Need help with controller!

Sophie1213

Sophie1213

Blenny
#1
#1
So I have been doing a diy led kit, I did get it from aquastyle, which isn't very good at writing directions. Anyways I got the solarlux controller with the EX board and I'm wondering how the channels work? I have a total of 72 lights and I have split the wiring 36 and 36, for the two drivers the kit came with. The drivers are mean well LPF-90D-48. Luckily adding the power supply cord to the driver was easy enough but I need some help with the board. I just don't know if I'll only have the two channels? I do have a full spectrum of leds, I was hoping to have each color on its own channel but I don't know how to wire this stuff.
 
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Highway66

Butterfly Fish
M.A.S.C Club Member
#2
#2
You will have to have a driver for each channel you want to control. And it looks like your board max is 4 dimming channels, it also has 2 on/off. If it was mine i would put one driver on the white, and one on say royall blues, and then pick up a non-dimming driver cheap and put it on the on/off channel for moon lights. This would still leave you with 2 diming channels for future but you would need to buy more drivers.

does that help? Is there a specific queation you have?
 
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Sophie1213

Sophie1213

Blenny
#3
#3
Well my color options are royal blue, blue, 10k white, red, green, and I also have uv. I have 6 clusters of 12. If it's non dimming does that mean it'll be at 100%?

I think my main question that I don't understand is that I keep seeing pictures of the board that looks like all the channels are connected together. So it looks like little half circles connecting the channels. So do you have to connect the channels together or does each driver plug in to it instead?
 
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Highway66

Butterfly Fish
M.A.S.C Club Member
#4
#4
Without seeing the pictures im not sure how they are wiring them. Looks as if you can run several drivers off the same channel, but all the drivers would dim the same, perhaps thats what your looking at?

yes generally non-dimming would be 100% on or off.

If you really wanted you can add more drivers and keep all the colors seperated. But I am assuming you only have a few of the red, green, and UV, so alternatively you can add these in with the blue channel, or the white.
 
Sophie1213

Sophie1213

Blenny
#5
#5
Yeah I may get one more driver then.

I found the pictures I saw in two different threads. I just don't know what it does or if I need to do this?


My controller also has three different areas that say channels 1-4 and the two undimmable ones so I'm unsure of those. I like instructions where I can figure out enough, but gosh for someone who isn't too familiar with electronics this is really difficult
 
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Highway66

Butterfly Fish
M.A.S.C Club Member
#6
#6
Im guessing those are some sort of linkable drivers? these would replace you meanwell, and they are wired for input voltage only. Does your kit have these?

I would assume your meanwell input plugs directly into one of your board output, ch 1-4. Im also thinking your board provides multiple spots to hook in since you can have several drivers on one channel? But im not sure on that one.
 
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Highway66

Butterfly Fish
M.A.S.C Club Member
#8
#8
I found a better pic of your controller online, the 3 different spots for channels 1-4 are for different output types, 5v PWM, 10vPWM, and 0-10v Your can find the label on the backside of the wiring blocks. The driver determines what type of input it can take. Your driver can use 10v PWM or the 0-10v I would suggest the 10v PWM. you can always post a pic of it wired up before you plug in and I can double check for you.
 
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Highway66

Butterfly Fish
M.A.S.C Club Member
#10
#10
yes, its hard to see the wiring in that picture? Just double check and if you have questions, ask.

Potentiometers are generally used for manual control, so the answer would be, not needed on your setup.

The only other pitfall might be adjusting the max output on the drivers. If you are overdriving you leds you might burn them out at full power. I generally run at a lower % with your controller until I can check or adjust the output or the driver at 100%

Let me know how it works.

Sophie1213;337174 said:


Kinda hard to see with all the wires. If I have a controller do I have to put the potentiometers on?
Click to expand...
 
Sophie1213

Sophie1213

Blenny
#11
#11
Alright so I can't seem to get the drivers open to turn them down, but I tried plugging in the finished product and nothing happens. There was no spark so I'm not really sure what's happened
 
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Highway66

Butterfly Fish
M.A.S.C Club Member
#12
#12
You can unhook the controller and use a 9v battery attached to the dim input on the meanwell driver to check that side of things. Input is 0-10v so 9v would run your drivers at 90%. Let me know if that turns it on, 110v has to be plugged in as well of course.
 
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sethsolomon

sethsolomon

Hammerhead Shark
M.A.S.C Club Member
#14
#14
Sophie1213;339665 said:
It didn't turn on ): sorry to take so long to reply my dads had two different surgeries so we've had a lot going on. I'm ready to give up on these
Click to expand...

I hope your dad is recovering well.

If you feel like coming up to fort collins on a weekend I can help you troubleshoot them if you would like.
 
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Highway66

Butterfly Fish
M.A.S.C Club Member
#15
#15
First, i hope your dad is well. Second, dont give up, Your close.

Help in person would be best as Seth has offered. Or im sure there are many others here more than willing to help.

Given your symptoms I would suspect a polarity problem on an led, or a bad led. Check all your led's for polarity or post a good high quality pic of the led wired to see if i can spot the problem?
 
Sophie1213

Sophie1213

Blenny
#16
#16
I'll try to post a pic soon! My dads recovering. A 4 hour shoulder surgery that fixed 4 different areas and an abdominal surgery later...

I'm going to try to finish the plumbing first and then the lights will have my full attention. Thank you both so much. If we can't figure it out through pictures and polarity then I will definitely bring it to you Seth. Thanks so much for the offer. It means a lot that you guys are helping
 
Sophie1213

Sophie1213

Blenny
#17
#17
Here's an update:
My mom has a friend at nrel who is the electric specialist and he took a look at my lights, everything looked good how I did it. I was told to use a volt meter and check each light. So some read .05 and some .08, but are different colors. We also noticed that when we touch the heat sink(which is just aluminum c channel) but all the lights dimly turn on. Does that mean maybe one of my solders is touching the c channel or what?? So lost
 
Balz3352

Balz3352

Reef Shark
M.A.S.C Club Member
#18
#18
Sophie1213;340942 said:
Here's an update:
My mom has a friend at nrel who is the electric specialist and he took a look at my lights, everything looked good how I did it. I was told to use a volt meter and check each light. So some read .05 and some .08, but are different colors. We also noticed that when we touch the heat sink(which is just aluminum c channel) but all the lights dimly turn on. Does that mean maybe one of my solders is touching the c channel or what?? So lost
Click to expand...
Most likely... You can test if you have a decent voltmeter to ground mode I think it was called... Mine looks like a wifi signal on its side but I bet that changes from meter to meter


I had the same problem when I did my DIY lights
 
Sophie1213

Sophie1213

Blenny
#19
#19
Thanks! I'll test that out. It was my first time soldering too, i think stripped more than I needed to do, so each wire is kind of long. I'll let you know if that fixes it
 
Sophie1213

Sophie1213

Blenny
#20
#20
So what it's doing is starting at a high number and it goes down to 0. I don't really know what that means but it starts making a long beep sound. Is it supposed to do anything specific
 
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