DiY LEDs - How to Power Them

thanks Jorge..yes i know so little i sure can use the help

i do have a multitester that can sense volateg

it seems to say one can adjust the voltage using the built in potentiometer

i better hope so anyway..seeing 48v when i have 36 v cobs did make my eyes raise but with our low canadian dollar

the price of the HLG-120h-48 was too enticing

JorgeGonzales said:

I don't understand why you would need added resistance at all. It's a CV driver, so what "wear and tear" would there be on the COBs? Some would run a few ma more or less, but they'd all be happy.

I've never used this series of Meanwell though, so maybe I'm not fully grokking how it works. Take the HLG-185H

View attachment 3693802


So at 4.2A lets say. Constant Current Region is 21-42V, what does that mean exactly, when it's a 42V driver. What happens when you put a 36V cob on there, or two in parallel? Two 36V cobs at 2.2A each would be about 158W, so is that how the driver behaves?

Or do you just get one 36V cob held at a constant 4.4A and that's it.

Click to expand...

i think using the resistors in series helps avoid what people talk about with runaway current when using parallel wiring methods with these types of drivers.it is probably to balance the current better when running at normal loads(when no cob is burnt out) because once a cob does fail in this type of system the unused current goes to the remaining cobs unless they are all fuse protected?

OMS- if you get more of those, get the 42v version next time. It will give you an extra .4 amps. If you have 3 COBs on that driver and one fails (I have not had this happen yet) the other 2 will run @ 75-80 watts. If you have enough cooling to protect each @ 80 watts, then you shouldn't need to fuse anything, unless you want to.

nge,

i bought the 48 v because they were available at 14.95....for 120 w MW

if i had to go full retail i woulda got 36 v

i am considering fuses..

gracias

Say I want a 100%, 75%, 50% power switch rather than a potentiometer. Something like this with the positive dimmer lead to the common terminal, then a 75k and 50k on the neg terminals, and off is open for 100%?

http://www.ebay.com/itm/271285928806

Atulip said:

Say I want a 100%, 75%, 50% power switch rather than a potentiometer. Something like this with the positive dimmer lead to the common terminal, then a 75k and 50k on the neg terminals, and off is open for 100%?

http://www.ebay.com/itm/271285928806

Click to expand...

That will work, or you can use a DPDT on-on-on so you can have 50-75-100 in order. That's what I did, because I liked them in order and had a bag of them.

I came up with about three different ways to do it, all of them hurt my head.

Atulip said:

Say I want a 100%, 75%, 50% power switch rather than a potentiometer. Something like this with the positive dimmer lead to the common terminal, then a 75k and 50k on the neg terminals, and off is open for 100%?

http://www.ebay.com/itm/271285928806

Click to expand...

Also, and you might have a plan for this, square holes are a real pain in the ass.

Thanks, wasn't sure if I had that right. I like 100% in the middle as I probably won't use it(oversized driver, 100w per 3590 @ 100%) so I'm less likely to bump it to the middle position and forget it there.

Round ones are even cheaper. Glad you said something, I would've been milling at my frame with a drill press or something lol

http://www.ebay.com/itm/272018885936

Bill Lidgate said:

Here is another power supply bargain: a 300w supply for $29 ($0.0967 per watt!) IP67, PFC, 94% efficient, etc. made by a good company
http://www.allelectronics.com/make-a-store/item/ps-1028/28-vdc-10.71a-power-supply-led-driver/1.html
they have 50+ units and will do free shipping if you buy enough,
note these are constant voltage (CV) and not nearly as flexible as CC/CV units like the Mean Well HLG series,
they put out 28VDC at 10.7A and that's it, no dimming, no trimming!
spec sheet here:
http://www.trpssl.com/driver_spec_sheets/TRV-300.pdf

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For a simple hook up you have to go with 15W LEDs to use 28V, or do some fancy series parallel stuff.

18 x Vero 10s (BXRC-40E1000-B-23, $4.14 ea. at Digikey) plus the $29 PS would give a $103.52 setup with 34,000 Lm at a very good 327.61 Lm/$ and 2.72 W/$ (before rails etc) but its a bit of work to hook up, easy to cool though

By comparison the Fluence SPYDRx Plus is 0.352 W/$ (8 times more expensive) but is turn-key with only a credit card work out!

The Led Series/Parallel calculator is useful to figure out whats happening INSIDE the COBs, they all contain small (0.5-2W) individual LEDs arranged in series/parallel arrays. These little white LEDs are all 2-3.5 Vf so the VERO 10 COB is probably a 8S3P array (8 series strings in 3 parallels = 24 total LEDs).

