Chinese blackbox (1 Viewer)

[reefling]

Does anyone have any ideas on how to control the blue and white channel separately? It only has 1 power chord for the whole box. I am thinking bypassing the switches with arduino or something would be the easiest way. This one has no digital display or anything. It just has 2 potentiometers on top for dimming.

 

[steveb]

I am betting there are two drivers inside - one for each channel both tied to the single AC input.. issue you might run into is Vf of the string of leds (white and blue).. the black box drivers are usually high voltage.. there are some DIY solutions online re: taking the pot out and driving either with 0-10v analog or 10v PWM... but some folk say the drivers don't last if asked to run in a true sunrise/sunset configuration..

 

[reefling]

I just wanted to turn the channels on separately. I saw a video on youtube, but there is no dimmer board. Everything is contained inside the potentiometer.

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[Clownfish Chris]

Are there two distinct channels? If there is one power cord, one driver, and one potentiometer, It seems like there is one channel. I assume this is not actually the case. Can you sketch a quick diagram of the electronics? If there are two drivers, just splice in a relay just after each of the drivers. Ill have to look but I think I have a couple of solid state relays you can have if you want.

 

[steveb]

weird.. usually you have to take the potentiometer out of the circuit and control the drivers via analog or pwm..

what is the brand?

 

[reefling]

weird.. usually you have to take the potentiometer out of the circuit and control the drivers via analog or pwm..

what is the brand?

I don't know the brand. I saw a positive and negative wire. There was no PCB. It is just the non programmable Chinese box with the knobs on top. I was looking for a - + and a 10v line, but this does not look like the others I have worked on. The most simple thing would probably be to put another socket for power and rewire one driver to it, I didn't even think about that. The drivers in this are smaller than what I am used to seeing. It is usually the big white boxes. These are 2 black boxes about half the size.

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