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New to Led lighting and control box’s

Joined
22 Apr 2021
Messages
3
Location
Sussex
Hello all , I’m only just gotten back into the hobby, after a break of some years. I have a bank of four tanks with 3w leds spot mounted above each tank. It’s working well and I’m please with the plant growth. My question is currently I have each lamp running into a extension lead that plugs into a timer. I believe these days you can buy a some sort of “ control box” that will allow you to both bring the light on and off gradually like sunrise/ sunset and also control the time period? Going online I can find ones for specific makes of led light systems. Does anyone know if the is a system that allows mixed lighting that isn’t tailored to one make of lighting? Thanks
 
Sorry they are just bright white 3w led spots
Lights from the led warehouse 6500k I think , direct wired into the household 5amp plug no sort of led driver box that I can see.
 
Ah ok, I don't know enough about electrics to advise you (to dangerous :) ), but I think you will need a dimmable LED driver and to make sure the LED's themselves are dimmable.

Do you have a link to the lights?
 
Sorry they are just bright white 3w led spots
Lights from the led warehouse 6500k I think , direct wired into the household 5amp plug no sort of led driver box that I can see.
Driver circuitry is inside the bulb.
The bulb needs to be labeled " dimmable" and type of dimming needs to be stated.
IF dimmable most likely triac dimming like a normally incandescent.
Controllability is unlikely or complicated.
There are manual/app based remotes.

Again though the bulb needs to be listed as dimmable.
 
Hi all,
Sorry they are just bright white 3w led spots
Lights from the led warehouse 6500k I think , direct wired into the household 5amp plug no sort of led driver box that I can see.
If they are dimmable 240V LED lamps (GU10) you can add in a <"manual "trailing edge" dimmer switch"> (like you use for house lights). Marcel @zozo is the man for this sort of thing.

cheers Darrel
 
As Oreo already said, the lamp should be labelled dimmable...

For timer options with sunset en sunrise, you could go for GU10 or MR16 12 volt dimmable LED spots. And search eBay, amazon or Aliexpress for Wifi or Bluetooth LED timer controler. For example this RGBW wifi controler.


It has 4 channels even tho it says RGB and W colour doesn't matter, the output is 12 or 24 volt depending on how many volts you put in. All channels get the same output and a 12 volts or 24 volts dimmable LED spot in white colour can be connected to each channel. If you don't exceed the Max Amp rating you can put more spots per channel connected parallel.

The timer and sunrise sunset settings can be controlled via Wifi and Phone App.

I have seen a few that are able to do the same at VAC220 but these aren't really popular and not easy to find. I've personally used the
TC423 fo control VAC 220 dimmable LED lights. It's a 5 channel controller with 220 volts in and output. And needs to be controlled/SET via PC software.
But IMHO it contains crapy firmware same as the TC421 and I didn't like it and it can't be flashed to the older (TC420) version I liked a lot more. So I discontinued using it. But it does the job. It could be you're less spoiled than I am and this it might be what you want.

Other options depending on how much light intensity you need look at the nowadays Smart LED Bulb spotlights... These are 220VAC and can be controlled similarly to the first controller I linked to, but then need to controlled and set separately per bulb over the same App.

Could be I missed something because this stuff regarding Home Automation is developing rather fast... Maybe there are newer option out there i yet don't know about.

Search for "PWM LED timer controller" and dig through the results.
 
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Actually, I have a few smart bulbs in use and now that it is mentioned... In the phone App, you can create groups and make the group of lamps do the same thing at the same time as group settings. :)
 
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