This week I worked with Kira to get the faders hooked up to the light for RGBW and brightness control. For this step, I wired the current drivers with the correct power rails and to the PWM pins on the arduino. Also, I soldered connections for the 50W light so that we could replace the 100W light. In addition, I soldered our wires to extend their length for the final assembly and hooked up power rails for the motors and microcontrollers. My progress is currently on schedule, since all aspects of the light and power distribution system are ready to go for the final assembly. I have started helping with assembly of the base and controller. Next week, I hope to have more components of the light control system soldered onto protoboards located in the base of the light and have the wires run through the arm of the light.
As I’ve worked on controlling the light and the power distribution system, I’ve had to learn a lot about how high power LED chips work and the power requirements that come with that. Before this project, I had only ever worked with LEDs like neopixels that come with a spot for a data pin. However, since this COB LED is voltage controlled, with each color of light needing different voltage and current requirements, it made the control of the light much more complex. In addition, I had previously been able to hook up my lights to standard power supplies, but the large amount of power the LED requires taught me how to distribute larger amounts of power and nonstandard voltages. To acquire this new knowledge, I read up on the documentation of the products, consulted webpages of existing lights, looked through webpages/forums of other people who have used similar LEDs before, and used Google to find out quick facts.