help with digital power moniter onto circuit led

Thread Starter

Drmart

Joined Mar 12, 2020
13
heya i am currently making aquarium lights for my fishtank, i have a growing plant bed and am about to do co2 management, and add lighting to help the growth,
ive found strip light led fixtures in 3500 spectrum that cost about £3 each, so i am running them off small drivers as the aquarium forum shows them growing plants out the tank and my fish eat mine so fast lol meant to be eating the algae but i think the plants die due to lack of light etc so becoem targeted
tanks 4ftx2ft, so ive made a 4 ft aluminium heatsink with 12 4ft strips which i am running at 40watt each at max. drivers i salvaged from an old unit its 48v which matched these strips 480watt driver, i am running on a dimmer controll pot 100ohm,
the pannel is run in series of 3 parralels and my aim is to dimm this down to around 100watts, as i dont need 400w over my tank as i am running it close to water surface to act as a heat source for my tank too ..using the energy from heat reduces the energy used on my water heaters, but if i upgrade my tank then i can run the pannel 2ft up and 400 watt ( i hope for a 4x4ft tank when i move hehe bribe the mrs with new cat fish and corals haha)

my question is i have found this, i am sure this one is china made as reviews are bad, im hoping i can be pointed to a decent one in the uk and told how i can add it if i can add it into my circuit so i can moniter the Mah / wattage when dimmed, the pot ohm is a guess id love to be ab;le to be precise or just to know whats going on in my home made pannel. i getthe gist it has to be added after the leds, but depending on reccomendations there all gona wire different and i dont know what im looking at there, i guess its kinda like analizers on solar systems etc
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MisterBill2

Joined Jan 23, 2018
18,061
Rather than use a series resistor for reducing the power, consider a transformer to supply a lower voltage which will result in the lower power but without so much waste. But if the supplies are regulated then you will need a way to adjust the voltage to a lower level, and that may be a challenge . Reducing the mains voltage to a regulated supply will seldom provide a controlled reduction in the output power.
 
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