# A Cheap, Simple, Compact DIY LED Controller/Driver COMBO.



## O2surplus (Jan 31, 2010)

As anyone, who’s ever put together a DIY electronics project knows, managing large amounts of wiring can be a real hassle. This is especially true if you’re trying to build a DIY LED lighting system for your aquarium, while maintaining a certain level of aesthetics.
Most of the DIY LED builds that I’ve seen posted in recent years still struggled with this issue, and often used creative means to address it. This thread will show how I chose to tackle the problem. 
I’ve been building DIY LED lighting systems for Aquarium use as a hobby for a few years now, and recently completed work on a little project that will hopefully be of value to other Aquarium Hobbyists .
Recently, the fine folks at MeanWell, came out with a new LED driver design designated the LDD series. This new series of driver is tiny, as it does not include its own AC power supply. The LDD series are available in two different flavors. First is the LDD-L, which is made available in different, pre-programmed current outputs, and rated to handle up to a 36 VDC input. Next is the LDD-H. It’s the larger of the two, available in different preprogrammed current outputs, and rated up to *56VDC*. You can read more about the LDD-L series of drivers here- LDD-L-spec.pdf (application/pdf Object) and the LDD-H series here-LDD-H-spec.pdf (application/pdf Object)
The performance capabilities, diminutive size, and 5VPWM dimming had me intrigued, so I went ahead and ordered a few for testing. The LDD’s are available either prewired or PCmount. Since I was interested in reducing the wire count in my LED builds, the PC mount was the option I went with. 
I started this project by designing a new Pcb that would contain 4 LDD-100H. Each LDD-H would share a common power and ground connection and receive its own separate PWM signal. I also redesigned the ever popular “Typhon” LED controller to mount directly to the LDD-H Pcb. I did my best to incorporate design features that would lend themselves to customization and ease of repair. Each LDD-H “plugs-in” to a chip socket rather than being soldered directly to the Pcb. This makes the replacement of the LDD’s easy in the case a damaged LDD or for swapping LDD’s of different current ratings. The LCD on the “Typhon” is also a “plug-in” affair, making replacement easy, if needed.
All said and done- I’ve managed to build a very compact and powerful LED lighting system that requires a minimum amount of outside wiring. All that is needed is a 48VDC supply to power the LDD’s/ LED’s and a 9VDC “wallwart power supply” for the “Typhon” Controller.
This little project will provide enough power to light up to 15- 3W LED’s per each of its 4 channels. That’s 60 LED’s! With “Sunrise/Sunset” dimming, “Moonlighting” ect... Here’s a few photos of the finished project. Let me know what you guys think…. I’ll post all of the Pcb build files, Bill of Materials, and Software needed to create your own, if there’s an interest.



Top view of the "Typhon" LED controller 
















Bottom View of the LDD-H











Side view


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## drhemlock2 (Aug 11, 2012)

*so cool i like this*

i for one would be interested in anything you can share as i have more to do on mine and hae a few more things to order for the led lighting of my soon 75 gallon. 
doc
:thumbsup:


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## pmcarbrey (Jan 19, 2013)

For some reasons I've never been able to get the whole driver thing, I can rebuild ballasts, build transformers, work on motors, yet I suck at the whole driver thing. I'd love to see how you did this and hear more about costs/reliability


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## O2surplus (Jan 31, 2010)

drhemlock2 said:


> i for one would be interested in anything you can share as i have more to do on mine and hae a few more things to order for the led lighting of my soon 75 gallon.
> doc
> :thumbsup:



I'm going to put together all the information you'll need to build a copy in the next few days. The really neat thing is that these Meanwell LDD drivers come with a 3 year warranty, dim using a 5 volt PWM signal (they're Arduino compatible :thumbsup, and cheap ($5 - $11 each). They'll run up to 1000ma (LDD-1000H) worth of current and deliver up to 52VDC out. Depending on the average Vf of the LED's that you choose, you could drive 15 - 17 LED's per string. 
The "Typhon" LED Controller features 4 independent channels, with adjustable Start times/ End times/ Fade duration/ Maximum & Minimum intensity, Ect... All the settings are stored to EEPROM memory in case of a power failure, and the system clock has it's battery back up for the same reason.


