Showing posts with label white. Show all posts
Showing posts with label white. Show all posts
Thursday, December 26, 2013
LDR Based 12V White LED Driver for up to 30 LEDs
While we have now published quite a few LED driver circuits, to date we have not published a design to drive a bunch of high-brightness white LEDs. Such a circuit is now quite desirable as the price of white LEDs has fallen and you can have a handful for not a lot of dollars. However, white LEDs do present a problem because they need a higher drive voltage than monochromatic types such as red, green, orange etc.
Instead of around 1.8V to 2V or thereabouts, they normally require more than 3V to produce their rated brightness. In fact, if you are driving a bunch of them you need to drive them all at constant current otherwise their individual brightness tends to vary markedly. However, if you only have a 12V supply available, you can only put two or maybe three LEDs in series together with a constant current source and this leads to poor efficiency.
The approach in this circuit is to boost the 12V supply to something around 21V and this means that we can have groups of five LEDs, each in series with their own current source transistors. The result is a single PC board with the drive circuitry and 30 white LEDs. It can be used for lighting in caravans and recreational vehicles, emergency lighting or whatever application you can think of. Current drain is around 190mA at 12V.
Now let’s have a look at the circuit of Fig.1. It uses just one IC (a 4093 quad NAND Schmitt trigger gate package), a few transistors and diodes, 30 white LEDs and not much else. So where is the familiar boost converter circuit? Answer: there isn’t one or least not one with an inductor switched by a Mosfet. Instead, there is a charge pump inverter, comprising IC1c, transistors Q2 & Q3, Schottky diodes D1 & D2 and a few capacitors. It works as follows:
IC1c is connected as an inverter oscillator and its running frequency of about 30kHz is determined mainly by the 6.8kΩ resistor between pins 8 & 10 together with the 4.7nF capacitor at pin 8. This produces a rectangular waveform (not quite square but pretty close) at pin 10 to drive complementary switching transistors Q2 & Q3.
The waveform at their commoned emitters drives a diode pump consisting of two 100μF capacitors and Schottky diodes D1 & D2. The waveform generated by the circuit can be seen in the scope photo of Fig.2.
Oscillator IC1c is controlled by an RS (Reset/Set) flipflop comprising the two NAND gates IC1a & IC1b and this is controlled by pushbutton switches S1 and S2. Normally, this has its pin 4 low and pins 1 & 6 are pulled high via 470kΩ resistors. Momentarily closing S1 (ON) pulls pin 6 low, causing the flipflop to change state so that pin 4 now goes high to enable IC1c which now oscillates at 30kHz.
The 30kHz waveform produced by transistors Q2 & Q3 drives the diode pump referred to earlier and this develops about 21V to drive the LED columns. Each column of five white LEDs is driven by its own current source transistor which has a 33Ω emitter resistor. The bases of all six current source transistors (Q4-Q9) are driven from pin 4 of IC1b via a 6.8kΩ resistor and clamped to a maximum of +1.2V by diodes D3 & D4.
Subtract the 0.6V between the base and emitter of each transistor and you are left with 0.6V across each 33Ω resistor, thus setting the LED drive current to 18mA. Switching the circuit off is accomplished by pushing the OFF switch, S2. This momentarily pulls pin 1 low to toggle the RS flipflop, thus causing pin 4 to go low. This disables IC1c, Q2 & Q3 and also turns off the current source transistors.
Note that there is an interesting wrinkle to this drive circuit, because there is no On/Off switch. This means that the current source transistors must be turned off otherwise they would continue to draw current from the 12V supply even when the circuit is nominally off. The current path may not be obvious but it is via the boost circuit’s diodes, D1 & D2.
As well as using the pushbutton switches S1 & S2 to turn the circuit on and off, there is also a facility to automatically turn the circuit on and off depending on ambient light levels. Links L1 & L2 can be used to provide Auto On and Auto Off respectively and these features can be used separately or together.
An LDR (light dependent resistor) is used to monitor the ambient light level. When light falls upon it, it pulls the base of Q1 low, causing pins 12 & 11 of IC1d to go low and its pin 11 to go high. When darkness falls (or the room lights go out), the process is reversed. Depending on whether you have one or both links connected, you can use the pushbuttons to turn the circuit on and off and have it turn on and/off automatically as well.
Q1 also drives a red high brightness LED (LED1) at very low current, via a 470kΩ resistor. This is a bit of a gimmick but it does have the benefit of showing that this part of the circuit is working, if you have to trouble-shoot it.
Pins 1 & 2, 5 & 6 and 8 & 9 of IC1 on the circuit are all swapped. The PC board overlay diagram is correct.
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| 30 White LEDs Driver Circuit Diagram |
Instead of around 1.8V to 2V or thereabouts, they normally require more than 3V to produce their rated brightness. In fact, if you are driving a bunch of them you need to drive them all at constant current otherwise their individual brightness tends to vary markedly. However, if you only have a 12V supply available, you can only put two or maybe three LEDs in series together with a constant current source and this leads to poor efficiency.
The approach in this circuit is to boost the 12V supply to something around 21V and this means that we can have groups of five LEDs, each in series with their own current source transistors. The result is a single PC board with the drive circuitry and 30 white LEDs. It can be used for lighting in caravans and recreational vehicles, emergency lighting or whatever application you can think of. Current drain is around 190mA at 12V.
