Stupid wiring question

[martinmcnally]

Originally Posted by daplatapus

OK, so I built my LED light and used a Dim4 board to get sunrise/sunset. But... because the LED's still light up at 0V they don't really ramp up. I put the drivers on a timer so they come on instantly (albeit at 10% but it's still quite bright) then they ramp up from there. Is there a way to put in a resistor or something to kill that 10%? So that when the timers kick in, the drivers putting out 10% are still not putting out enough to actually light the LED's yet? SO I guess in theory you'd only get 90% output of the LED at max even though the driver is putting out 100%

Smack me if that doesn't make sense, my electrical knowledge is almost 0 :P

It depends on the driver. I'm guessing you are using inventronics drivers which start at 10%?

If you were to go with some MeanWells you will get true 0-100% dimming.

Your resistor idea would not work in series as a resistor will only step down the voltage across the LEDs not the current and its the current that is controlling the brightness. However a resistor placed in parallel would do the trick however you would have to do some experimentation to see what size of resistor would be acceptable.