Posts: 436
Threads: 23
Likes Received:
8 in 8 posts
Likes Received:
8 in 8 posts
Reputation:
8
Joined: Sep 2015
Country:
Posts: 3,250
Threads: 90
Likes Received:
163 in 120 posts
Likes Received:
163 in 120 posts
Reputation:
184
Joined: Sep 2015
Country:
It looks like the brown ground wire from the controller to the PWM board is wrong. Looks like you have it on the signal pin instead of ground on the controller. In your 6th picture the top row is ground, I don't see anything plugged in it. Also what voltages are you getting out the screw terminals when the slider for that channel is turn up?
Posts: 436
Threads: 23
Likes Received:
8 in 8 posts
Likes Received:
8 in 8 posts
Reputation:
8
Joined: Sep 2015
Country:
when it is turned up all the lights are on full blast.. I was not sure where to ground the nd-sgnl pin to should it be ground in side to the power bar? and in the picture you posted it only has the one wire coming back to the controller from controller pwm to input on converter board nothing about a ground.. do I have to ground each channel back to the converter board to the 2 gnd green terminal block??
Posts: 3,250
Threads: 90
Likes Received:
163 in 120 posts
Likes Received:
163 in 120 posts
Reputation:
184
Joined: Sep 2015
Country:
Yes the brown ground wire you have has to go to any ground point on the controller. The top row of pins on your 6th picture is all grounds. Move that brown wire on the controller to the row above and it should work.
Posts: 436
Threads: 23
Likes Received:
8 in 8 posts
Likes Received:
8 in 8 posts
Reputation:
8
Joined: Sep 2015
Country:
the brown wire is in the top row and the other 2 are in the bottom row how are you grounding all 16 pins Rob from just that one point if so then I will still need to have a ground for every + pin on the bottom row. The only pin working is the one that has that brown grown wire above the positive wire and it is trying to control the whole light nothing is split in to different channels
The light has only 2 drivers in it if I have driver 1 on +pin 2 and the 2nd driver on +pin 3 if I have that brown ground wire on the ground pin 2 only slider to of the controller works but it tries to dim the whole light not just the half it is on and it does not dim to off only about half way down.
Are all pwm ground pins tied together? My next step is to try adding ground from controller to PWM board to 12v PSU that runs the board it is a separate PSU
Posts: 3,250
Threads: 90
Likes Received:
163 in 120 posts
Likes Received:
163 in 120 posts
Reputation:
184
Joined: Sep 2015
Country:
Yes you only need 1 ground wire from the controller, you don't need one for each channel. I don't have a light obviously so I can't tell you much more. If you do have it dimming some you're getting closer. Make sure to check voltages coming out of the PWM converter. When the slider is off you should have 0v and when the slider is full you should have 10v.
Posts: 40
Threads: 3
Likes Received:
0 in 0 posts
Likes Received:
0 in 0 posts
Reputation:
1
Joined: Oct 2015
Country:
WOW! This has REALLY confused me now!
rott, I follow all your connections and now I question what I thought I knew (and had previously asked) about wiring for pwm and LDDs. I will be utilizing the converter later on a future project, but for now, I am going straight from the pwm pins on the controller board to the LDDs, then to the LED channels.
So, Rob, does the converter board call for different wiring topology regarding the ground?? Since I am running straight through pwm, I thought it was necessary to run BOTH a positive (+) and negative (-) to each separate channels from the LDD to the LED channel, ie: from the controller, one (+) wire per channel PLUS only one SINGLE (-). Then from the LDD to the LED, one (+) AND one (-) for EACH channel. Even simpler stated, for my SIX channels, 6+1 wires from the controller to the LDD and 6+6 wires from the LDD to the SIX LED channels. I am currently using a DB-25 to run a harness containing the six pairs (12 wires).
So two questions
1- could I have used the converter board for straight thru pwm to pwm (no conversion) to simplify the harness?
2- would that single ground (from the controller NOT the pwm feed pins that goes to the converter) have allowed me to tie ALL the negatives (-) together as a single ground and have eliminated much of the cabling??
And just to be sure, I am re-asking a question from earlier. Is it necessary to run a unique (-) from each LDD to the LED channel (that means TWO wires for EACH channel)?
Does tying the grounds together work only for analog and NOT digital (pwm)?
Posts: 436
Threads: 23
Likes Received:
8 in 8 posts
Likes Received:
8 in 8 posts
Reputation:
8
Joined: Sep 2015
Country:
06-24-2016, 10:12 AM
(This post was last modified: 06-24-2016, 10:14 AM by rott.)
SteveS If it was me I would do it 2 wires POS and NEG to LDD and a pwm then 2 separate wires + - to the light that is how they are made to work
ya Steve some thing is crazy but we will to the bottom of it
Posts: 3,250
Threads: 90
Likes Received:
163 in 120 posts
Likes Received:
163 in 120 posts
Reputation:
184
Joined: Sep 2015
Country:
Hi, well lets see if I can explain it.