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## mistergreen (Dec 9, 2006)

It needs a VDC in right? And of some current in too?


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## O2surplus (Jan 31, 2010)

pmcarbrey said:


> For some reasons I've never been able to get the whole driver thing, I can rebuild ballasts, build transformers, work on motors, yet I suck at the whole driver thing. I'd love to see how you did this and hear more about costs/reliability




This whole project only cost me about $80 to complete. Of course prices for the components do vary, depending on where you buy them. 

The exact nature of the internals in these little "black boxes" is still a bit of a mystery to me, as they behave differently from any other driver that I've ever built or used before. They're definitely not linear, not Buck or Boost in nature. They actually trade excess voltage on the input for current on the output. I recently did some current tests using 4 Chinese made 100 watt LEDs. The LEDs have a Vf of 32 volts. I tested 4 LDD-1000H (1000ma) wired in parallel on the same 48 V power supply. Each led was connected to a single LDD.
I conducted current tests on the output of each LDD, and they all produced a consistent 980ma through the LED, which is what I expected to see. 980ma x 4 = 3920ma into the LED's
The interesting part came when I tested the current level leaving the power supply. One would expect numbers near 4,000ma, but that was not the case. With the power supply set at 48V, current consumption was only *2,300ma*? Lowering the voltage level to 36V caused the current to rise to *3,000ma?* Evidently there's some switching conversion going on inside these drivers as current out exceeds current in.


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## pmcarbrey (Jan 19, 2013)

O2surplus said:


> This whole project only cost me about $80 to complete. Of course prices for the components do vary, depending on where you buy


As far as the price quote goes, do you mean including the LED's? Because if so i think may be trying to make myself a setup!


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## O2surplus (Jan 31, 2010)

pmcarbrey said:


> As far as the price quote goes, do you mean including the LED's? Because if so i think may be trying to make myself a setup!



Yeah that included the cost of the LDD's. They're hard to find "cheap" right now, but if you're patient, you can get them here for about $5 each.LDD-1000H | Mean-Well LDD-1000H | USA Warehouse


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## pmcarbrey (Jan 19, 2013)

That's a great price! If you ever decide to sell driver setups let me know lol! If not one of these days I'll have to fool around and see if I can't do this myself!


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## cheesehead (Jun 13, 2007)

I'm interested, but would be using a lot more than 4 LDD's - probably somewhere around 12. Would this work with your setup?


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## drhemlock2 (Aug 11, 2012)

*question*

:biggrin:would this puppy be abe to be used with my jarduino setup o mean the drivers?
doc


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## O2surplus (Jan 31, 2010)

cheesehead said:


> I'm interested, but would be using a lot more than 4 LDD's - probably somewhere around 12. Would this work with your setup?


Anything can be made to work. I guess it all depends on how many channels of dimming control that you require. The Controller can handle 4 independent channels right now. You could either go with 3 controllers X 4 LDD's to control all 12, or daisy chain additional LDD's on each channel. If you're good at programming Arduino based projects, then I guess you could always add to the basic functionality of the controller by taking advantage of it's I2C connection.


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## O2surplus (Jan 31, 2010)

drhemlock2 said:


> :biggrin:would this puppy be abe to be used with my jarduino setup o mean the drivers?
> doc



These drivers dim based on a 5V PWM signal. Since the Jarduino is just an giant Arduino based controller, the answer is *yes*.


