Continue to Site

Welcome to our site!

Electro Tech is an online community (with over 170,000 members) who enjoy talking about and building electronic circuits, projects and gadgets. To participate you need to register. Registration is free. Click here to register now.

  • Welcome to our site! Electro Tech is an online community (with over 170,000 members) who enjoy talking about and building electronic circuits, projects and gadgets. To participate you need to register. Registration is free. Click here to register now.

Help Identify Component

Status
Not open for further replies.

chris_friberg

New Member
I need help finding out how to power this light. Here is a picture of the front of the light, the back of the light, and some type of controller board attached to the light board. The brown and white wires come out the back of the whole unit, so I assume this is for power supply. The black and white wires connect from the light board to the control board. Any ideas?

Front of light board:
**broken link removed**
Back of light board:
**broken link removed**
Control board angle 1:
**broken link removed**
Control board angle 2:
**broken link removed**
Control board back:
**broken link removed**
 
It says AC1 and AC2 on that PCB. I wouldn't advise simply plugging it in (and be careful with mains anyway) but the transformer might have some useful information written on it.

With that many components on the control board, I'd guess it has some form of fading/effects?
 
Where dod you get it from?

It requires mains voltage.

Connect it in series with a 100W light bulb if you're worried about it blowing up.
 
I would start by putting in on a AC power supply starting at 12v and see what happens.
The LEDs are in series/parallel so the number of series connections will give you some idea of the voltage required by the array. But you don't know it this voltage is generated by the circuit or merely delivered by the supply.
That's why it could be anything from 12v to 240v.
Look at the voltage of the electrolytic. This might give some idea of the voltage it is connected to.
Also look at the 3-leaded power device and find out its maximum operating voltage.
Look at the fuse. Find out if it is a resettable device and its current rating. This will give some idea if the input voltage is 12v or 240v.
Put a 10R 0.25watt in series with one lead of the supply and try 12v and UP.

As you increase the voltage, monitor the current.
If you are going to try 120v or 240v, put a 40-60watt bulb in series. Use a low wattage globe, mainly because its cold current is 6 times its operating current.
 
Last edited:
Thanks for the speedy replies. You guys rock. I'll let you guess what it is. It's got about a 12 inch diameter if that helps. As far as fading effects goes, I doubt it. The most it does is blink.
Where would I get 12v AC around the house? I'll try and power it next week and post pictures of the results (whether you care or not).
 
It's a mains input supply. The big cap is on the output it is 100uF 160v. There seems to a lot of LEDs in series, 35+ series so it's probably over 60v or so output. Be careful. :)

It's a weird SMPS because it doesn't have a rectified mains electro, which you can normally use to see if it is rated for 240v or 120v, as this is one of the most expensive parts in a SMPS they only use a 450v electro on 240vAC SMPS.

Not having a mains electro is an interesting new trend... Since it's a fixed load it is probably clever cost cutting to run the SMPS off rectified unfiltered mains.

PS. You can probably tell if it's 240v or 120v by checking the voltage rating written on the 2 big blue X2 caps. (edit) I just saw 275v on one of those blue caps, so its 120v mains only.
 
Last edited:
Status
Not open for further replies.

Latest threads

New Articles From Microcontroller Tips

Back
Top