LED Driver

If you're making a portable you probably need something to watch it on. (Unless you want to guess what's happening in the game, but I wouldn't advise that) Anyway, this forum is your "Hacking a pocket TV/screen" one-stop solution. Share your experiences and knowledge here.

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Erlex
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LED Driver

Post by Erlex »

I know there has been a lot of talk going around to improve the original LED mod, so I was thinking, what about using an LED driver circuit? Like this one that uses a 555 timer to pulse the LED on and off, although this one in particular might not work due to it needing around nine volts, but you get the idea. It would make the screen much brighter, make the LEDs last longer, but may use a bit more power.

Image

Also, I have some experience with laser diode drivers in a past life that points to the conclusion that using one might save power when running the LEDs in series directly off the power supply. Here is a really crude diagram that I found of what I am talking about. Some of the values of the components would need to be changed based on the resistance of the diodes, but yeah.

Image

So what do you guys think? Would it be worth it to try?
samjc3
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Re: LED Driver

Post by samjc3 »

well you could get a sheet of phosphorescent plastic and put that on the back of the screen. it would even out the light dispersion, but its really expensive :?
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Kurt_
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Re: LED Driver

Post by Kurt_ »

Your logic escapes me.

If you pulse the LEDs on and off, brightness goes down. If the pulses are even (20ns on, 20ns off or whatever), your brightness decreases by half.

If you're just talking about a nice efficient power management system, that would definitely increase LED life, but not brighter.
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Erlex
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Re: LED Driver

Post by Erlex »

The pulses are of higher amperage. The point of the pulsing is to keep them from over heating. Just read this. I am awful at explaining these things.

http://www.satcure-focus.com/tutor/page10.htm
Kurt_
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Re: LED Driver

Post by Kurt_ »

Okay, that I understand.

I have one concern though.

I'm no LED expert, but wouldn't alternating no and higher amperage lead to a reduction in life versus a constant lower amperage?
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Erlex
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Re: LED Driver

Post by Erlex »

I am no expert as well, but to my knowledge since LEDs power consumption during start up varies very little (if any) then continuous usage, than I doubt that the burden on the LEDs isn't greater then turning them on and off and just having them continuously on.
Dark-Aries
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Re: LED Driver

Post by Dark-Aries »

Leds already last long when they are set up for the voltage they are rated with proper resistors. They also have the highest lumen per watt (whatever that figure is). The thing I think we need to improve on, is uniform lighting. If you look at most consoles, you'll see very bright corners. It isn't noticable at first but if you look it is. If we can improve backlighting to be uniform, we can decrease voltage, but still have a bright picture.
daftmike
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Re: LED Driver

Post by daftmike »

If the goal is to drive 4 leds from a 7.5V source, the best way to do it in my opinion is to run two sets of 2 in series with a resistor. It uses the fewest parts and is the most efficient way of doing the job.

I think i linked to this website in a previous post of mine, this site has an excellent calculator to help those who are just starting with electronics.
http://led.linear1.org/led.wiz

The best design is always the most simple, a PWM driver would be significant overkill for driving 4 leds at 20mA average current, any potential power saving would have to be weighed against the power used by the driver etc.
But in actual fact it would be less efficient to drive the leds with PWM, leds are always more efficient at lower currents, PWM only really becomes useful when dimming leds, as you can deliver a lower average current more efficiently than constant current regulation.

The lm317 based circuit is however quite a good way of regulating current for driving leds, i use a similar circuit to regulate my led arrays, I posted some pictures here

Whilst cutting edge leds have luminous efficacies over 100lm/W they are very expensive, your average ebay T1 led is probably around 30lm/W and is not even as efficient as the original backlight in the psone screen even after driver losses, you only end up saving power doing the "led mod" by drastically reducing the screen's brightness.

That's not to say it isn't worth it, I reckon by using 4 leds instead of the ccfl on the psone screen you would save over 500mA draw at 7.4V, and that's pretty significant.
Erlex
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Re: LED Driver

Post by Erlex »

Do you think you could post a circuit schematic of the specific driver that you used to drive your LEDs? Forgive me if you have, but I dint find it.

And I am going to test an old laser driver I have lying around to see how that goes and if it works than I am going to try this.
http://rkcstr.nfshost.com/index.php?mai ... cts_id=181

Its a pre-made laser driver, much smaller than anything I could build.
daftmike
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Re: LED Driver

Post by daftmike »

I don't have a schematic as such, the lm317 will maintain a voltage on the adj pin of 1.25v, so if you connect a resistor between the adj pin and vout pin such that R = 1.25V / I , you will get a constant current on the adj pin.

It is the much the same as the picture you posted but for 20mA you would use a resistor of value 1.25/0.02 = 62.5, a common value close to 62.5 is 56ohms, this gives a constant current of about 22mA.
Erlex
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Re: LED Driver

Post by Erlex »

Ah. I see. Thanks for all of your help, it is much appreciated.
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