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## cheesehead (Jun 13, 2007)

O2surplus said:


> Anything can be made to work. I guess it all depends on how many channels of dimming control that you require. The Controller can handle 4 independent channels right now. You could either go with 3 controllers X 4 LDD's to control all 12, or daisy chain additional LDD's on each channel. If you're good at programming Arduino based projects, then I guess you could always add to the basic functionality of the controller by taking advantage of it's I2C connection.


I only need four channels, but I need it replicated at least three times to drive three planned "clusters" of lights over my 200 gallon.

And I'm not good at programming Arduino. Unless you can program it in FORTRAN. :wink:


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## O2surplus (Jan 31, 2010)

cheesehead said:


> I only need four channels, but I need it replicated at least three times to drive three planned "clusters" of lights over my 200 gallon.
> 
> And I'm not good at programming Arduino. Unless you can program it in FORTRAN. :wink:


Only 4 channels covering 12 LDD's is doable. All we'd have to do is a little "daisy chaining" to make it work. Easy as pie!


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## coryjones (Feb 24, 2013)

I ordered a 48v power supply typhon controller and 12 10w led's. what would you recommend for drivers to tun them? I would like to do one channel with 5 white and one channel with 7 blues and one channel for moon lights and one channel for my fuge lights is this possible? This set up is for my reef tank one i get the bugs worked out i will be building one fro my planted discuss tank. Where did you get the curcit board at for the mean well's? Thanks for any info. here are the specs on my leds.

DC Forward Voltage (VF) : 9-12V DC
DC Forward Current (IF) : 1000mA
Intensity Luminous: 800-900Lm
Viewing Angle: 140-160°


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## O2surplus (Jan 31, 2010)

coryjones said:


> I ordered a 48v power supply typhon controller and 12 10w led's. what would you recommend for drivers to tun them? I would like to do one channel with 5 white and one channel with 7 blues and one channel for moon lights and one channel for my fuge lights is this possible? This set up is for my reef tank one i get the bugs worked out i will be building one fro my planted discuss tank. Where did you get the curcit board at for the mean well's? Thanks for any info. here are the specs on my leds.
> 
> DC Forward Voltage (VF) : 9-12V DC
> DC Forward Current (IF) : 1000mA
> ...


I designed the circuit boards for the "Typhon" and the MeanWell LDD's myself and had them made by ITeadStudios in China.
Based on the specs of your leds, you could run up to 4 10 watt leds per each LDD-1000H, so you'd need 3 to cover the Whites & Blues, and 2 more to cover the Fuge and Monlights. The LDD's are available with different current settings so your free to pick the correct one for your needs.


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## ReluctantHippy (Jun 23, 2011)

You overdid yourself again O2. Very well done.


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## All your base (Dec 6, 2006)

It looks like you've at least designed a unique PCB layout, but I'm assuming that since you are using the name Typhon that your project is based on the Typhon controller described on the Reefcentral DIY forum?

Edit - here's the thread for that project:

http://reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1847680&highlight=typhon


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## O2surplus (Jan 31, 2010)

All the credit for the "Typhon Controller" goes to "Der Wille Zur Macht" over at ReefCentral. He was the original creator of this neat little led controller. I'm just a hack that took his original design and made a few changes to suit my needs.


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## All your base (Dec 6, 2006)

I think your changes are really nice. I haven't used the LDD before but it has pretty good specs and is cheap for a commercial driver. The plug-in capability is really cool, making for a nicely integrated unit vs. having a sloppy mess of wiring. The Typhon was a good achievement in some ways but it really fails in other ways - ease of integration being one of them. I definitely see this as an improvement in that arena.

Can you show some photos of the board with the components removed or post the EAGLE files? It looks like the design is all SMT?

What would be really nice would be to take this a step further. Integrate a voltage reg that could step down the LDD's source DC to something the Typhon hardware could use, to eliminate the separate power supply.

How are you finding the LDD's? It looks like they only go up to 1A which kinda sucks if you want to push XM-L or even XP-G.


