Universal High-Power LED Driver Kit & PCB
Universal High-Power LED Driver is a PIC microcontroller based switch-mode LED driver. This driver can boost or reduce the supply voltage to drive wide range of high power LEDs efficiently.
You can find the detailed information here:
http://www.instructables.com/id/Universal-High-Power-LED-Driver-with-3D-printable-/
*** Sorry, this product has been SOLD OUT and retired. ***
* If you live in Australia, you can purchase this kit from LED Sales.
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Does the driver have a voltage input for an incoming signal as well a power supply? I am trying to amplify and drive a 0~5V serial signal up to 16V; which is the turn on voltage for my LED’s. Any help would be appreciated.
March 14, 2013 at 10:22 am
Do you mean PWM or control voltage input? Well Universal Controller doesn’t have them. However if you are handy you can inject 0-5V control voltage into the center pin of the pot to control dimming.
Aki
March 14, 2013 at 12:08 pm
i wanna order some PCB´s, but first i want to know if i can strobe the PWM Signal without causing any problems.
Means i wanna build a dimmable LED Strobo.
I want a Frequency up to 1kHz with 0-100% brightness.
Thats why i can´t use normal PWM drivers…
Is it possible with your PCB?
I guess with some editing of your code and connecting another potentiometer it should be even possible without an external uC – right?
February 18, 2013 at 5:05 am
Universal LED Driver takes external dimming command in the form of digital signal as SPI. So you can’t send PWM pulse to “strobe” the controller.
Assuming that you are using the strobe for photographic purpose, this driver may not be suitable, because the output is always pulsing at high frequency (32kHz or higher).
February 18, 2013 at 1:35 pm
It is not for photographic reason, but for light installation (direct human eye perception not through a camera) which should strobe around 100 – 500Hz (sometimes faster, but not necessarily) and in addition should be dimmable.
Possible?
February 18, 2013 at 3:26 pm
Not impossible, but not easy. External uC is not needed but you will need to modify the firmware to do what you want to do.
I just don’t think this driver is the right tool for your purpose.
February 18, 2013 at 6:18 pm
sorry for being obtrusive, but i want to realize this project. why you think its not the right tool? because of changing the program is too complicated? i am programming on arduino since some years and have some programming/electronic background from a technical education. i just had a short check on the asm file (with text editor only) and it doesnt seem to be that complicated even tough i have to get into the reading, because i am used to Java of course.
what IDE to use with asm files?
what if i use another uC and switch the brightness from 0 to the max value (potentiometer) via SPI? fast enough?
February 20, 2013 at 8:04 am
What I mean by Universal LED Driver not being the right tool for strobe is that this driver implements “soft-on”. When this driver turns on the LEDs, the unit ramps up the current level from minimum until it reaches the set current. This “soft-on” is opposite of what you want in strobe driver.
That being said, for human eye this soft-on is still instantaneous, so might still be practical. Only experiments can tell.
Again using an external uC won’t change the situation above. (and I don’t think external uC is needed.)
Aki
February 20, 2013 at 4:16 pm
received one of the kit and its perfectly designed and super easy to built. great job!
but… i have an issue with the SPI Interface. i don´t get it right. SPI usually uses 4 wire connection. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serial_Peripheral_Interface_Bus
I only used MasterOut (MOSI) on my side connected to SPI_DAT and the SCK for SPI_CLK.
I am using Mode 1.
and they are communicating somehow, but super unstable. sometimes the status led of the kit starts to blink (config mode?), sometimes it only reacts after a delay. sometimes i have to go back and forth with the 8bit Value in order to raise the brightness… never really the way i want. any idea?
my SPI has 4MHz ClockSpeed and is coming from an arduino http://arduino.cc/en/Reference/SPI
mukos gracias
March 8, 2013 at 12:00 pm
Universal Driver uses “SPI like” communication. It’s not exactly SPI, but you can communicate using SPI with some effort. The unit uses only two pins: data and clock. The lines are normally pulled up by resistors so that switches or another Universal Driver can pull them low. This is how I implemented the half-dupe (or bi-directional) communication with just two lines. It’s a hybrid between I2C and SPI I guess.
Please read the source code for the details.
As a pointer, those two lines need to be high when idle. So maybe use SPI mode 3? If you pull any one of them low for more than 47 milliseconds, the controller think that the button is pushed.
Aki
March 9, 2013 at 12:35 pm
What does it me to purchase a “pre programmed” kit? What is the difference? Thanks
February 18, 2013 at 12:50 am
Pre-programmed kit comes with the PIC microcontroller programmed with the firmware. Otherwise you will need to program the microcontroller with the firmware – you need PICKit or other hardware to do it. (“Programming” here means to upload the firmware to the IC. Microcontroller doesn’t do anything unless you upload the firmware.)
February 18, 2013 at 12:57 am
I am trying to drive lamps with a turn on voltage of 15V. Is the maximum output voltage for the LED driver 6.6V?
February 26, 2013 at 1:00 am
The output voltage from this driver can reach upward of 30V when you connect 10 white or blue LEDs in serial. So if your LED string’s forward voltage is about 15V, that should work.
Aki
February 26, 2013 at 2:40 am