RapidLED Aurora Puck Driver Help (Consolidation of Drivers)

EricGRIT09 · Jul 9, 2019

Hi all -

A few years back I purchased and setup three RapidLED Dual Aurora Puck kits: http://www.menarilighting.com/rapidled/documentation/Aurora LED Array.pdf

As per page 15 the kit came with 4x Mean Well drivers per pair of pucks (such as ELN-60-48D for example) - so I have *twelve* individual drivers screwed to my wall to drive these three fixtures. Then a rat's nest of wires from there. I could clean up the wires a bit and make them more visually appealing, but I'd really like to hear your input here to see what the most efficient and prettiest setup might be by swapping out drivers and what people here have used for the neatest way to wire up, etc.

I don't necessarily need a ton of hand-holding on the assembly or anything like that, but I'm hoping someone can provide a general rundown of the components I could use to accomplish the cleanest setup while utilizing the pucks (goal being that I don't need to shell out more $$$ for different LEDs as these work pretty great as supplement to my T5's).

BTW, the lights are controlled by my Apex's 0-10v outputs so that needs to carry over.

Thanks in advance all!

Ryan115 · Jul 9, 2019

Are you wanting to be able to still control each channel on each puck individually, or are you just wanting to have all of the blue channels together, all of the white channels together, etc...?

If dimming all together, you just need a LED driver that can output the voltage needed for the combined rating of the LEDs and remain under their max current. I would have to look closer at the numbers to recommend anything specifically.
If the voltage is low enough you may be able to look at one of the LDD driver boards.

To start look into the spec sheet for each emitter and find what their forward voltage is and add them up for each channel.

bblumberg · Jul 9, 2019

As illustrated on pages 19-22 of the link you send, I'd suggest 1 four-up LDD-H board for each pair of pucks, populated with the 7o0 mA LDD-H drivers on all channels except the white. I'd use a 1000 mA for that. I base the decision for 1 board, per pair of pucks on an assumed forward voltage of 3.1 v per XT-E@700 mA and less for the XP-E. XP-G is a bit more than 3.1.

Then your next question becomes how much voltage do you need to drive all 6 of these pucks. If we just consider the most demanding channel (blue) you get 21.2 forward volts per puck so add 3v for the LDD-H on each channel and you need at least 24v per puck for the blue channel. This says you need 1 LDD-H board per 2 pucks.

Adding the amps you get .7 x 6 =4.2, .7 x 6 = 4.2, 1 x 6 = 6, .7 x 6 = 4.2 for a total of 18.6 amps. So you need a power supply that can provide more than 24v and 18.6 amps. Look at meanwell charts and there are many possibilities. I like Meanwell HEP-600-30, 30v, 20A.

Lingwendil · Jul 10, 2019

If going with LDD-H drivers/boards you will need a 0-10v adapter for them to work with the Apex. They are natively PWM rather than than DC for the dimming.

EricGRIT09 · Jul 10, 2019

Thanks all - looks like I have some decision-making to do. If I understand correctly I'm looking at probably $300-$400 to replace these drivers to make a better package aesthetically. At that point I'm 1/4 of the way to some new LEDs altogether and maybe even closer since I don't really need anything special since I run 4x80w T5's now. I think I either need to make a big ole project box with what I have and hide it all or just bite the bullet and get some new LEDs, I don't think it's worth investing anything over $200 or so in these things at this point.

Again, thanks all and if there happens to be some other alternative I'm still all ears

bblumberg · Jul 10, 2019

Sorry, I forgot the 0-10v to PWM adapter. Thanks Lingwendil.

There is nothing wrong with the driver setup you have, other than too many wires and boxes. A project box to organize it all would be a good solution. You could easily make something attractive out of wood to match your tank stand...

EricGRIT09 · Jul 10, 2019

bblumberg said:
Sorry, I forgot the 0-10v to PWM adapter. Thanks Lingwendil.

There is nothing wrong with the driver setup you have, other than too many wires and boxes. A project box to organize it all would be a good solution. You could easily make something attractive out of wood to match your tank stand...

Thanks again for the input on here. I checked out my current wiring and realized there's a lot of cleanup that can be done and took a quick trip to Lowes and bought a couple nice gray junction/project boxes, quick connects, loom, etc. and I'm going to tidy it up. Once that is done I think it will be a little unwieldy compared to a nice retail LED unit but much, much improved. Also this is all in a dedicated fish room so fortunately it isn't seen near the tank but now it will be nice and neat, at least.