ShawnKoto Posted October 31, 2014 Share Posted October 31, 2014 Hey All: I have a pretty specific issue with my Steve's LED retrofit kit. I am not sure if anyone here has used Steve's LEDs DIY kit in the past, but I figured I would give it a shot. I have my DIY retrofit kit installed in my 29 Oceanic Biocube. I am almost positive that everything is installed correctly. The issue is that when I turn the LEDs on they come on perfectly, I have them connected to my Apex system and everything dims appropriately and works just as it should. However, when I turn the system off via the Apex, the last light that was on will not turn off all the way. There are four arrays. So, if I turn on all the lights, Arrays 1-4, then everything works fine and if I turn either blue or white off then it goes off. But as soon as I turn the remaining light off it will not go all the way out. I have checked all the connections with a nice multimeter and when I turn off the 0-10v coming out of the Apex, it is sending nothing when off. I have labeled pictures that I made last night of the setup. Any ideas? Happy Halloween. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FarmerTy Posted October 31, 2014 Share Posted October 31, 2014 Funny, as I am reading this post Shawn, the two people that mentored me through my vent fan installation and wiring are both reading this as well. Probably a completely obvious question but I'll ask anyways, have you called the manufacturer and talked to their tech support? May not be that first time this has happened with one of their units being integrated with an Apex. That's about all I can offer. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
victoly Posted October 31, 2014 Share Posted October 31, 2014 "Dimming off" is a fairly common problem with apex drivers/LED drivers, especially when you start to add in the pwm/vdc conversion complications that steves adds in. The issue is that depending on your driver config, you can't turn off the driver with a signal less than 10% or dim down less than 10%. In fact, with the meanwell drivers that were popular several years ago, you had to cut the power to get them to turn off once you dimmed it to 10%. It's weird that most of them are working and one isn't. Sounds to me like a potential issue with the LDD driver or the connections hitherto and/or the logic board connections. Is it always the same bank that wont dim all the way off? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ShawnKoto Posted October 31, 2014 Author Share Posted October 31, 2014 Hey guys, thanks you for the feedback. I did send the manufacturer a detailed email of the problem and I really hope that they answer quickly because the first step of this process is to rip apart your current lighting. So, for the last three days my system has been no lights off for one day and a weak freshwater LED light for the last two days. So, I worried about my corals. Victoly, I have researched endlessly for the last three days about the dimming issue among other issues, and I did see that the dimming issue was a problem, even for Steve's LEDs several renditions ago. But these drivers are supposed to dim to 0 without an issue and the Apex is one of his suggested controllers. Anyway, it is not the same banks that fails to dim to 0. The way it is working is that I turn on both lights and they are fine. I can dim them and ramp them as much as I want and it works like a charm. Also, when I turn one of the two banks off it will go off just fine. However, as soon I turn off the final bank that is still on, it doesn't turn off, whether I dim it or just put the VAR1 or VAR2 to off. Now if I turn the other light on then that bank will go off and vise-versa. Strange happenings. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
victoly Posted October 31, 2014 Share Posted October 31, 2014 Well, an option is to put your power supply on an EB8 port and cut the juice. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ShawnKoto Posted October 31, 2014 Author Share Posted October 31, 2014 For the money and time I have put into this I would really love for it to work like it should I will see what they come back with, maybe it is a common problem. Maybe I just need to replace one of the drivers, who knows. I was hoping that maybe one of you had done this and would come back and be like... hey the jumper on the second driver needs to be bridged to a ground or something like that But it was a total hail mary. I will update this when I hear from them. Thanks again! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
victoly Posted October 31, 2014 Share Posted October 31, 2014 Youre just on the new tech. I had to DIY my entire getup. None of this individualized LDD driver shenanigans. Of course then i went back to MH. Plug it in and it works.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Makena95GT Posted November 1, 2014 Share Posted November 1, 2014 Pshhh I manually dim and turn on and off my blue channel for my LEDs cause I only have one timer and I used it for the daylights. Get on my level, son! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ShawnKoto Posted November 1, 2014 Author Share Posted November 1, 2014 Ha, Makena! Well I still can't dim to complete 0%, but my tank needed some real light after 3 days, so I put it all together. I will update once I hear from Steves LEDs. Here is a pic, but I have a lot of playing to do to see what I like in terms of white/blue balance. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
99taws6 Posted November 1, 2014 Share Posted November 1, 2014 Steve is good to reply. I have them on my 75 and use mine with a Typhon controller. I have never had an issue except they don't like to really dim below 5%. I now have a different tank I'm gonna setup and I will be using 3 AI Vegas so the Steves will be no longer used. I got about 3 good years out of them with minimal issues. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ShawnKoto Posted November 10, 2014 Author Share Posted November 10, 2014 Okay, I got the answer on this. It turns out that for his controller board to dim the drivers to 0% that the two COM ports need to have jumper on the power supply. Why? Who knows But I will be shorting all grounding ports in the future. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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