Looking for an Electrical Engineer???

J

jreimers

I need help making this circuit to help me control my DIY LEDs. The main reason I want it is for the ability to go into manual mode with my LEDs. While I feel I could build it myself, I would feel much more confident in someone with much more experience than I have doing it. I need 2 of these circuits, 1 for my Blues, and 1 for my Whites. I have purchased everything listed in the diagram (x2), but need suggestions for the types of connections to the existing wiring (maybe Molex?), and housing suggestions. Ideally a printed circuit board would be great, so these could be produced for anyone else who has a Reek Keeper and a DIY LED array, but I would be very happy with 2 bread board circuits for my own personal use. I am attaching the drawing that I picked up from the Digital Aquatics forum. If there is anyone that is willing to help me, please look it over and let me know. If you see any flaws in the diagram, let me know that too.

Thanks!!

[attachment=0]LED manual DImmer.jpg[/attachment]
 
I could help you but it's been a few years since my EE days. There may be someone in the club more experienced than me. But I'm happy to help. I'll be at the frag swap if you'd like to chat.
 
yea, work it up on a breadboard. looking at the circuit, not sure what you need the op-amps for - voltage in and voltage out are in the same range, and current required is small. if its just resistance dimming, you can probably find a pair of pots and switches and wire it as a simple bypass.
 
@hnurge wrote:
looking at the circuit said:
Digital Aquatics (Reefkeeper) didn't provide the schematic. It was drawn up by another RKE user and posted on their forums. I have seen mixed results in the thread as to whether it works or not. The purpose of the circuit is to not only provide a manual mode to the LEDs but to also increase the number of Meanwell drivers that their ALC (Advanced Lighting Controller) will control. Currently it will only control 1 Meanwell driver for blue and 1 for white. The circuit is supposed to take that current supplied to the Meanwell and amply and distribute it to up to 4 Meanwells. It is also supposed to give you a more linear ramp instead of the stair-stepping that happens now.

I only need the circuit for the manual mode as I bought 2 ALCs to control all 4 Meanwell Drivers that I have (2 blues and 2 whites) but I thought I should look in to this incase I choose to add more LEDs in the future (and the linear ramping sounded better to me as well).

Someone on the DA Forum said their circuit when they made it worked for a little while then the OpAmp overheated. That is why I wanted someone to look at the circuit and make sure it is complete.
Click to expand...
 
Have you ever thought about using a Arduino controller? You can use it to control MOSFET transistors to do the dimming for you. The method for dimming LEDs is Pulse Wave Modulation (PWM). You can pick them up at any radio shack.
 
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