Ideal for automotive, entertainment, and architectural lighting, this solution offers enhanced brightness control, current protection, and easy customization for versatile lighting applications.
RGB LED lighting drivers are essential components in modern lighting systems, offering precise control over red, green, and blue (RGB) LEDs to create a wide range of color combinations and dynamic lighting effects. These drivers regulate the voltage and current supplied to each LED channel, ensuring optimal brightness, color consistency, and energy efficiency. RGB LED drivers are crucial in applications such as architectural lighting, stage and event lighting, automotive interiors, and home automation, where customizable and vibrant lighting is needed. With their ability to produce millions of colors, they enable mood lighting, aesthetic enhancements, and even functional lighting solutions across industries.
The Multi-String RGB LED Lighting reference design TIDM-RGB-LED by Texas Instruments is an ideal solution for automotive, entertainment, retail, and decorative lighting applications. It offers robust control over multiple LED strings with features like dimming and color mixing. This design enables independent multi-string LED management, utilising eight separate LED strings that can be digitally controlled to achieve precise colour and brightness adjustments.
At the core of this design is an LED driver composed of eight independent, digitally regulated DC/DC power converters, each driving one of the eight LED strings. This setup allows for detailed color mixing, especially when using RGB LED strings, making the design suitable for various lighting scenarios requiring either white or colored light. Precisely, the power supply consists of six Boost DC/DC converters for controlling the red, green, and blue LED strings and two SEPIC DC/DC converters dedicated to driving white LED strings. This flexibility allows for various lighting effects, from pure color illumination to nuanced white light settings.
Optimized Design with Enhanced Current Protection
The design is optimized for compatibility with a nominal 12-18 VDC input range, ensuring efficient operation in various environments where these voltage levels are common, such as automotive or architectural lighting systems. The driver is designed to handle up to 50 mA of current per string, and it includes over-current protection to safeguard the board and other components from excessive current, which could lead to damage. A key feature of this reference design is its precise dimming control, allowing users to adjust the brightness of each string independently.
This is complemented by robust color mixing capabilities made possible through the integration of the C2000 Piccolo TMS320F28027 microcontroller. This advanced microcontroller provides precise digital control over the lighting, enabling users to create a wide spectrum of color effects and transitions, which are particularly valuable in entertainment or decorative lighting settings. In addition to its powerful hardware, the Multi-String RGB LED Lighting reference design is supported by a comprehensive set of software tools and resources. The platform can be purchased with a full hardware kit, including software examples, libraries, and a graphical user interface (GUI) for easy configuration and control.
The package also includes technical application notes and user guides that walk users through the system’s setup and operation, providing step-by-step instructions based on a solid theoretical foundation. This design reference is a versatile and reliable solution for applications requiring customizable LED lighting with advanced features like color mixing, dimming, and independent string control, making it suitable for various high-performance lighting environments.
Texas Instruments has tested this reference design. It comes with a bill of materials (BOM), schematics, assembly drawing, printed circuit board (PCB) layout, and more. The company’s website has additional data about the reference design. To read more about this reference design, click here.
