I have some outdoor LED light stakes that take 24VDC. Each comes with its own 120VAC->24VDC (0.5A) wall wart. There’s a little two prong connector wired to the lights and it has a threaded coupler which plugs into/screws onto the transformer. As purchased, you plug them in and they stay on.
I’d like to build a controller and write a program to turn them on and off, as well as gradually fade them on and off, by controlling the DC voltage and bypassing the wall wart. I’d like to do this for several of them independently. (I currently have eight of these and plan to buy a few more.) Can anyone recommend a controller and shield(s) that could most easily be used to accomplish this?
Any info or pointers would be appreciated!
Thanks
Mark
Off the top of my head I think an Arduino and a set of FET switches like this (https://www.sparkfun.com/products/9627) would do the trick. You could program the Arduino with multiple lighting schemes and have it switch on/off and dim (via PWM) the DC voltage to the LEDs. You need to determine how many LEDs and what current they actually draw. IIRC the basic Arduinos are limited to 6 channels of PWM-able outputs so doing 8+ would require something different (“Mega” Arduino or a separate PWM IC, https://www.sparkfun.com/products/10615).
If I understand your concept properly, you should be able to have a single limiting resistor in series with each LED. The first thought that comes to mind is to have each switch be a double pole device. O