I was wondering if anyone has either made a dimmer to manually control an led's brightness. Or if they have bought any that worked
at its most basic, all you need is a variable resistor. or, indeed, something like a variable power supply. (though this would give you STEPS of reduced lighting. not a true dimmer)
for reliability (or better reliability) a pulse dimmers is best. effectively this switches the LED's on and of. how fast this is done, gives you the dimmer effect.
I've made both of the first type. and noted a few things:
I. reliability. both showed patchy reliability.
2. both showed that not all the LED's turned on or off at the same time.
3. hot switching the variable power supply, is not good for it!!!!!!!!!!!
I've used many pulse dimmers (though not for fishkeping) and noted:
1. most types give much better reliability than the "variable power" option
2. all the LED's turned on and off at the same time.
3 vastly important. the higher the quality (read more expensive), the better and longer they worked for.
thing is, is it worth the cost of a quality setup?