LED Drivers

[J Pearce]

I've been doing a fair bit with LED pixels and LED tape recently, and have been mostly using the cheap DMX to RGB/RGBW drivers that abound online.

I have a little project coming up where the ideal solution would be a large COB panel (to be built into a practical) that I can both dim and strobe. I'd rather not have to do the strobe from the desk, as this setup is likely to tour and end up controlled from many different systems.

 

I can find numerous drivers that will dim DMX (like the ones I have been using), and one or two that will strobe the LED, but none that will do both. Anyone found something? Don't want to end up coding and making a whole pcb, I'm just not set up for it.

 

(Also - Milford Instruments have a news post saying they're retiring this summer - is this the end of affordable DMX widgetry?!)

[musht]

Differnce being amount of current fed to the array.

 

Dimming usually being achieved by PWM which varys the on time of the LED up to KHz.

 

Strobing varys the on time of the LED in mili (or micro for scientific use) seconds but with a very short on time.

 

So just strobing the LED with same amount of current as dimming , will result in a very dim LED.

 

To strobe need to put a lot more current through the LED for very short time, so strobing is more than a software issue, hardware needs to be able to provide more current on demand with some lockout to stop it melting the LED on continuous.

 

Look at the LEDs in a CP Stormy , they have massively thick bond wires in the LEDs, abusing COB arrays with large pulses may strain them quite heavily.

 

"is this the end of affordable DMX widgetry?"

 

you answered your own question ;-)

 

"cheap DMX to RGB/RGBW drivers that abound online"