DIY 430nm LED Supplement

Cory · Jan 21, 2016

If i cant find aluminum ill just get steel then.

For that spectrometer, i wonder if you could build an acrylic box around it so its waterproof?

Id like to plug it into the spectral controlelr so i can dim it like sunset.

agfish12 · Jan 21, 2016

What do you have the light plugged into for it to have power?

Cory · Jan 21, 2016

Is this the one you used?

TheEngineer · Jan 22, 2016

agfish12 said:
What do you have the light plugged into for it to have power?

A DC power supply like the one Cory posted above.

Cory said:
Is this the one you used?

Not that exact one, but same sort of thing.

Cory · Jan 22, 2016

Ok, that one should work i guess.

Is the color of the led the same color as the kessil just before it turns off? Id like to use one thats close.

TheEngineer · Jan 22, 2016

The one I am using is outside of the spectrum Kessil provides, that's why I added it. It is more purple than the Kessil. You want something in the high 400nm to get close.

Cory · Jan 23, 2016

Have you tried daisy chaining it yet?

I was wondering if that would work considering it would be puttigg out an amperage for a kessil rather than 1 led. Might blow the led?

TheEngineer · Jan 23, 2016

Cory said:
Have you tried daisy chaining it yet?

I was wondering if that would work considering it would be puttigg out an amperage for a kessil rather than 1 led. Might blow the led?

Not yet. The daisy chain is just for a dimming signal though, not power. We are having a blizzard here so I've been going between playing in the snow with my daughter and running the snow blower.

Cory · Jan 26, 2016

Yeah that was on the news. All good now?

TheEngineer · Jan 26, 2016

Still have big snow drifts everywhere, but the roads are good to go and the power stayed on. :)

Reeflogic · Feb 2, 2016

Nice, thank you for sharing. I guess I need to broaden my searches when I'm trying to find informative threads like this lol.

Cory · Feb 4, 2016

icecool2 said:
Still have big snow drifts everywhere, but the roads are good to go and the power stayed on. :)

Did you get around to try and dim it?

TheEngineer · Feb 4, 2016

That's on tap for Saturday.

TheEngineer · Feb 9, 2016

I did some more work over the weekend. I redid the bracket (again!) but out of aluminum this time. I also added a tiny heatsink that I found online. The heat was fine but extra cooling is always good. I wired it up to the daisy chain output of the Kessil too. Just need to finish the driver wiring later today, I hope, and give it a test.

TheEngineer · Feb 16, 2016

Forgot to come back and update this...

I wired everything up, plugged in the Kessil daisy chain output and.......... nothing. The LED turned off. Turns out I misremembered what input this dimmer takes. It is 5V PWM, not 10V analog like the Kessil puts out. Gonna have to search for a different driver.

That aside the aluminum bracket stays much cooler. Adding that little heatsink may or may not have helped, I just don't know.

Powderbluetang · Feb 16, 2016

That looks pretty good. How come you didnt put one on each side.

TheEngineer · Feb 17, 2016

Powderbluetang said:
That looks pretty good. How come you didnt put one on each side.

As in one on the left and one on the right? I dunno :) I wanted to see the spread of one before I did anything else. To be honest, this one star (which has 3 LEDs on it) covers everything. I don't get coverage in the back of the tank, but there's nothing there. I have an extra one of these LEDs in a different form factor so I might see what an extra one looks like at some point.