I've developing an LED fixture for my aquarium to grow plants. To do so, I've selected several high powered LED's. I'm currently considering driving them with LM317's because I know how to use those and they're simple. I'm not the most skilled with electronics. What is the ideal way to drive high current LEDs?
The LED's I've picked out are these specs:
2 (in parallel) 700mA @ 33V Luxeon K LED 12UP Warm White
3 (in series) 1.2A @ 8.55V Cree XTE 3UP Royal Blue, 25.65V total
2 (in series) 700mA @7.2V Luxeon Rebel 3UP Deep Red, 14.4V total
Best Answer
An LM317-based solution is probably the simpliest one if heatsink and extra power consumption is not a problem. It can also be turned into an advantage if you need to warm up water in your aquarium.
A better solution is to use a single-chip PWM controller, a power MOSFET and an inductor to drive the LEDs. A UC3843 and an IRF540 may suit you well.