I've been wanting to make my own fixture for some time now. I really love the Orphek fixture but it's absurdly expensive so I'd like to make my own. I'm a beginner with electrical engineering but an experienced software engineer. I was planning on 3d printing my own enclosure (friend has a large printer), creating my own diffuser, and setting up an Arduino to control via PWM some MOSFETs that "dim" different channels.
Where I'm hung up is the wiring, LEDs themselves, and how to drive them. So like the meat of the project haha. I was thinking I'd set up four "channels" (four MOSFETs each associated to a PWM output on the Arduino) -- violet, deep blue, cyan, daylight / rgb. Each channel will consist of a rail that the LEDs are powered in parallel from unless there's a better way.
Then there's the components -- I don't know which LEDs or drivers to go with. There are a ton of options including the Cree diodes, but those are super powerful and I'm really going for the spread and mixture that the Orphek achieves with more LEDs vs fewer high power LEDs. I plan to copy the dimensions and layout of the Orphek (+- a few LEDs and more violet spectrum). Since the Orphek fixture has a ton of LEDs (like over 70?) I'd like to go with cheaper / less powerful LEDs than the ones I'm seeing reefers use here. If I went with the Crees, for example, the build would be extremely expensive and I'd have to run the fixture at like 1% lol. I'm trying to make this somewhat affordable, but also not planning on cheaping out.
If anyone could point me in the right direction in terms of LEDs and drivers I'd appreciate it. I'll be handling the dimming via PWM and MOSFETs with an Arduino so the drivers only need to provide the correct output for the LED type, no need for dimming functionality.
Where I'm hung up is the wiring, LEDs themselves, and how to drive them. So like the meat of the project haha. I was thinking I'd set up four "channels" (four MOSFETs each associated to a PWM output on the Arduino) -- violet, deep blue, cyan, daylight / rgb. Each channel will consist of a rail that the LEDs are powered in parallel from unless there's a better way.
Then there's the components -- I don't know which LEDs or drivers to go with. There are a ton of options including the Cree diodes, but those are super powerful and I'm really going for the spread and mixture that the Orphek achieves with more LEDs vs fewer high power LEDs. I plan to copy the dimensions and layout of the Orphek (+- a few LEDs and more violet spectrum). Since the Orphek fixture has a ton of LEDs (like over 70?) I'd like to go with cheaper / less powerful LEDs than the ones I'm seeing reefers use here. If I went with the Crees, for example, the build would be extremely expensive and I'd have to run the fixture at like 1% lol. I'm trying to make this somewhat affordable, but also not planning on cheaping out.
If anyone could point me in the right direction in terms of LEDs and drivers I'd appreciate it. I'll be handling the dimming via PWM and MOSFETs with an Arduino so the drivers only need to provide the correct output for the LED type, no need for dimming functionality.
