How hot do drivers get?

Stealthstyle

Stealthstyle

Well-Known Member
Well i thought something was wrong. I just bought a power meter to check the wattage and amps, seems only 210 milliamps are being used by the leds and driver.
Could i have made a faulty connection or would it be the driver?
I checked the meter on the kettle and other lights and it seems very accurate.
 
Stealthstyle

Stealthstyle

Well-Known Member
I cant understand how its only using 200-210 milliamps, all my connections are solid, just the dimmer is left not connected as i thought it was meant to be to use full amount.
Mark i might send the driver back to you to check out if possible next week if its ok with you..
 
JorgeGonzales

JorgeGonzales

Well-Known Member
It's almost definitely not a connection. How many watts does it say? It must be like 25W if you are on 120V?

Easy way to check a meter is a couple light bulbs.
 
JorgeGonzales

JorgeGonzales

Well-Known Member
Anyway, you can google power factor, but the closer to 1 it is the better. It's the ratio of real to apparent power, and good power supplies have power factor correction aka PFC, which gets it up to near one. It's not an easy concept to explain without introducing a whole lot of other concepts, but suffice to say 50 is weird. 25W is weird. 200ma is weird.

So either your meter is weird or your driver is.
 
Stealthstyle

Stealthstyle

Well-Known Member
I appreciate you getting back to me on this.
Once its time for lights on in the morning i will change over to my mars hydro light and on monday send the driver to mark to check it out. i hope its the driver really as i cant figure out what else it will be. It seems Mark is a pretty busy guy so im not happy with bothering him with these problems i should be able to solve myself.
 
JorgeGonzales

JorgeGonzales

Well-Known Member
If you bought a driver and it's only putting out 200ma, it's not your fault. I'm not saying that is definitely what's happening, but I'd wait and hear what Mark has to say.

Your dimming wires aren't touching anything are they? I'd expect that kind of dimming if they were shorted maybe.
 
Stealthstyle

Stealthstyle

Well-Known Member
i cut off the metal on the wires and seperated them on the dimmer cable. they may have been touching though i doubt it. its amazing how bright they can be for 25 watts including fan usage.
 
welight

welight

Well-Known Member
JorgeGonzales said:
Anyway, you can google power factor, but the closer to 1 it is the better. It's the ratio of real to apparent power, and good power supplies have power factor correction aka PFC, which gets it up to near one. It's not an easy concept to explain without introducing a whole lot of other concepts, but suffice to say 50 is weird. 25W is weird. 200ma is weird.

So either your meter is weird or your driver is.
Click to expand...
yes thats correct, and any driver not over 95 is a concern, 50 I suspect is an error in the data, no one producing a driver would even build one with that PFC
Cheers
Mark
 
welight

welight

Well-Known Member
Stealthstyle said:
I appreciate you getting back to me on this.
Once its time for lights on in the morning i will change over to my mars hydro light and on monday send the driver to mark to check it out. i hope its the driver really as i cant figure out what else it will be. It seems Mark is a pretty busy guy so im not happy with bothering him with these problems i should be able to solve myself.
Click to expand...
Not to busy to fix a problem, please send the driver back to me asap
Cheers
Mark
 
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