Viparspectra led swap and exploration of Drivers

[Jonathan Troutt]

sorry for the long title. Anyway I thought I would make a new post for this for anyone looking for information.

So I decided I wanted to get rid of all the warm white and neutral white leds on channel 2. I replaced them with 20k and 30k LEDs. Looks great.

While I was inside of the light I opened up the drivers to take a peak inside. See pictures. Both drivers are listed as 60w drivers my drivers are both putting out 116v according to my Fluke 115.

There are a couple pots inside and one is labeled MIN-SET. If the channe is set low like on 1 and you turn that pot it will either make it brighter or make it dimmer. Dim to the point where you can use either channel as moon lights. I do not see a drop in brightness of the channe is turned up. I increased channel 1 to 30 and turned the pot and the brightness stayed the same. So I am going to say that the MIN-SET pot only affects the channe when set low. This gave me an idea

I am eventually going to be building a controller for these lights. And was wondering if it would work to run them as moonlinghts for a couple hours or so after the “sun sets”?

Let me get it all back together and I will take a picture of the white channel now. The last pictures are channel 1 turned down really low with the pot. And then the original position of the pot with the channel set to 1%

 

[Jonathan Troutt]

Here is white channel now at 20% vs before. The before picture is horrible tank was going through a bloom. Whites and blue together now looks much better as well. White doesn’t drown out the blue channel as much more of a compliment. I am still going the change the non royal blues how for royal just waiting on them to get here.

 

[Jonathan Troutt]

One more question these drivers use PWM for controlling brightness so shouldn’t these work?

http://coralux.net/?wpsc-product=storm-led-controller

 

[Ruben's Reef]

Interesting. I have the same light. Following>>>

 

[West1]

Nice.
Which LED brand did you go with, link it possible.

 

[Jonathan Troutt]

The drivers that I am talking about are the factory drivers that come with the unit.

If I were to replace them I would go with mean well

 

[Jonathan Troutt]

Anyone got any insight on this?

 

[Jonathan Troutt]

Well I am going to do some arduino building for a simple controller for these lights. It is my next project after I get done building my fuge light. Which is going to be 15 total leds 8 reds and 7 royal blues on one channel driven by a meanwell hlg driver type A driver was ordered today will post pictures when it’s all done

 

[baldbrah]

reviving an old thread. i want to do the same thing. How do you know which LED is regular blue vs royal blue? Do you have a layout of the LED lights on the viparspectra?

 

[Ruben's Reef]

reviving an old thread. i want to do the same thing. How do you know which LED is regular blue vs royal blue? Do you have a layout of the LED lights on the viparspectra?

No I don't. I have the 300w Viparspectra and looking at the light I can see wish LED is light blue and others are dark blue. This is a top down pic that I took recently and you can see a little the intensity of some of the LED's.

 

[Jonathan Troutt]

I have changed my layout. But the whichever blue you are seeing that are most common are the royal blues. If I remember correctly.

 

[baldbrah]

thanks guys. i dimmed it to 1% to see which one are the blues and which one are the royal blues. swapped a few blues out for 395nm UV's and the corals are popping a bit more. still not to the intensity/look the radion's provide, which is what i'm after

 

[Jonathan Troutt]

Where did you get the 395nm diodes from?

 

[baldbrah]

I got them on eBay.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/10Pcs-3W-H...e=STRK:MEBIDX:IT&_trksid=p2060353.m2749.l2649

 

[ph123uk]

Sorry for reviving this once again, but did you manage to make a controller? did you go for the storm in the end? I believe these are 0-10v PWM and the storm is 0-5w? Any more information would be fantastic.

Cheers in advance

 

[Jonathan Troutt]

I did not get a storm. I built a reef-pi and am controlling my light with that. The drivers in the viparspectra fixture are controlled with a 3.3v pwm signal.

 

[ph123uk]

Thanks for this, I will look at your build thread, I'm hoping to be able to control all colours seperatley, which will need the leds seperating to sepearte strings - might be more hassle than it's worth

You also made me look at reef pi and get giddy, shame I'm a complete novice and wouldn't have a chance at that!

 

[Jonathan Troutt]

Thanks for this, I will look at your build thread, I'm hoping to be able to control all colours seperatley, which will need the leds seperating to sepearte strings - might be more hassle than it's worth

You also made me look at reef pi and get giddy, shame I'm a complete novice and wouldn't have a chance at that!

I wouldn’t mess with separating the strings. It would be a lot more hassle than it’s worth in my opinion. I changed the white diodes out on my fixtures with 10k and 20k whites instead.

As far as reef pi goes man there are plenty of people to help. Just dive in!

 

[ph123uk]

I have a Pi 2 sat in a drawer somewhere, would that work? Seems to only be images for the Zero and 3 - Looking at @Diamond1 build thread it seems I might be able to just get minimal parts and make a light controller then add more at a later date?!

 

[Jonathan Troutt]

The pi 2 would not work as I understand it. But yes you can start out simple and add more later.