Author Topic: Controlling and driving multichannel LED  (Read 844 times)

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Offline Ghost25Topic starter

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Controlling and driving multichannel LED
« on: September 13, 2018, 06:57:15 pm »
I'm interested in building my own LED aquarium light for growing coral. I'm basing my design off of one model called the AI Prime HD. Here's some info from the manufacturer: https://www.advancedaquarist.com/blog/ai-prime-hd-info-packet

Maximum power is only 55W but it has 7 independently controllable color channels which you control over WiFi and it has a really small package. My question is how are they able to fit the power supply into such a small space and also control 7 color channels?

Here is a teardown of one that I found and there are clearly 7 SMD around the perimeter:

Are these N Channel mosfets being controlled by a WiFi enabled microcontroller? All the LED drivers that run of 120V AC are quite large, almost as big as this entire light. What's the best way to do this and would it also be scalable for a larger device?
 

Offline Ghost25Topic starter

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Re: Controlling and driving multichannel LED
« Reply #1 on: September 13, 2018, 08:11:17 pm »
OK I did a bit more research and it seems they do have an external power supply, around 24V and 2.5A DC. But the question remains, are the channels controlled by individual DC-DC LED drivers or by some other mechanism?
 

Offline Eka

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Re: Controlling and driving multichannel LED
« Reply #2 on: September 14, 2018, 01:17:16 pm »
Likely resistors to control the current for the strings of LEDs. Multiple strings will be used for each color.

Each color of LED likely has a N-channel FET to turn it on and off real fast for dimming.

Add a fet driver per channel to get the fets to turn on and off fully.

Next is the MCU and wifi.

Yeah, that simple.
 


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