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## O2surplus (Jan 31, 2010)

All your base said:


> I think your changes are really nice. I haven't used the LDD before but it has pretty good specs and is cheap for a commercial driver. The plug-in capability is really cool, making for a nicely integrated unit vs. having a sloppy mess of wiring. The Typhon was a good achievement in some ways but it really fails in other ways - ease of integration being one of them. I definitely see this as an improvement in that arena.
> 
> Can you show some photos of the board with the components removed or post the EAGLE files? It looks like the design is all SMT?
> 
> ...


I'm working on the design a bit and making a few changes with component placement, just to correct a few "bugs" that I found in the first board run. Being that this was my first attempt to marry the "Typhon" to a sub PcB, I want to correct any flaws before I post the build files. The Atmega chip, Ds1307, UA7805 regulator, capacitors, and resistors are all SMT. The Screw headers, watch crystal, battery holder, and LCD contrast trim pot are all "through hole" I plan to convert more of the design to SMT as I source more parts for the next batch. I now prefer to work with SMT components, as all the soldering can be completed in one step.
I thought about integrating the Typhon's power source with the LDD's, but didn't for a couple of reasons-
1.) Cost of the additional components.
2.) Keeping the "Typhon" powered on it's own supply allows me to use it to "turn off" the 48V supply at night.
I really like the LDD's! They're hard to get right now, but at $5 a piece they can't be beat. I can barely build a CAT4101 based driver for that cost! and the LDD will drive 2X the number of Led's! 
As for their 1000ma output? we're still working on that. I've managed to parallel drive a couple and make 2,000ma output (Hello XML's), but the jury's still out if my wiring methods will result in long term performance or not.


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## All your base (Dec 6, 2006)

Just curious, where are you getting the LDDs from? Mouser and Digikey are showing them in stock in a bunch of options at around $11 each.

The one advantage to PTH is that you don't need a via to switch which side of the pcb the lead's trace runs on.  I'd be interested in seeing the files even if they aren't production-ready, whenever you're willing to share.

What are you doing for an enclosure?


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## O2surplus (Jan 31, 2010)

All your base said:


> Just curious, where are you getting the LDDs from? Mouser and Digikey are showing them in stock in a bunch of options at around $11 each.
> 
> The one advantage to PTH is that you don't need a via to switch which side of the pcb the lead's trace runs on.  I'd be interested in seeing the files even if they aren't production-ready, whenever you're willing to share.
> 
> What are you doing for an enclosure?



I bought the LDD's from PowerGate LLC.(LDD-1000H | Mean-Well LDD-1000H | USA Warehouse ) They're quite popular right now, so a lot of vendors are having a hard time keeping them in stock. I ordered 20 and had to wait more than 6 weeks for them to ship, but @ $4.90 each, I couldn't complain.
I'd love to find an "off the shelf" enclosure that would work for this project, but I haven't found anything suitable yet. If I find one that's "close enough", I may just redesign the PcB's to make them fit the box, as that would be easier than designing the box to fit the PcB's LOL.

Here's a photo of the controller Pcb- just so you have something to go on until I can post the Eagle files. (it's still a work in progress, so i may move a few traces around.)


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## thelub (Jan 4, 2013)

I really should have paid more attention in my electronics engineering class in college. This stuff is simple yet so confusing to me. I really need to get up to speed as I think something like this will be the best way to light my 200g that is in the planning stages.


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## All your base (Dec 6, 2006)

So you have that PCB stacked with a PCB that has footprints for the LDDs on it? Did you try to get it all on to one PCB?

I started designing a version of the reefcentral LM3409 driver to plug directly into a stock Typhon, if your experiments to parallel the LDDs doesn't work out longterm that might be an interesting route to go for people who need more than 1A.


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## O2surplus (Jan 31, 2010)

All your base said:


> So you have that PCB stacked with a PCB that has footprints for the LDDs on it? Did you try to get it all on to one PCB?
> 
> I started designing a version of the reefcentral LM3409 driver to plug directly into a stock Typhon, if your experiments to parallel the LDDs doesn't work out longterm that might be an interesting route to go for people who need more than 1A.


