powerRGB

powerRGB is the extension of tinyRGB to drive high power LED’s. For this project I used a 3 x 1W common Anode RGB LED.


Q1 to Q3 are N-Channel HEXFet Mosfet’s with logic level drive and a RDSon at about 50mOhms. R1 to R3 are at about 2k2, R4 to R6 at about 15k and R7 to R9 depend on the LED used and VCC. If you use FET’s with higher RDSon you have to consider RDS in your calculation!

Rx = (Vcc-Vf)/Im - RDSon

[Vcc: Volatge of power supply, Vf: Vorward Voltage of the Diode, Im: Max current of LED]

The software for the AVR is the same as for tinyRGB.

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7 Responses to “powerRGB”

  1. tinyRGB at Tobi’s Corner GERMANY Says:

    [...] If you want to control power LED’s read here: powerRGB. [...]

  2. William UNITED STATES Says:

    Can you provide some part # for the MOSFET that will work with powerRGB? I’m not all that familiar with them, and a stab at Digikey’s search function didn’t return anything useful. Thanks.

    BTW, I find this a much simpler circuit than others I’ve seen, and I like the extensibility to cover higher power RGB. Thanks for posting!

  3. theFloe AUSTRIA Says:

    Hi,
    any N-Channel, Enhancement, Logic level MOSFET should be o.k. You should also select some with low Rds_on. For the STORM hack I used some IRL3103 ( http://www.irf.com/product-info/datasheets/data/irl3103.pdf ).

    Hope that helps… Tobi

  4. Monkey FINLAND Says:

    Why you have those R4 to R6 + Vcc connections? This would work better without them.

  5. theFloe AUSTRIA Says:

    I had problems with some MOSFET’s and with the resistors it worked well…
    Leave at least the series resistor (r1-r3) to limit gate charge currents.

  6. Thomas GERMANY Says:

    Hello Tobi,

    which RGB LED you’ve used and where you bought the led? the only RGB LED I find here is the http://www.led1.de/shop/product_info.php?pName=prolight-power-rgb-led-3-watt-ga-p-308&cName=prolight-power-leds-prolight-power-rgb-leds-c-8_73

  7. theFloe AUSTRIA Says:

    The one shown in the link is o.k. for powerRGB. I bought mine via Ebay from a Seller in China.

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