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HI everyone. How to control LED bullbs though LabView software

I

Hi there,

I am looking for some help; any comments or suggestions from your expertise would be highly regarded. I have no experience in programming except basic understanding of “C” language. When I looked at NI website, I got so excited that with such simple software I could finish off my high power LED lighting project.

I have 3 watt very high power LED bulbs and in total I have 120 which mean requiring 360 watts worth of power for the whole lighting fixture. I have bought 4 LED drivers each 100 watt.  Now I am looking for a hardware which could be programmed in LabView to control all the dimming functions and send commands to all 4 LED drivers. I am using 30 x 3 watt LEDs = 90 watts x 4 section in total. Each section is equal 90 watts worth of LED and run from one 100 watt LED driver and process is repeated 4 times. Ideally, I want to send commands to individual LED driver which is running an individual section and then at the same time sending different command messages to other drivers. This means all four section have different commands to satisfy my needs.

 

I have seen one of the project done on water sprinkler by someone and is currently published that magazine I received by NI. Please would anyone suggest what kind of NI part I need then use LabView software to perform all dimming functions to the highest personal requirements?

 

Look forward to hear from your kind comments..

 

Tahir Iqbal

UK

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Hi Tahir,

 

As i understand it all you are looking for is something to send four different signals to each of your four LED drivers.

But each LED driver requires a number of lines to control how each bank of LEDs  behave.

 

Is this correct?  if so can you give more details about the signals that need to be sent to the LED drivers.

 

 

regards

  

Jordan Power
Applications Engineer
National Instruments
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Dear Mr. Power,  Thanks for the lovely reply; basically I have three colours of LEDs in each section. Each section have 30 x 3 watts of LEDs, 1 Red, 2 Blue and 27 white but have different Kelvin rating. Ideally I would like to send commands to each LED driver which is rated at 12V, 100 watts.  My LED project is for the reef aquarium and I would like to replicate what happens in the nature. Let's say 8am, I would like my two blue LEDs to come on at a low speed or temperature and then speed or colour temperature slowly increases over the next 30 minutes. This will be SET command for all four sections for the 8am to 8:30am, once this has been achieved I would like my Red LED to come ON at low temperature while the blues are still ON. The Red LED will come ON at let's say 8:30 am. When blue and red mixes it will create sort of red to orange colour which means sun-rise. Once this has been achieved I would like them to stay on for next 10 minutes. Now it is 8:40am, both blue and red are turned off.  8:40am, Now I am left with 27 white LEDs, 2 x 5000Kelvin, 5 x 10000Kelvin, 5 x 12000Kelvin, 5 x 15000Kelvin, 5 x 20000Kelvin ,5 x 25000kelvin rating. I would like to have my high Kelvin rating LEDs to come on but I would like have the option to switch ON certain string at certain temperature. I could set the same settings for all four sections in my LED lighting fixture or maybe have the option to change if required to suit my needs.  Now let say it 18:00 and sun is going down, I would like my all the low Kevin rating LED's to go down and at 18:30 almost fades away and then RED led comes ON but BLUE x 2 LEDs to come on at the same time which is almost like sunset. I would like to have this command for around 10 minutes and once 10 minutes gone, I would like to have Red LED to go OFF and blue to stay on until 22:00....only blue and at 22:00 Blue to go down for the next 30 minutes and at 22:30 total darkness.  I would like to repeat this process everyday and also have the ability to change any commands if not happy with the current setting. I know I am asking for something really simple but maybe not asking the correct way. I sincerely hope you would be able to help me. Kind regards. tahir Iqbal 
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Hi Tahir,

What is the make and model of the LED driver you are using?

What other equiptment do you have that u will use in this project?

 

Many thanks

Jordan Power
Applications Engineer
National Instruments
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