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And so it Begins; The Epic DIY LED Build! (1 Viewer)

Well, got er all wired up! tested er,Fired it up, and let out the magic blue smoke:mad_3: Then, while the drivers are pumping out blue smoke and threatening to start on fire, I, like the geniouse I am, unplugged the power cord for the fans thinking it was the main PSU power cord...ugh. Word to the wise, don't just double check your wiring, triple check it. Also, once I check the wiring again, I am going to try powering one driver at a time to see what happens.
 
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ack... actually just looked into this thread :( That sucks you let the smoke out.

If it makes you feel any better, I'll try and find where I let the smoke out of a 2.7 megawatt generator... it probably held alot more smoke then your driver :gay1: (whole hell of alot more expensive too)
 
dread240 said:
ack... actually just looked into this thread :( That sucks you let the smoke out.

If it makes you feel any better, I'll try and find where I let the smoke out of a 2.7 megawatt generator... it probably held alot more smoke then your driver :gay1: (whole hell of alot more expensive too)
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Lol, Ouch. Well at least cat4104s are relatively cheap, so I can repair the drivers for a lot less.
 
ironman said:
Well, got er all wired up! tested er,Fired it up, and let out the magic blue smoke:mad_3: Then, while the drivers are pumping out blue smoke and threatening to start on fire, I, like the geniouse I am, unplugged the power cord for the fans thinking it was the main PSU power cord...ugh. Word to the wise, don't just double check your wiring, triple check it. Also, once I check the wiring again, I am going to try powering one driver at a time to see what happens.
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Make mental note to NOT ask ironman to help wire one of these up for you! :gay1:

Hope you get it figured out!
 
I was just looking at this photo you posted:
IMG_1572.jpg


Based on where you drilled the holes, it looks like only a small portion of each driver would be in contact with the heat sink. Maybe your wiring is fine and the drivers just plain overheated?
 
Otolith said:
Make mental note to NOT ask ironman to help wire one of these up for you! :gay1:

Hope you get it figured out!
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Gee! Thanks for the vote of confidence! lol

@ holmstar, no I have the drivers as far back on the heatsink as possible, an in reality, they would have to get to about 320 degrees to overheart to the point of catastrophic failure. No, this is clearly a wiring issue.
 
*begin crocodile dundee voice for effect*

That's not a wiring issue..... THIS is a wiring issue......

IMAG0085.jpg


IMAG0087.jpg


*** end crocodile dundee voice ***

I couldn't find the pics of when an electrician closed the breaker to utility while I had a generator closed to the building BUS, that was really beautiful when they went out of phase, smoked the diode in the generator end and dropped utility power for an 8 block radius.

This was an aftermarket housing... we were loadbanking the generator (1500kw resistive load at 480volt 3 phase, roughly 1800 amps per phase) and a gust of wind broke the safety latch on the door. It came closed and pinched the cable, shorting the cable to the housing of the generator. Those black marks you see on that green housing are where a hinge USED to be. They were 1/4" steel hinge pins that exploded due to the current, and we literally blew the door off the generator and into the air bare minimum 30 feet, I'd say closer to 40 or 50 feet sky high.

It's also the closest I've come to having a fight on a site yet, as the only thing near me I could use was a fiberglass ladder to hit the emergency stop and not touch the housing. The problem was said ladder was housed by a mexican, who didn't speak english, and I don't speak spanish, and when I pushed him off of it and took his ladder and started running back across the lot he was quite cross to say the least. At least once he noticed what I was doing he cooled off... that oh **** look at all the sparks language is pretty universal I guess.
 
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dread240 said:
*begin crocodile dundee voice for effect*

That's not a wiring issue..... THIS is a wiring issue......

IMAG0085.jpg


IMAG0087.jpg


*** end crocodile dundee voice ***

I couldn't find the pics of when an electrician closed the breaker to utility while I had a generator closed to the building BUS, that was really beautiful when they went out of phase, smoked the diode in the generator end and dropped utility power for an 8 block radius.

This was an aftermarket housing... we were loadbanking the generator (1500kw resistive load at 480volt 3 phase, roughly 1800 amps per phase) and a gust of wind broke the safety latch on the door. It came closed and pinched the cable, shorting the cable to the housing of the generator. Those black marks you see on that green housing are where a hinge USED to be. They were 1/4" steel hinge pins that exploded due to the current, and we literally blew the door off the generator and into the air bare minimum 30 feet, I'd say closer to 40 or 50 feet sky high.

It's also the closest I've come to having a fight on a site yet, as the only thing near me I could use was a fiberglass ladder to hit the emergency stop and not touch the housing. The problem was said ladder was housed by a mexican, who didn't speak english, and I don't speak spanish, and when I pushed him off of it and took his ladder and started running back across the lot he was quite cross to say the least. At least once he noticed what I was doing he cooled off... that oh **** look at all the sparks language is pretty universal I guess.
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yikes! that looks like and expensive "oops" lol
 
Well, visually, I'm sure only one driver blew, I did a continuity test on the drivers and found that there is some continuity between the heat sink portion of 4 drivers if they are not wired up to my PSU, if they are wired to my PSU then I get continuity between my ground and all the heat sink portions of the drivers...I don't know if that matters, but it could be part of the reason I was only getting a few random LEDs lighting up. Well, tomorrow I'll try to get a chance to do more indepth troubleshooting of my driver to LED connections, then fire up the drivers, one at a time to make sure they work.

