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Originally Posted by 00Warpig00
I have confirmed tonight that the Maxwellen LED drivers will NOT work with a 0-10V reference voltage to dim and ONLY work with potentiometers.
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I was under the impression that the Maxwellens produced their own internal reference voltage. We would need someone to put a multimeter on the dimmer wires to see what that voltage is.
How exactly did you confirm that the 0-10v won't work? I'm just curious.
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The Dim wires on the Maxewllen's are not polarized. I used a single aaa battery and two aaa batteries in series to put across the dimmer wires to test. Both voltages 1.5/3V gave the same results. When hooked up in one polarity they caused the drivers to turn off output completely. When the polarity was reversed the drivers acted like they were creating a lightning effect. The LED's would flash at full brightness for a couple milliseconds and then turn off and then flash again. Really looked like lightning effect.
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I'm not following what you are saying. Let me see if I am understanding you correctly.
You used AA batteries for a 1.5 and 3 volt signal and applied that to the dimmer wires, right?
If that's the case, and if these Maxwellens produce their own reference voltage, you're risking blowing the dimmer. Some LED drivers have tender dimmers and if they get too much voltage, things go wrong.
This would entirely explain the odd results you got but contradict what you're saying about the polarity. How did you decide that they were not polarized?
First-- you said that the dimmer wires were not polarized. I can't see how this is true at all. Any DC system is polarized. One of those wires has to be + and one -. When you applied the batteries in the position that shut the light off, you basically were giving it reversed voltage (ie just blocking the voltage signal altogether as current isn't going to flow backwards through the batteries). That's why the LEDs shut off. No voltage detected in the dimmer.
But when you hooked it up the other way, your LEDs did a lightening effect. I don't know what exactly the internal electronics were doing, but you effectively were giving it too much voltage and possibly wreaking havoc with your dimmer. Chances are the flashing/dimming effect were the capacitor charging and discharging, not quite sure what exactly to be doing with the excess voltage reference in the dimmer.
Is anyone dimming these with a 10K ohm pot? If so, and it's working a smooth linear 0-100% (or something similar) then they likely are a 10v reference. If that's the case, there should be some way to rig them up to accept a DIM4 or similar controller.