Rewiring led for apex

[psiclone]

Have some viparspectra led lights that I'm wanting to hook up to an apex controller. I've watched YouTube videos for Mars aqua lights but they seem to have a manual dimmer to bypass with the apex cable. The viparspectra seems to be electronically dimmed and I can't tell which wires to tap into and if this would even work at all. Any ideas?

 

[Brew12]

The aqua and yellow wires will be the control wires.
If you haven't already, make sure the lights are designed to be controlled with 0-10V signals and not PWM.

 

[lthary]

From what I see on the controller the lights are using PWM , but I may be wrong

 

[Brew12]

From what I see on the controller the lights are using PWM , but I may be wrong

Agreed, which is why I wanted to make sure he was aware of it since a 0-10V to PWM converter will be needed to control it from an Apex. Unless the newer apex have a PWM output....

 

[psiclone]

So what I'm hearing is back out now and do not mess with it. Thanks for the heads up! Appreciate it.

 

[darkapec]

Sorry to bump an old thread, but I have these identical lights. I am also using reef-pi which is more than capable of doing PWM.

I believe it will be pretty easy to just remove the stock controller in these units and control them directly with the Pi. My question is in regards to the comment made by Brew12 "The aqua and yellow wires will be the control wires."

Everytime I have messed with PWM in the past (single LED, computer Fans etc) there is only 1 wire for PWM... what would I do with the second wire?

If anyone is interested in assisting me with this project I would greatly appreciate it. I have tons of toys that I never get to use (Rigol Oscope) and I would be happy to document this process so others can benefit.

 

[Breadman03]

Everytime I have messed with PWM in the past (single LED, computer Fans etc) there is only 1 wire for PWM... what would I do with the second wire?

Most reef LED's use two or more channels to adjust color balance. I assume <<note assume>> that one wire would be for a blue channel and the other for a white channel.

 

[darkapec]

Hi Breadman03,

Thanks for the reply. If you look at the PCB you can see there are two sets of white connectors, each with 4 wires. One set of 4 go to the whites the other 4 go to the blues.

I guess it is possible that it is running 4 channels, but that seems unlikely. I am assuming the mysterious fourth wire is an on/off or something, but I do not know a whole lot about these light fixtures.

Thanks again for the quick reply

 

[Brew12]

Sorry to bump an old thread, but I have these identical lights. I am also using reef-pi which is more than capable of doing PWM.

I believe it will be pretty easy to just remove the stock controller in these units and control them directly with the Pi. My question is in regards to the comment made by Brew12 "The aqua and yellow wires will be the control wires."

Everytime I have messed with PWM in the past (single LED, computer Fans etc) there is only 1 wire for PWM... what would I do with the second wire?

If anyone is interested in assisting me with this project I would greatly appreciate it. I have tons of toys that I never get to use (Rigol Oscope) and I would be happy to document this process so others can benefit.

PWM always needs 2 wires to work. It's just that one is a common return on the negative (or ground). Some times a buss bar or even the frame of the fixture will be used but there will still be an electrical connection.

 

[darkapec]

Hi Brew12,

Thanks for the reply, I was thinking about that last night. Along with removing one wire at a time in the connector (while powered on) and came to a similar conclusion. 2 of the 4 wires appear to be ground, aqua and black.

I will put the multimeter on the red and black to see what voltage they are using to power the controller and then put the oscope on the aqua and yellow.

My initial thought is just to use a 12-bit PWM board, similar to the ones adafruit has for sale here https://www.adafruit.com/product/815

However, with only 2 channels per fixture it might make more sense to use an arduino.

Plan B is to replace the LED driver with a mean well. Easier said then done, the current driver is 80-100v.

End goal is to have the lights sync realtime weather with a specific zip code. This at the very least will include sun rise, sun set and ramp up, ramp down.

 

[Brew12]

Hi Brew12,

Thanks for the reply, I was thinking about that last night. Along with removing one wire at a time in the connector (while powered on) and came to a similar conclusion. 2 of the 4 wires appear to be ground, aqua and black.

I will put the multimeter on the red and black to see what voltage they are using to power the controller and then put the oscope on the aqua and yellow.

My initial thought is just to use a 12-bit PWM board, similar to the ones adafruit has for sale here https://www.adafruit.com/product/815

However, with only 2 channels per fixture it might make more sense to use an arduino.

Plan B is to replace the LED driver with a mean well. Easier said then done, the current driver is 80-100v.

End goal is to have the lights sync realtime weather with a specific zip code. This at the very least will include sun rise, sun set and ramp up, ramp down.

Sounds like an awesome project!

 

[Bobek]

Sorry to Bump, but did anyone figure out how to do this?

 

[darkapec]

Hi Bobek,

I was having a lot of algae issues with these generic Chinese LED lights. I ultimately ended up switching my light to ReefBreeders. Upon doing so, I had no real need to continue on this project. ReefBreeders LED lights gave me the control I was looking for. Minus the ability to remotely monitor things through MQTT.

(no affiliation, but here are the lights I am talking about https://www.reefbreeders.com/product-category/photon_v2plus/https://www.reefbreeders.com/product-category/photon_v2plus/)

I know that is not the answer you were looking for, but by the time you factor in your time / cost for interfacing parts, you really do not save much by using the generic Chinese lights. Combine that with the algae issues I was having... a new fixture was a no brainer for me.

That being said, I would like to monitor certain things about my light fixture, that I currently cannot do. So maybe I will circle back to this project. Is there anything specific you are looking to do? Also what model fixture do you currently have?