RGBA Experts

[michael0825]

Hey guys,
I've been trying to research LedEngin's 10W RBGA to try and come close to getting the same kind of purple that Fenderbender achieved. So far, I haven't found much clarity in terms of the way one would go about wiring this particular LED up. Is the RGBA mounted to a star board? If so, the one that I saw only had solder pads for 3 LEDs...where's the 4th? I'm just wondering if anyone else has worked with these cool little LEDs and could offer some advice. I'd like to start off NOT using a card driver and going with Buckpucks or resistors...if that helps. I've looked around the forums and could only find a few things, one of which was using a Jedi Joe board. Thanks for your time, peace.

[Clockwork]

I have worked with the LEDengin LEDs (in fact I pretty much use them exclusively now). On the RGBA there are different sized solder pads to fit them all on a star (yes it is on a star). Shouldn't be to hard though if all you are interested in is purple, obviously all you would need to wire up is the red and blue set of pads. They are labelled on the star, so that's not tricky. As for how to wire them, just wire it like you normally would, only you need 2 sets of wires (or more, if you want more than just purple). If you are using Bucks, and you want the perfect purple, I would suggest getting the 6 wire ones and 'tuning' the colour with the Ctrl and ref wires.

[Rhyen Skytracker]

If you use resistors you will need to get several sizes and the red will have to have a larger resistor than the blue. You may have to put a couple of resistors in series for the red to get tha shade of purple you want. The red color is a lot brighter than the blue, that is why you have to add more resistance to the red.

[Sunrider]

Thanks for a good explanation on the color mixing Clockwork & Rhyen. I have been looking around on how exactly this was done but couldn't seen to find much.

[michael0825]

Thanks a ton guys. One more quick question, is there a particular type of linear taper potentiometer you would recommend using?

[Rhyen Skytracker]

You will need to find a pot with a low enough range to give you enough resolution. If not you will only have about 1/2 of a turn to work with. So, I would suggest getting a pot as small as you can. You will need to use anywhere from 1 to 12 ohms for the red LED.