I think you're over thinking it. Only a signal ground is required, but it has to be common as in connected to everything.
DC ground from all your power supplies and equipment need to be connected to each other somewhere otherwise something won't work properly.
The controller has a row of grounds only for the purpose of allowing people to connect many lights, but only one is required. Only a single ground needs to go from controller to LDD's but all the LDD grounds must be tied to the same point so in reality they are also being grounded to the controller.
On the PWM converter board I have 2 ground spots in case someone is powering the board using a power supply that is not sharing the ground like a wall power supply like rott is using. Because rott isn't using the same power supply the controller is using the ground from the wall power supply isn't common so you still need the ground from the controller. If the power was coming from the controller power supply he wouldn't need a signal ground wire because the power supply ground is "common".
Any driver has a ground and signal wire, those are the wires that connect to the controller. If the driver is 5v PWM the + dimming wire goes directly to the controller. If its a different signal the + dimming wire goes directly to the PWM converter board screw terminal. The PWM board is simply inline. The + dimming wire from the controller goes into it which at that point its the same as if it wasn't there. You still have the 16 + dimming screw terminals to connect the drivers.
Rott, looking at your video you have the ground and signal wires crossed. The brown is on the wrong row. Right now you have + and - mixed up so technically things are shorted out.
Move the 2 signal wires to the row the ground is one and move the ground to the row you have the signals on.
Posts: 3,250
Threads: 90
Likes Received:
163 in 120 posts
Likes Received:
163 in 120 posts
Reputation:
184
Joined: Sep 2015
Country:
I forgot to mention rott, it looks like you didn't restore defaults after loading the new update, I can tell because you should have N/A on the home screen for your temps as you don't have them plugged in. Go to settings, system and restore defaults.
Posts: 3,250
Threads: 90
Likes Received:
163 in 120 posts
Likes Received:
163 in 120 posts
Reputation:
184
Joined: Sep 2015
Country:
Rott, you also have channel 2 on the controller working under the low range setting so you're only adjusting the very low end. Press "Low End" above the slider and it'll change to "High End" so you can dim the full range. Someone else connected this light and the low end doesn't affect the light because the driver doesn't respond to such low voltage.
Posts: 436
Threads: 23
Likes Received:
8 in 8 posts
Likes Received:
8 in 8 posts
Reputation:
8
Joined: Sep 2015
Country:
06-24-2016, 07:08 PM
(This post was last modified: 06-24-2016, 07:52 PM by rott.)
I will make the changes as soon as I can.I will also be using 12v from internal connection to get rid of wall wart.
I had no idea what row was hot versus ground
The Whole Low Power Thing Was An accident touch using my stylus that isn't a normal setting for my controller
Posts: 3,250
Threads: 90
Likes Received:
163 in 120 posts
Likes Received:
163 in 120 posts
Reputation:
184
Joined: Sep 2015
Country:
Yeah give that a try and see what happens. I'm a little confused why it dims at all with the wires backwards, are you sure you do have the + - from the driver backwards. If both were backwards it makes a bit of sense that it would work for the single channel. That first series of boards I forgot to mark the board + -, sorry about that, use a sharpie and mark the board.
Posts: 436
Threads: 23
Likes Received:
8 in 8 posts
Likes Received:
8 in 8 posts
Reputation:
8
Joined: Sep 2015
Country:
LOL I was going by what you told me a few months a go what was + and - on that board :( no problem I have every thing hooked up to the controller now and it is dimming blue on one channel and white on a different channel so that is good but they do not go from 0 to 100% more like 30 or 40% to 100% the lights never go off not even close even if try on separate channels I have the 12v + and - coming from the power board from spare pins on the board the lights them self are plugged in to plugs 1 and 2 of the power board and I have tried with signal ground on and off also the separate grounds from each light attached to the ground pins of the channels did make any difference at all and to answer the question about if I am sure if I am using the right wires didn't I cover all that with how to test the wires with a battery I thought I showed the wire colors coming out of the drivers to show so people new what to look for
Posts: 3,250
Threads: 90
Likes Received:
163 in 120 posts
Likes Received:
163 in 120 posts
Reputation:
184
Joined: Sep 2015
Country:
Hmm, that's strange, you're obviously much closer. You mentioned in the video when the slider was to 0 you still have 1v coming out the converter board. What's the voltage coming out of the controller dimming pin when the slider is 0? Check different dimming pins to make sure. When the slider is off you should have 0v and when the slider is full you should have 5v, that's coming directly out of the controller. Sorry I couldn't understand the video you posted with the battery, it was just a bunch of wires and a light slightly changing.
But it seems you aren't dimming the light off because the voltage isn't going to 0. Also did you restore the defaults to fix the temps? I don't think it will change the lights but maybe, either way make sure you do that or you'll come across other issues. This only had to be done on the v2 update because I had to make some changes to eeprom locations, this shouldn't happen again.
