Home assistant control for dimming grow lights constant current driver.

[CriahTison]

Great vids, thx for taking the time to share. I am in process of designing a custom grow light using an HLG-480H-B1400B driver and Samsung Horticulture LED Modules. Since I am in design mode for the light, I want to consider home automation while at this stage.

I am definitely a novice, but not an uninformed one. Powering and triggering the LED driver/lights on and off is clearly straightforward, and if that is all I want to do, I would just use an off-the-shelf smart plug, which is what I do for my current lights. However, I have been thinking about the 0-10V dimming functionality built into this meanwell driver and how one would best incorporate that in an automated smart home system (I only use Google home now, and hate the trigger less and super limited functionality routines, so this could be an excuse to get into home assistant and the whole 9 yards anyway. At the same time, I realize that it might be overkill or less practical than it seemed and thus it is likely that I won’t use it much, but having said that, it could be cool to have artificial sunrise/sunset and perhaps cycle dimming for different growth stages/rooms (in my previous life in plant science R&D, we even used to simulate clouds passing this way). Anyway, what I am trying to figure out is what device you would use to connect to the DIM+/DIM- ports on the Meanwell driver that would interface with - say - your raspberry pi or computer and home assistant, such that you could ultimately set up automations, e.g slowly ramp the lights to 100% when they come on in the morning, if the lights get too hot, dim them to 80%, etc. It seems like the rp4 or the esp boards have PWM outputs but not 0-10V, only 3.3 or 5, so that doesn’t work with out trying to step up the Voltage, which seems complicated. Is there a shield or module that is built for this? I don’t want to waste money or time (or burn anything down), so if anybody could at least shove me in the right direction that would be great. A smart plug/relay for on/off I can do, the relay boards are fairly straightforward, however, I can’t seem to land on the right hardware for the 0-10v PWM dimming for a 480W high voltage DC constant current driver, other than people putting on the manual knob/potentiometer, which isn’t automation at all. Anybody help steer me to what I need???

[Rokko]

You have a very big project, but why you complicate everything so much. Try to think easier and probably you'll do it faster.

[MaccGreen]

In fact, this is one of the concepts of a smart home that independently helps its owner solve problems related to electrics and other equipment. Smart technology is cool and maybe I will also buy such a thing to make it easier for me to manage and monitor my house. For now I only use Vivint home security in order to protect myself and my loved ones who live in the same house with me. I'm a bit of a security nut and that's why I have fuses on electrical appliances and sockets all over my house. I also use iron shutters for windows so that no one gets into my house at night while I'm sleeping. What do you think about such security measures? Do you consider them normal?