LED Puzzle To Be Solved

[Howlsoever]

Hi everyone,
My first post here on ReefCentral, hopefully the start of what I hope will end with a nice new reef tank!

I've kept all kinds of things since I was a kid, terrariums, reptiles, all sorts of exotics, the ever-present goldfish and more recently, planted tanks. I've always wanted to stretch out into reefing, although circumstances dictated otherwise and now that I've finally moved into my own place it's possible!

I started accumulating bits and pieces for the project in mid-2012, but like all projects that exist in the planning stage, it has ebbed and swelled. In my mind, it's been everything from a 3-gallon zoa tank to a 150-gallon full reef with sump and the works. I've finally settled on a 80-ish gallon shallow tank with a sump and refugium.

But first, I need some help figuring out what to do with my lights.

One of the pieces of gear I inherited from a friend was a Chinese made LED fixture with two manual dimmers. Although this a pre-built fixture, with the LEDs fixed onto a PCB, I've scoured ReefCentral, and other forums, for information relating to LED drivers and wiring. From all that, I do know the basics (I think!) but I'm no electrician of course.

So I gathered: To wire an LED system up you need: AC Power wired to LED Driver (DC power) wired to the LEDs themselves. Using your typical Meanwell 48W driver, you can drive less than 16 LEDs per string.

Here is a photo of the insides, and spec of the current fixture. These are the figures I could obtain, and yes, I don't see how 55x3W = 120W. The two black connectors which aren't hooked up go to the LED strings on the board, which is one blue and one white. The two pots control dimming for the white and blue strings individually.

Brightwell LED
55x3W (120W)
30 x 10,000k White
25 x 460Nm Blue

https://www.dropbox.com/s/ztw5e76pabec3og/DSC_1220.JPG

The NL50W is what I assume to be the LED driver, and it says in the specs there are no provisions for dimming control. The NL12W is what I assume to be the fan power supply.

Complete specs here:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/1035xwz2ek...93%20HV630.doc

What I want to do is to hook up the fixture for reef controller management (Apex or GHL, haven't decided yet) in future, which means wiring up a Meanwell 48W driver to the system with PWM or 0-10V dimming control.

But here's where I get stuck:
1. How is one 50W driver driving 55 x 3W LEDs? From what I've read, the maximum number of LEDs per driver, in the case of a 48W MW, is only 12-14. Unless the black box on the right hand side is another driver that's simply not labelled. But assuming each driver is handling one string, that's still 25 or 30 LEDs per driver.

2. To hook this up for computer controlled dimming, should I try to retrofit Meanwells as planned, or simply identify what kind of dimming control is being used and go from there? If so, how would I do that?

[camblonie]

Need to post this in DIY section.

[Howlsoever]

I'll do just that, thanks.