Profilux to control buckpuck LED drivers

[kasle46]

I'm looking at buying a GHL Profilux Plus II Controller. I have a homemade LED lighting system (retrofitted to a Red Sea Max) that uses 24 CREE XR-E LEDS (blue and white LEDs - 1000ma/260 lumens each) driven by 4 x 3021-D-E-1000ma buckpuck drivers that are dimmable via 5v DC control wires. Specs for the drivers are at: http://www.leddynamics.com/LuxDrive/datasheets/3021-BuckPuck.pdf . Can anyone tell me if the Profilux can control the dimming of the lighting via these LED drivers. If possible I'd like to have separate dimming control of each buckpuck driver. I'm thinking that programming each of the Profilux 1-5v outputs to dim over a range of 0v - 4.5v would work, but I would like to try and confirm this before I purchase. If not, can anyone suggest an alternative 1000ma LED driver that would work, or another way of linking the Profilux to the lighting system. My only other alternative seems to be building and programming a system from scratch based on an Arduino or similar.:confused:

[Matthias]

this is possible, just use a 1:2 voltage divider, the you have a ProfiLux output of 0V...5V

since the ProfiLux output range is adjustable you can vary as needed (see manual 1-10V interface)

[plankton99]

Any progress on this. I would like to control dimmable buckpucks...

[Antipodes]

Any progress on this. I would like to control dimmable buckpucks...

Well, here is a link to a simple voltage devider circuit.
http://www.allaboutcircuits.com/vol_6/chpt_3/5.html
If you don't have the skills to do this yourself, talk to someone locally you know that is into electronics and get them to build it for you.
Its a very simple circuit and has about $2 of components if you are unlucky.

Or the other way will be to use the mean well driver series ELN-60-(9,12,15,24,48 voltage you require)D, the D dimmable 1-10v interface.
These drivers are line side, which means all you have to do is plug them straight into the mains.
With the buckpucks you are going to have to buy power supplies to drive them.
From all the research I have done, the buck pucks are proving to be unreliable when driving at full potential.

[kasle46]

Any progress on this. I would like to control dimmable buckpucks...

I've got the buckpucks to work fine with a bit of adjustment:

1) I adjusted the 10v Profilux control to a maximum voltage of 6v (wouldn't go any lower despite the specs saying the minimum was 4.5v - not sure if there is something I've missed here). I set the minimum voltage at 0v.
2) When setting the dimming/timing make sure you don't exceed a maximum lighting of 80% . This ensures the control voltage to the buckpuck never exceeds 5v.
3) As the control voltage for the Buckpucks work in reverse (off is 5v, full power is 0v) you need to work in reverse - set the Profilux to show 80% lighting when you want the lights to be off, and 0% when the lights are to be on full power.

Not perfect, but it works. I have 4 LED lighting channels (white, blue, red & orange) that I've been able to mix to create different scenes from sunrise, full sun, sunset, and moonlight - white, blue.

However, if I was to do it over again I'd definitely go with the Mean Wells for simplicity and a greater range of control.

[ReefEnabler]

Hey I am curious how you wired up your pucks together.

I'm assuming at least one of your dimmable channels has at least Two or more buckpucks in it?

If so, how did you ground them?? The datasheet for the pucks calls for grounding the LED- from the buckpucks to the GND from the profilux.... but it seems odd to me to common the LED- wires from multiple buckpucks.

I heard some people just ground to the power supply GND instea, but couldn't actually find anybody to confirm this.

So I'm just curious how you grounded the signal :)

[kasle46]

Common ground worked just fine - however, I found the buckpucks to be unreliable after a couple of months (had two fail) and I upgraded to the drivers mentioned in my post below that do not need a separate transformer (Meanwell) and also have the advantage of not needing to work in reverse, etc.

Each Meanwell runs 10 CREE XRE LEDs without any problems. If you require more than 10 LEDs for any colour I'd recommend using a separate channel on the Profilux simply because of the flexibility it provides in creating lighting scenes, etc.

Bit more expensive to start but the results are outstanding and worth the money. With the four lighting channels I now have available I can program a wide range lighting scenarios, including sunrise, sunset, overcast, bright midday, etc.