I'm tempted to put it all on one PcB, but I fear putting all my "electronic eggs into one basket" LOL I did that once by combining a Full featured Arduino w/ RTC and 6 CAT4101's onto the same PcB. Problems arose quickly after building 10 of them and passing them out among members here on this Forum. Some members had incidents with theirs that resulted in a lot of "smoked" PcB's. I want to avoid that situation, this time around, so two separate PcB's should reduce replacement costs, if damage occurs.

The "Typhon" Pcb and the LDD Pcb are separated by .5" brass standoffs. The PWM signals are passed between the boards using a 4 position .1" arduino style pin header. A common ground is shared between the Pcb's by taking advantage of the brass standoff's conductive properties.

I love the LM3409. I actually designed this version of the "Typhon" to work with an LM3409 sub PcB prior to the MeanWell LDD's. I made a dual driver version that is stackable, so that 4 LM3409's can be controlled by a single "Typhon" The LM3409's were configured to output up to 3,000ma and featured analog current control using a 250K ohm pot on the IAdj pin. Here's a photo of the LM3409 sub Pcb. (The PcB was designed to be cut into two halves)


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## All your base (Dec 6, 2006)

Now, slap an I2C PWM chip on those boards instead of running directly off a PWM pin from the AVR and you've got enough bandwidth to add tons of channels! I doubt most hobbyists need that though so it would be a bit wasteful...

What were the failures on the integrated unit if you don't mind sharing? I'm curious to know if they line up with what I've seen over time. I stopped using the CAT4101 because it bakes itself so easily. I felt like I was spending more time testing and replacing CAT4101 drivers than playing with new projects, which was frustrating to say the least. So far I've not had any failures on LM3409s though I really don't like soldering something that fine. I'm thinking my next version might use the PDIP package.


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## O2surplus (Jan 31, 2010)

All your base said:


> Now, slap an I2C PWM chip on those boards instead of running directly off a PWM pin from the AVR and you've got enough bandwidth to add tons of channels! I doubt most hobbyists need that though so it would be a bit wasteful...
> 
> What were the failures on the integrated unit if you don't mind sharing? I'm curious to know if they line up with what I've seen over time. I stopped using the CAT4101 because it bakes itself so easily. I felt like I was spending more time testing and replacing CAT4101 drivers than playing with new projects, which was frustrating to say the least. So far I've not had any failures on LM3409s though I really don't like soldering something that fine. I'm thinking my next version might use the PDIP package.


I'd really like to expand on the original "Typhon's" capabilities, but alas - I suck at the programming side of these projects! I've had plenty of training with electronics, per se, but I'm too "visually oriented" when it comes to learning something abstract like writing code.LOL I spent my youth working as an automotive tech and specialized in Automotive Computer Control diagnostics, so this low voltage DC stuff is easy for me to understand. It's the software that has me baffled. Sure- I can "hunt & peck" and cobble something together from existing code, but I'm completely lost otherwise.
It's kinda funny- My current Led lighting system still runs off 15 Cat4101's that I installed right after they were introduced on the "DIY Led driver" thread over on ReefCentral. They're maxed out at 1,000ma and I haven't had a single failure yet. Heck- my cat's are still on PcB's that I etched by hand, since I hadn't learned EAGLE yet.LOL 
Maybe the difference in experiences with the CAT4101 has to do with cooling? Mine are bolted down directly to the same heat sink as my leds, so they never get too hot. I always try to maintain cooling for the Cat's at "overkill" proportions. I even go so far as to add large fan cooled heat sinks (originally designed for cooling VGA's) to my Cat PcB's, especially if they're being used by someone who's not familiar with balancing their power supply's input voltage vs. their led string Vf and the required .5-.8 volt "headroom" for the Cats. 
Here's a picture of my "SmartyCat"PcB.( It works well,(as long as you're careful with it)









The Pcb design-









The backside (VGA Heat sink)









I'm now used to soldering the LM3409, as I've built at least 100 drivers that use them. I've found that, most of the time, there's already enough solder in the solder mask to do the job without adding any more. I add a liberal amount of flux to the PcB prior to heating the LM3409's pins and pads, and Viola! all pins are soldered with no "solder bridges".


