Bought LED board

Aapoo

Aapoo

Well-Known Member
Video interesting,vi wondered what that button was for. I can do that with mine. Will have to get a means to monitor. Damn ok
 
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1212ham

Well-Known Member
Should be ok if it has sufficient accuracy and resolution. The "Kill A Watt" meters work well. Also, you should be able to measure both AC and DC current with your multi-meter.
 
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end_of_the_tunnel

Well-Known Member
Aapoo, the images and vendor info you are posting of your board purchase are really leaving questions up in the air. So far we have confirmed two separate circuits. One white and one red. Most recent attachments you have provided show two drivers installed. I have no idea what the recommended forward voltages are, for either type of diode. Some others might be keen to give very loose generalisations, of values to use for them.

Either practice caution, beg/borrow or buy a basic multimeter. And follow try follow the links/guides some posts back.
Or throw caution to the wind and plug your driver in with current/Io turned down. And see whats happens. Once the magic smoke escapes, it won't come back.
 
Aapoo

Aapoo

Well-Known Member
Okay, I have a multimeter just need a resistor and know someone who has one. Just need to get one from him.
 
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end_of_the_tunnel

Well-Known Member
Aapoo, any progress? You could turn the current on your driver down to minimum, and try connecting the white led part of your board in. See what happens. :idea:
Red led part is probably the one to take care with. Usually reds run at lower voltages. Ideally, you would trace out the red diode circuit with pencil and paper to see whats going on. And try figure out from there.
 
Aapoo

Aapoo

Well-Known Member
Hi, yes some progress but not literally. I have a guy that is joining our systems that wants to take a look at it, going to take it in today. Asked him for a resistor and that led to conversation....will see what he thinks, know more about it than me, much like yourself
 
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end_of_the_tunnel

Well-Known Member
I glad you found someone. Absorbing and grasping this electrical stuff is easy for some. But not for me, hence all those links I gave you. Sometimes feel like I am bordering on presenting as a classic case of Dunning Kruger syndrome.

All that is important for you is to realise that diodes work with DC. So your primary concern is + and -, and connecting them the right way round. Also remember not all diodes are equal. In your case, red and white.
Many currently available grow light pcb's incorporate different diodes in series + parallel. Usually some calculation is done to come up with a combined circuit so that current and voltage matches fairly closely, between the combined series or parallel groups, so that they can all run together off one power source without hogging or runaway and burning out.

Your board is older and has two distinct circuits. Probably a reason they did it that way with two drivers.
 
Aapoo

Aapoo

Well-Known Member
end_of_the_tunnel said:
Aapoo, any progress? You could turn the current on your driver down to minimum, and try connecting the white led part of your board in. See what happens. :idea:
Red led part is probably the one to take care with. Usually reds run at lower voltages. Ideally, you would trace out the red diode circuit with pencil and paper to see whats going on. And try figure out from there.
Click to expand...
And thank you for being attentive, btw.
 
Aapoo

Aapoo

Well-Known Member
end_of_the_tunnel said:
I glad you found someone. Absorbing and grasping this electrical stuff is easy for some. But not for me, hence all those links I gave you. Sometimes feel like I am bordering on presenting as a classic case of Dunning Kruger syndrome.

All that is important for you is to realise that diodes work with DC. So your primary concern is + and -, and connecting them the right way round. Also remember not all diodes are equal. In your case, red and white.
Many currently available grow light pcb's incorporate different diodes in series + parallel. Usually some calculation is done to come up with a combined circuit so that current and voltage matches fairly closely, between the combined series or parallel groups, so that they can all run together off one power source without hogging or runaway and burning out.

Your board is older and has two distinct circuits. Probably a reason they did it that way with two drivers.
Click to expand...
Your recognizing a possible lack of comprehension, how could you be over estimating your ability, then? Lol.
 
Aapoo

Aapoo

Well-Known Member
Aapoo said:
Your recognizing a possible lack of comprehension, how could you be over estimating your ability, then? Lol.
Click to expand...
Any rate your teaching and guiding me, thereby solidifying your knowledge so it's "all good" lol
 
Aapoo

Aapoo

Well-Known Member
Update: systems integrated still in possession of board and one driver. Girls well into their flowering. Sloooow as it is, might not get the help they need. This guy slower
 
Aapoo

Aapoo

Well-Known Member
So unfortunately I didn't get any help from this guy, just sat there on a cabinet. Brought it home and turned it down, like you said @end_of_the_tunnel . Couldn't see what I was doing and stripped the dial out a bit, will have to try a box or hex to turn it up. Plugged in for 1-2 seconds and white lit up w/o issue. Still need to get a simple resistor for red diodes but not sure size.
 
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end_of_the_tunnel

Well-Known Member
Aapoo said:
So unfortunately I didn't get any help from this guy, just sat there on a cabinet. Brought it home and turned it down, like you said @end_of_the_tunnel . Couldn't see what I was doing and stripped the dial out a bit, will have to try a box or hex to turn it up. Plugged in for 1-2 seconds and white lit up w/o issue. Still need to get a simple resistor for red diodes but not sure size.
Click to expand...
You could do as demonstrated in this video.

Also could you draw a circuit of the diodes on your board? Are the reds in a simple series circuit? Think I posted links earlier in this thread that should get you understanding what you are looking at.
 
Aapoo

Aapoo

Well-Known Member
Aapoo said:
The one thing that guy told me was that they are in series.
Click to expand...
I found that generally the forward voltage pirouette LEDs is 1.7 to 2. These are red sapphire phosphor coating and I can't find much information about them so it does take me back to the drawing board so far because I don't think they're the traditional red LEDs
 
Aapoo

Aapoo

Well-Known Member
So apparently I have a 1 k ohm resistor. I read that I can take my digital multimeter and measure the FV of the LED with it in the ohm setting. Connected it and that led lit up a little bit but the display on the meter only read 1.
 
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end_of_the_tunnel

Well-Known Member
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