LEDengin 5w and 10W info and wiring guide....for noobs

[FenderBender]

Then my work here.....is done.

[Cantankerous]

Quick question, and i may have missed this reading thru the prior 13 pages, but what would happen if i ran to 2 sets of series'd dice parallel off of a single 1000mah buckpuck (direct drive) from a single power source? Would each pair of series'd dice for the 2 parallel connections only receive 500mah from the puck, or would it run each pair at a full 1000mah? Neophyte at wiring as ive only ever wired a P4 green with a resistor, so im a little sketchy on how multiple dice run off a puck.

thanx

[FenderBender]

Two series pairs: so basically each 'pair' is now one LED for a total of 2 LEDs. You're running those two LEDs off of the same power source: 1A puck. Parallel splits current, so they'll get 500ma each. Not so good. You'd need two pucks or a PC 2.0 to pull this off. Not only that, but if its a green or blue 10W you're gonna need some beefier batteries.

[174fps]

Hey there Fender/all, I am hoping you can provide some input here...

I am having issues finding information on the Full Powah setup. There is no mention of this (unless I am totally blind in which case flame away) in the new PC manual. Is it possible that this feature is not possible on the new board?

I am a little fuzzy on how full powah works. Are both series pairs on all the time, or is it at all switchable?

As for the physical connection (assuming full powah is still possible with PC 2.0) is it the same? Because of the board changes, I cannot tell what the middle/yellow pin on the PEX in Fenders setup diagram page 1 is connected to.

Lastly, is it always adviseable to wire all 4 dice on these LED's? I know it seems a waste to have them and not use them. I have ordered an RGBW and would like a red main with a cyan FOC (my full powah questions relate to a RRRR led also on the way and not sure which one I will be using). Am I better off using just the Red dice on its own for the main blade, and series wiring the G/B dice, leaving white alone? With the Vf differences between R and W to me it would make sense to do it this way, but I cannot find many people talking about only using 1 dice for a main color.

Thanks for all your help.

174fps

[FenderBender]

I have used only one die in my test hilt (RGBW), and both the red and blue are fairly comparable to a P4. I would say if you want to have a red with FoC, use one die for the main and the G and B for FoC, leave the white out if you wish.

Full Powah is done by connecting the PeX to the PWM output of the MCU instead of the FoC pad. There is a pic around somewhere, I'll try and find it later. Everything else is wired the same. Both pairs will be on all the time with this set up. The second pair (PeX driven pair) is 'direct drive' so will dim as the battery dies, but they will flicker etc along with the main pair.

[174fps]

Awesome thanks for the response and info Fender!

Your response brings up a few more questions though. With a Full Powah setup (single color RRRR example), does one enter 2000 for the mA current spec in the configuration of the soundbank? If I understand correctly, parallel splits current, so the series pair parallelled to the main LED should receive 1A each with this setup. But what about the Full Powah pair? What output is delivered to them? If the 2A output is simply divided between all 4, and each die gets 500mA only, are you better off driving just two dice at 1A each?

Second, which of these setups delivers the best/brightest result?

a.) A seriallel setup - 2 series pairs then parallelled to the main LED output

or

b.) A typical Full Powah setup using a PEX?


c.) or something else I am entirely overlooking?

Would run times be different between the two?

Phew long post...okay I am done for now, thanks for all your help



Tx!
174fps

[TechKnight]

Thanks for the great thread! It's really helping a lot for my saber planning. There's just one thing that seems a bit ambiguous to me and I want to be sure I understand.

Ok, first, DO NOT MOUNT THE LED TO THE MHS HEATSINK! The star pads that the emitters are mounted on are awesome heatsinks on their own and make soldering a female dog as it is. If you mount the LED to the heatsink before soldering you'll get cold solder joints that will fail, if you can get any solder to flow on the pads at all.

Do you mean to say that the star pad acts as a heatsink and I don't need a separate heatsink, or do you mean that I do need a heatsink but I need to solder the LED before I mount it on the heatsink?

[Kevin Starwaster]

Thanks for the great thread! It's really helping a lot for my saber planning. There's just one thing that seems a bit ambiguous to me and I want to be sure I understand.



Do you mean to say that the star pad acts as a heatsink and I don't need a separate heatsink, or do you mean that I do need a heatsink but I need to solder the LED before I mount it on the heatsink?

Don't mount the star to the heatsink BEFORE soldering.

DO mount the star to the heatsink AFTER soldering.

Remember, this is a soldering guide so the warning about mounting to the heatsink relates to the soldering job at hand.

[TechKnight]

That's what I thought, but the line about the star pads being "awesome heatsinks on their own" confused me. Thanks for clarifying!

[Darth Nater]

The LedEngin was a SOB to solder for me. Heat the bottom of the star with the iron a little like most people have said, this helps. I had one joint that took me forever to stick. In the end, i scored the tab lightly with a razor blade a little to try and get something for the solder to hold to. Lightly I said. And when I finally did get it done, i didn't mess with it anymore. But also, the only soldering I've ever done in my life are on the few sabers I've made, and most of those were P4's with econo boards which is easy. I'm not very good at it, just enough to get by.