Edit: buahaha, I just realized I wired my setup for parallel (kinda), but I designed the system for series. That would be the the biggest brain part in history! In my defence though, I was compiling parts for two ribbon microphone builds, my DIY tank controller, working overtime, and trying to keep my to toddlers out of my stuff.
 
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So...I rewired the fixture, it looks like I blew 2 drivers, as well as a red and a green LED. So, Digikey here I come for replacement CAT4101s and rapidled for three green and three red LEDs. (two more of each than I need, just incase.)

However, I have a dilemma, I am sending power to my LEDs from my drivers via Ethernet cables. The ethernet cables have all been tested, I also have continuity from the LEDs to the patch panel (tested via another ethernet cable that was cut in half) as well as the drivers to the patch cable. But when both patch panels are connected, I get no continuity from the LEDs to the dirvers...WTH is going on?
 
Muahahahahahah!!! It's ALIVE!!!!!! sans red, green, true violet, and warm white LEDS. I have replacement CAT4101 chips as well as green and red LEDs coming in the mail. I actually don't think i fried my drivers by wiring them backwards. I just don't think they were designed to run 2 LEDS each since the first LED in both the red and the green strings burn out along with their prospective drivers. None of the warm white or true violet leds were burnt out, but the drivers are definitely bad, whether they came this way, or I miswired them, I do not know, I suspect they were doa since the drivers were wired up the same way, and only the red and green drivers let out the magic blue smoke, the WW and TV did not. I E-mailed Steve from Steve's LEDS to find out. But in the mean time, all the rest of the colors are lit up, and the coloration from this mix is already looking awesome on my ceiling, who knows how it will look on the tank. I will try to post pics this Friday if not sooner.
 
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ironman said:
Well, visually, I'm sure only one driver blew, I did a continuity test on the drivers and found that there is some continuity between the heat sink portion of 4 drivers if they are not wired up to my PSU, if they are wired to my PSU then I get continuity between my ground and all the heat sink portions of the drivers...I don't know if that matters, but it could be part of the reason I was only getting a few random LEDs lighting up. Well, tomorrow I'll try to get a chance to do more indepth troubleshooting of my driver to LED connections, then fire up the drivers, one at a time to make sure they work.

Edit: buahaha, I just realized I wired my setup for parallel (kinda), but I designed the system for series. That would be the the biggest brain part in history! In my defence though, I was compiling parts for two ribbon microphone builds, my DIY tank controller, working overtime, and trying to keep my to toddlers out of my stuff.
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Hahaha.. trying to keep my two toddlers out of my stuff, Yeah.. Good luck, specially when you are at work and your stuff is still out. When they become quiet- I know they are into something of yours lol. I will be extremely happy when this is done not only to see the amazing result in our aquarium but to not have to worry about watching them every couple of minuets through out the day so they don't run off with your tools. LOL.
 
BTW Awesome thread, makes you want to read and read and read some more-it's like an addiction :gay1:
 
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Updates? Really loved the thread so far! Starting on my DIY LED Algae Turf Scrubber and thinking of doing something like what you've done here but much simpler of course.

Thanks again for taking the time.
 
chemsol said:
Updates? Really loved the thread so far! Starting on my DIY LED Algae Turf Scrubber and thinking of doing something like what you've done here but much simpler of course.

Thanks again for taking the time.
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Sorry, I have been sidetracked with building my dad a ribbon microphone and modifying two other microphones for him to use in a recording session for a local (for him) band. I should be able to pick this back up next weekend and finish it. I got three more red and green LEDS as well as the CAT4101 chips, so I just need to mount the LEDS and solder in the new chips and I should be good to go!

For an algae turf scrubber, two blue and 1 red LEDs seems to be the best combination, and use one of those diamond pattern clear acrylic light diffuser panels.
 
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Well, another disappointing update, last night I soldered the new CAT4101 chips onto the PCB only to find that I had overheated the chips, obviously due to my soldering iron being a cheap, non-controllable stick iron. So, Thursday I plan to order 10 more chips, 200 surface mount resisters (hey, they are dirt cheap and will literally cost me under $7.00) and a hot air/soldering iron combo workstation along with an ESD mat. Something I should have done years ago for all the soldering I do...but never bothered to do because I have never overheated or fried any component before. In other news, I was able to go over to Nate's house and use his miter saw (thanks again dude!) to cut the slats for my topper, and over the course of this week, plan to have them installed. The weather looks very nice next weekend, so I will be painting the topper, and re-installing the LED bars (which I have removed so I can paint the darn thing) So, the completed topper should be on my tank by next Sunday, and lighting my tank (once again, less the Warm White, Green, and True Violet LEDs until the new soldering station and chips come in) I honestly don't know if I am more excited about the topper getting done, or finally getting the soldering station of my dreams! lol

To be clear, I have determined that two of the drivers that were sent to me were DOA. They were either fried via static discharge because Steve does not send them in anti static bags, or they were overheated during the soldering stage. Either way, I have a few schematics of DIY drivers that I would strongly suggest you go with over the Steve's LEDs, I also have reverse engineered his circuitry, so I can make duplicates if necessary. If I have success with my new soldering station, I would be more than happy to help people on the soldering aspect of the DIY drivers should anybody decide to go that rout.
 
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I wouldn't mind get some diagrams of those drivers as well. I'm trying to do that same thing as you. Oh and are the dimmable drivers? lol
 
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