help needed please with my LED unit

Around 12 to 18 months ago I was sold the LED rolls and the three colour controler
owing to illness it has taken me an age to get it together - I purchased an 8' x 4' sheet of 3mm Aluminium which I then had to get cut and folded
The controler supplied I could not get it to work so I ordered a common cathode 24 volt one from China and that does not work either so I am obviously doing something wrong

I went to a great deal of bother mounting the controller because the knobs are not equally spaced

All the LED's light up direct from the power supply
rather than link all the LED's together in a three series configuration I decided to wire each 24 set (or 12 led set's blue) individually to a set of power rails so if one set blew it would not affect the other LED's

front of unit

inner row of whites on

outer row of whites on

all blue's on

all LED's on on

looking at photo's they all appear to have been distorted during the reduction from 6 or 7 meg photo's to something quicker to display
the packets the LED's arrived in so you know what they are

the power supply for LED's

what I would like answer to please - would when you are answering would you please use the question number so I know what you are refering to -
1) as the three colour controller was supplied by the bloke that sold me the LED's I cannot understand why they do not work at all
2) when Q1 is resolved what should I start with when lighting the aquarium ? 1/2 power etc but it's all on or all off until I get the controller to work - or another controller ?
3) are there ways out there of controlling their brightness by computer so I can have different levels of brightness during the day? as I am disabled I cannot be up and down all day altering the settings
4) seeing what LED's I have is there any more I need to add for the tank's needs ?- I am only using under 3/4 of the power the power unit can supply
5) I have a pair of 7" x 3/4" x 8 foot 'L' shaped sections that bolt onto the sides that carry the glass below the LED's - I have done all the fitting work on these but will fit them just before I lift the unit into place - should I place something between the glass and the Aluminium ? like some 'U' shaped rubber I can slide onto the glass ?

I will probably have more questions to ask later on but as I have been on this for days I have had enough - the new Photobucket is rubbish and takes an eternity to upload pics

this was 'thermador' my lobster

 

I can't help with why your controller does not work. However there are a number of controllers that you can get. There are stand-alone controllers just for lights (Typhoon for one example), or you can use a whole tank controller such as Reef Angel. With the RA, you can either get it to control using 0-10V (D) or PWM (P). But this will likely require you to purchase new drivers, one for each string. Meanwell drivers are very popular with DIY kits.

 

I will Google 'Meanwell' now and have a look at what they are


thanks for your reply

 

To clarify, yes, the controller you have now is stand alone. Without posting the details, I have no idea how it is supposed to work.

For a DIY dimmable LED setup, you would normally use a dimmable driver (such as a Meanwell as mentioned, here is the specs on it: http://www.meanwell.com/search/eln-60/ELN-60-spec.pdf) which is also the power supply. You feed it 120V AC, and it will output the appropriate voltage (mine will do between 24-48V DC). It needs to be sized according to what your LED's will require for voltage. So you would calculate voltage at the minimum power level you would run them at, and again at the maximum. Your driver needs to be able to output voltage for both ranges.

The driver then has dimmer signal inputs that are sent from a controller. The two options are either 0-10V DC (which is the "D" at the end of the driver model) or PWM (Pulse Width Modulation, "P" at the end of the driver). So for example I have programmed my Reef Angel to increase lighting from 15-50% over a two hour period on lights on, and 50-15% on lights off.

This may be more than the info you were looking for, or make you more confused and if so I apologize! Bottom line is, you need the basic components listed above to make it work. To summarize, dimmable driver (power supply) sized according to your LEDs and what power they will be run at, and controller to change the power sent to the LEDs through the driver.

 

thank you