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## All your base (Dec 6, 2006)

I drag solder and clean up with wick for small stuff like the LM3409. My main beef with the CAT chip is that they're a low side regulator and when they fail they tend to fail closed, so if you have a bunch of them in the same circuit and one fries, it'll usually take out most or all of the others. At least they don't tend to kill LEDs since most of the time they're run with a really small voltage drop which is fairly safe. I've never had heat related issues with the CATs and at any rate their thermal shutdown is effective enough to prevent themselves from burning out due to thermal stress IME.


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## JoeFL77 (Sep 18, 2013)

I was wondering if this would work. On circuit one, 42 white XP-G. On circuit two, 6 blue XP-G. On circuit three, 6 red XP-G. Use one 250w 48v 5.2A DC Power Supply, and 5 LDD-1000H. Put three of the LDD-1000H in parallel on one channel of the Typhon. Put Circuit two and three on channels two and three of the Typhon. Could I stack two of your boards to hold the LDD-1000H?


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## kevreh (Feb 4, 2014)

o2,


I have a typhon and just need to get the meanwell ldd's. Couple questions..

Does the current or voltage control the led brightness?
When sizing the powersupply, I add the volts for the leds correct (8 3v leds uses @24v)?

I plan on driving the neutral white, blue, amd red leds seperate so I can get the exact color I want. 


TIA


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## O2surplus (Jan 31, 2010)

kevreh said:


> o2,
> 
> 
> I have a typhon and just need to get the meanwell ldd's. Couple questions..
> ...


The Leds are dimmed via Pulse Width Modulation. In a nutshell- The Typhon sends a 5V PWM signal to the LDD's which, depending on the duty cycle of the PWM signal (0-100%) causes the LDD's to rapidly "blink" the Leds with differing "on" vs."off" time. Since the "blinking" occurs at such a high frequency, our human eyes perceive the light as being dimmed when the PWM signal is anything less than 100% "on". 

Add the forward voltage of each Led in a single string together to determine the voltage needed for your power supply & add up the current in each string to get the combined total current capacity needed for your power supply. I.e 3 strings at 700ma = 2.1 amps from the supply.


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## kevreh (Feb 4, 2014)

Ok, thanks. How long do ramp up and down your lights? This is the coolest feature of using the typhon, imho.

I just hope I dont get spot-light effect from having only about 9x 3w leds. The hoods from finnex and current have many smaller leds.


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## stp715a (Jun 4, 2017)

Understand it has been a long time but would like to build your smd version of the Typhon. Would you please mind sharing the eagle files? Thank you.

Bump:


O2surplus said:


> I bought the LDD's from PowerGate LLC.(LDD-1000H | Mean-Well LDD-1000H | USA Warehouse ) They're quite popular right now, so a lot of vendors are having a hard time keeping them in stock. I ordered 20 and had to wait more than 6 weeks for them to ship, but @ $4.90 each, I couldn't complain.
> I'd love to find an "off the shelf" enclosure that would work for this project, but I haven't found anything suitable yet. If I find one that's "close enough", I may just redesign the PcB's to make them fit the box, as that would be easier than designing the box to fit the PcB's LOL.
> 
> Here's a photo of the controller Pcb- just so you have something to go on until I can post the Eagle files. (it's still a work in progress, so i may move a few traces around.)



Understand it has been a long time but would like to build your smd version of the Typhon. Would you please mind sharing the eagle files? Thank you.


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