Good companies use very well matched LEDs in their COBs which give even brightness, but el cheapo Chinese COBs sadly do not, see here:
h

I saw these 60W epistar modules, 660nm, a lot of five for $65 on Aliexpress. I was thinking that would make a nifty red supplamental light. So far I'm fairly comfortable thinking about how to power cobs but I wonder where you can run into trouble with this type of module?

http://www.aliexpress.com/store/product/5PCS-60W-Epileds-Led-Deep-Red-660nm-22-25V-700-1400mA-LED-Light-Emitter-For-DIY/434692_1957658194.html

any thoughts? I've seen similar modules up to 100W with Cree XP-E's.

SaltyNuts said:

I saw these 60W epistar modules, 660nm, a lot of five for $65 on Aliexpress. I was thinking that would make a nifty red supplamental light. So far I'm fairly comfortable thinking about how to power cobs but I wonder where you can run into trouble with this type of module?
http://www.aliexpress.com/store/product/5PCS-60W-Epileds-Led-Deep-Red-660nm-22-25V-700-1400mA-LED-Light-Emitter-For-DIY/434692_1957658194.html any thoughts? I've seen similar modules up to 100W with Cree XP-E's.

Click to expand...

its often very difficult to get accurate data on Chinese purchases before they arrive, these state "60W" but the ad also says:
"0.7A at 22Vf" (=15.4W)
and
"1.4A at 25Vf" (=35W)

realistically these are 24Vf modules that make 28W and if so they are probably a 10S2P array of 2.2V LEDs running at 1.3 W each
Like all 24V LED arrays 28V will likely kill them in short order.

Bill Lidgate said:

its often very difficult to get accurate data on Chinese purchases before they arrive, these state "60W" but the ad also says:
"0.7A at 22Vf" (=15.4W)
and
"1.4A at 25Vf" (=35W)

realistically these are 24Vf modules that make 28W and if so they are probably a 10S2P array of 2.2V LEDs running at 1.3 W each
Like all 24V LED arrays 28V will likely kill them in short order.

Click to expand...

thank you. They do seem a bit dodgy. Not as much value as it seems.

i got myhlg 120h 48a
discounted MEANWELL drivers..they are adjustable..

question
so i hook up a power cord and plug it in

and attach my multimeter..[set to v] to the two output wires then adjust

it to 36 v vfor the NICHIA j130b?

my heat sinks and cob holders cometh eventually

OLD MOTHER SATIVA said:

i got myhlg 120h 48a
discounted MEANWELL drivers..they are adjustable..

question
so i hook up a power cord and plug it in

and attach my multimeter..[set to v] to View attachment 3702012 the two output wires then adjust

it to 36 v vfor the NICHIA j130b?

my heat sinks and cob holders cometh eventually

Click to expand...

God I still don't understand Thames damned drivers... and it's been explained to me a few times in different ways.

I haven't worked with this but I thought we could crank Vo to maximum and then set the current to what our design needs.

it says vo and lo..hopefully someone has done this..
it would help to know before i electrify it..
i want to hook up three nichia j130b's to it at 40 each or something as close to maxing out the driver.

OLD MOTHER SATIVA said:

it says vo and lo..hopefully someone has done this..
it would help to know before i electrify it..
i want to hook up three nichia j130b's to it at 40 each or something as close to maxing out the driver.

Click to expand...

the driver in constant current range will push 2.5a. Is that a bit much for a nichia 130b ? nominal = 1.150A max = 2.7A.
Maybe run them in parallel to lower the current ?

forgive my ignorance in electronics, but would it be possible to run 2 drivers in series to fill in the fractions of COBs worth of voltage left when running cxb3590s @ 1050ma on popular drivers? google yields conflicting results

Mathematix said:

forgive my ignorance in electronics, but would it be possible to run 2 drivers in series to fill in the fractions of COBs worth of voltage left when running cxb3590s @ 1050ma on popular drivers? google yields conflicting results

Click to expand...

a 240H-1050B can run six 3590's safely what is it that you want to do?

Evil-Mobo said:

a 240H-1050B can run six 3590's safely what is it that you want to do?

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a 185h-c1050b's 190v runs 5.5 cxb3590s @ 1050ma, i want to put (2) 185h-c1050bs in series to power 11 cobs for a long and narrow growspace with a : · : · : · : config. If 2 drivers are used to power 5 cobs each for 10 total, the middle cob's worth of light is forgone which I'd like to avoid.