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I'm resurrecting a neglected 37G tank and have started working on providing better light for it. It's an Eclipse tank in which I had already replaced the lamp with a 65W SunPaq retrofit kit. I've been researching different options, and have been most interested in LEDs, primarily as an opportunity to play with the control side. I've been looking for an excuse to get into microcontrollers like the Arduino.
I ended up buying a 24" TrueLumen Pro LED Striplight (8000K), power supply, and manual dimmer off of Amazon for a great price (returned items). I'm very happy with the color in my tank, and I think adding one or two more strips would give me the brightness I'm after without the PC fixture. I bought it assuming I wouldn't be able to control it (that it was some sort of closed system) but an unrelated post on Makezine about LED lighting for photography made me realize there's no reason I wouldn't be able to do so. Discovery of the Blue Fish controller with its PWM add-on confirmed that I should be able to manage these strips the same way I might control a DIY fixture.
With all that background, I think I should be able to build a fairly straightforward set-up using the following:
* Arduino
* RTC add-on (DS1307) to provide a clock
* Coralux LDD-3 Driver Board
* 3 ea. Meanwell LDD drivers
* appropriate connectors
Assuming I haven't missed anything so far, the question I have for this group is how to determine which LDD I need to get. What's the best way to determine the appropriate constant current for the TrueLumen strip? Do I just need to build a rig to measure the current with my VMM? I can't find that spec online anywhere.
Thanks for your advice!
I ended up buying a 24" TrueLumen Pro LED Striplight (8000K), power supply, and manual dimmer off of Amazon for a great price (returned items). I'm very happy with the color in my tank, and I think adding one or two more strips would give me the brightness I'm after without the PC fixture. I bought it assuming I wouldn't be able to control it (that it was some sort of closed system) but an unrelated post on Makezine about LED lighting for photography made me realize there's no reason I wouldn't be able to do so. Discovery of the Blue Fish controller with its PWM add-on confirmed that I should be able to manage these strips the same way I might control a DIY fixture.
With all that background, I think I should be able to build a fairly straightforward set-up using the following:
* Arduino
* RTC add-on (DS1307) to provide a clock
* Coralux LDD-3 Driver Board
* 3 ea. Meanwell LDD drivers
* appropriate connectors
Assuming I haven't missed anything so far, the question I have for this group is how to determine which LDD I need to get. What's the best way to determine the appropriate constant current for the TrueLumen strip? Do I just need to build a rig to measure the current with my VMM? I can't find that spec online anywhere.
Thanks for your advice!