heat which is not necessarily a good thing.
The good thing with the Meanwell drivers - they combine a constant current driver with a variable power supply which makes it easy for these DIY builds. Unfortunately, there are not too many alternatives which do the same thing.
Hey Magic the Zombie Brain Sucking Moderator,
The specs below are the constant current drivers we are thinking about...........
Input Voltage-90 ~ 305 Vac
Max. Output Voltage- 285Vdc
Output Current Range- Min. 665mA Max. 735mA
Max. Output Power- 200W
Typical Efficiency- 93%
Output Voltage Range- 143V ~ 285V
The dimmer control may be operated from either a potentiometer or from an input signal of 1 – 10 Vdc
IP67 Compliant
This driver is perfect for running CREE XM-L LED's at 2100mA in 16+ LED series
(You can also run 3 parallel strings of 16 CREE XP-G/E LED's for a total of 48 LED's on one driver- this is for the 120W driver)
Trying to get them direct from the manufacturer. Worth looking into you think?
The specs below are the constant current drivers we are thinking about...........
Input Voltage-90 ~ 305 Vac
Max. Output Voltage- 285Vdc
Output Current Range- Min. 665mA Max. 735mA
Max. Output Power- 200W
Typical Efficiency- 93%
Output Voltage Range- 143V ~ 285V
The dimmer control may be operated from either a potentiometer or from an input signal of 1 – 10 Vdc
IP67 Compliant
This driver is perfect for running CREE XM-L LED's at 2100mA in 16+ LED series
(You can also run 3 parallel strings of 16 CREE XP-G/E LED's for a total of 48 LED's on one driver- this is for the 120W driver)
Trying to get them direct from the manufacturer. Worth looking into you think?
To be honest this is starting to get outside my area of expertise (not that I am saying I am an expert at anything;))
One thing I don't understand is that they say the Output Current Range is 665mA - 735mA but then go on to say
Cheers
One thing I don't understand is that they say the Output Current Range is 665mA - 735mA but then go on to say
A couple of things to note:
- The dimmer control may be operated from either a potentiometer or from an input signal of 1 – 10 Vdc - this is effectively the same as the Meanwell 'D' drivers i.e. they cannot easily be controlled via a PWM control signal from an Arduino etc.You can build an additional circuit which smooths out the PWM but it does make things a bit more difficult.
- (You can also run 3 parallel strings of 16 CREE XP-G/E LED's for a total of 48 LED's on one driver- this is for the 120W driver) - running 3 parallel strings is not often done in Australia, although there are many people in the US doing it. The problem is that with parallel strings, the strings share the current (with series strings they share the voltage) - if one led blows for whatever reason the remaining strings take the additional current which could blow all the led's very quickly. You need to install a fast blow fuse on each string to prevent this happening which just adds to the complexity. It can be done, it just makes it a bit harder.
- This driver is getting up into fairly high DC voltages which increases the potential for electrocution, especially near water. I am no electrician but I understand that 48Vdc is getting up near the maximum safe level.
Cheers
Kinda figured they might be a bit high. Used for running LED street lights in tunnel's :)
Have them rated up to 8330mA @ 24Vdc
The three most common they sell are the
700mA @ 285Vdc
1050mA @ 190Vdc
3500mA @ 57Vdc
Probably the the most common mA for running LED's I'm guessing.
Might talk to an electrician for some info, May be able to remote locate them away from the tank. They are waterproof to limited immersion in liquid. Seem to be common in the states.
Thanks for the info tho, very handy! we will keep annoying :)
Have them rated up to 8330mA @ 24Vdc
The three most common they sell are the
700mA @ 285Vdc
1050mA @ 190Vdc
3500mA @ 57Vdc
Probably the the most common mA for running LED's I'm guessing.
Might talk to an electrician for some info, May be able to remote locate them away from the tank. They are waterproof to limited immersion in liquid. Seem to be common in the states.
Thanks for the info tho, very handy! we will keep annoying :)
Sound's good to me Magic the Zombie Brain Sucking Moderator, I'll go with the expoxy.
Thank's
Thank's
I've been putting some thought in how I'm going to build my light for my 4x2x2.
Working on the fact that I'll have 5 drivers, I'm obviously going to need at least 5 pairs of wire feeding from the cabinet up into the crown where the lighting channels will be, as well as a pair for each channel I use on the Typhon controller (of which I'll use all 3), of which I'd like to have mounted up on top of the tank in the crown. Obviously if I used a stack of 2 pair cables (or even 3s), I'm still going to have a stack of bloody cables running up there. I could make a single harness, and even put some shrink tube on them if I had to, but it's still a lot of bloody cables.
I've had a quick look at Jaycar online, and I'm not seeing any multicored cable that looks like it'd be quite suitable. Anyone have any ideas where one might acquire some cables that are 6+ core that would be suitable? Some 9 or 10 core cables would be ideal.
Jaycar have http://www.jaycar.com.au/productView.asp?ID=WB1578&form=CAT2&SUBCATID=994#1 which is aimed at computers, but there's no useful specs there that suggest that this cable would cope for this application. Thoughts?
Working on the fact that I'll have 5 drivers, I'm obviously going to need at least 5 pairs of wire feeding from the cabinet up into the crown where the lighting channels will be, as well as a pair for each channel I use on the Typhon controller (of which I'll use all 3), of which I'd like to have mounted up on top of the tank in the crown. Obviously if I used a stack of 2 pair cables (or even 3s), I'm still going to have a stack of bloody cables running up there. I could make a single harness, and even put some shrink tube on them if I had to, but it's still a lot of bloody cables.
I've had a quick look at Jaycar online, and I'm not seeing any multicored cable that looks like it'd be quite suitable. Anyone have any ideas where one might acquire some cables that are 6+ core that would be suitable? Some 9 or 10 core cables would be ideal.
Jaycar have http://www.jaycar.com.au/productView.asp?ID=WB1578&form=CAT2&SUBCATID=994#1 which is aimed at computers, but there's no useful specs there that suggest that this cable would cope for this application. Thoughts?
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