Circuit description
Now let’s have a look at the circuit of Fig.1. It uses just one IC (a 4093 quad NAND Schmitt trigger gate package), a few transistors and diodes, 30 white LEDs and not much else. So where is the familiar boost converter circuit? Answer: there isn’t one or least not one with an inductor switched by a Mosfet. Instead, there is a charge pump inverter, comprising IC1c, transistors Q2 & Q3, Schottky diodes D1 & D2 and a few capacitors. It works as follows:
IC1c is connected as an inverter oscillator and its running frequency of about 30kHz is determined mainly by the 6.8kΩ resistor between pins 8 & 10 together with the 4.7nF capacitor at pin 8. This produces a rectangular waveform (not quite square but pretty close) at pin 10 to drive complementary switching transistors Q2 & Q3.
The waveform at their commoned emitters drives a diode pump consisting of two 100μF capacitors and Schottky diodes D1 & D2. The waveform generated by the circuit can be seen in the scope photo of Fig.2.
RS flipflop
Oscillator IC1c is controlled by an RS (Reset/Set) flipflop comprising the two NAND gates IC1a & IC1b and this is controlled by pushbutton switches S1 and S2. Normally, this has its pin 4 low and pins 1 & 6 are pulled high via 470kΩ resistors. Momentarily closing S1 (ON) pulls pin 6 low, causing the flipflop to change state so that pin 4 now goes high to enable IC1c which now oscillates at 30kHz.
The 30kHz waveform produced by transistors Q2 & Q3 drives the diode pump referred to earlier and this develops about 21V to drive the LED columns. Each column of five white LEDs is driven by its own current source transistor which has a 33Ω emitter resistor. The bases of all six current source transistors (Q4-Q9) are driven from pin 4 of IC1b via a 6.8kΩ resistor and clamped to a maximum of +1.2V by diodes D3 & D4.
Subtract the 0.6V between the base and emitter of each transistor and you are left with 0.6V across each 33Ω resistor, thus setting the LED drive current to 18mA. Switching the circuit off is accomplished by pushing the OFF switch, S2. This momentarily pulls pin 1 low to toggle the RS flipflop, thus causing pin 4 to go low. This disables IC1c, Q2 & Q3 and also turns off the current source transistors.
Note that there is an interesting wrinkle to this drive circuit, because there is no On/Off switch. This means that the current source transistors must be turned off otherwise they would continue to draw current from the 12V supply even when the circuit is nominally off. The current path may not be obvious but it is via the boost circuit’s diodes, D1 & D2.
Auto on/off
As well as using the pushbutton switches S1 & S2 to turn the circuit on and off, there is also a facility to automatically turn the circuit on and off depending on ambient light levels. Links L1 & L2 can be used to provide Auto On and Auto Off respectively and these features can be used separately or together.
An LDR (light dependent resistor) is used to monitor the ambient light level. When light falls upon it, it pulls the base of Q1 low, causing pins 12 & 11 of IC1d to go low and its pin 11 to go high. When darkness falls (or the room lights go out), the process is reversed. Depending on whether you have one or both links connected, you can use the pushbuttons to turn the circuit on and off and have it turn on and/off automatically as well.
Q1 also drives a red high brightness LED (LED1) at very low current, via a 470kΩ resistor. This is a bit of a gimmick but it does have the benefit of showing that this part of the circuit is working, if you have to trouble-shoot it.
Note:
Pins 1 & 2, 5 & 6 and 8 & 9 of IC1 on the circuit are all swapped. The PC board overlay diagram is correct.
Sunday, April 7, 2013
Mains Powered White LED Lamp
Did it ever occur to you that an array of white LEDs can be used as a small lamp for the living room? If not, read on. LED lamps are available ready-made, look exactly the same as standard halogen lamps and can be fitted in a standard 230-V light fitting. We opened one, and as expected, a capacitor has been used to drop the voltage from 230 V to the voltage suitable for the LEDs. This method is cheaper and smaller compared to using a transformer. The lamp uses only 1 watt and therefore also gives off less light than, say, a 20 W halogen lamp. The light is also somewhat bluer. The circuit operates in the following manner: C1 behaves as a voltage dropping ‘resistor’ and ensures that the current is not too high (about 12 mA).
The bridge rectifier turns the AC voltage into a DC voltage. LEDs can only operate from a DC voltage. They will even fail when the negative voltage is greater then 5 V. The electrolytic capacitor has a double function: it ensures that there is sufficient voltage to light the LEDs when the mains voltage is less than the forward voltage of the LEDs and it takes care of the inrush current peak that occurs when the mains is switched on. This current pulse could otherwise damage the LEDs. Then there is the 560-ohm resistor, it ensures that the current through the LED is more constant and therefore the light output is more uniform.
There is a voltage drop of 6.7 V across the 560-Ω resistor, that is, 12 mA flows through the LEDs. This is a safe value. The total voltage drop across the LEDs is therefore 15 LEDs times 3 V or about 45 V. The voltage across the electrolytic capacitor is a little more than 52V. To understand how C1 functions, we can calculate the impedance (that is, resistance to AC voltage) as follows: 1/(2π·f·C), or: 1/ (2·3.14·50·220·10-9)= 14k4. When we multiply this with 12 mA, we get a voltage drop across the capacitor of 173 V. This works quite well, since the 173-V capacitor voltage plus the 52-V LED voltage equals 225 V. Close enough to the mains voltage, which is officially 230 V.
Mains Powered White LED Lamp Circuit Diagram
Moreover, the latter calculation is not very accurate because the mains voltage is in practice not quite sinusoidal. Furthermore, the mains voltage from which 50-V DC has been removed is far from sinusoidal. Finally, if you need lots of white LEDs then it is worth considering buying one of these lamps and smashing the bulb with a hammer (with a cloth or bag around the bulb to prevent flying glass!) and salvaging the LEDs from it. This can be much cheaper than buying individual LEDs…
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