DiY LEDs - How to Power Them

I have an update on watts for the Inventronics 160w quad channel driver. I was looking at my lights the other day and noticed one of four was out, these are hooked to the Inventronics. I did some dinken around and found a bad connection and fixed it, now it's reading 171w's with just the driver and 4 cobs. closer to what should be instead of 143w's with everything. Just received another of those drivers and a chassis for my next project of mounting my alpines and cobs into. I don't know if the driver takes 11watts or if it puts out more watts than stated? I still like it.

Four CXA3070s on the driver pictured, 700mA version? @medicinehuman

I just hooked one up yesterday to power (4) red/blue strings. 88-89% efficient so far so good. About 110W dissipation, 125W power draw. The strings are only 40Vf each so it could draw more if they were higher Vf.

If there are any high resistance points or a damaged COB, that can add Vf to the string which would make the driver draw more power and the resistance point would get hot. Another possibility if the driver was damaged in some way it could draw more power.

4 CXA's on the pictured driver, will replace 2 CXA3070'S @ 1400mA.

Gotcha, sounds like a nice boost in efficiency! Definitely something wrong drawing 170W instead of (edit) 110W though.

SupraSPL said:

Gotcha, sounds like a nice boost in efficiency! Definitely something wrong drawing 170W instead of 125 though.

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there is 4 cobs on it, and I can't see anything wrong with it. It's not getting too warm or hot anywhere. ?

Do you have a multimeter that can check the current and or voltage on each string?

SupraSPL said:

Do you have a multimeter that can check the current and or voltage on each string?

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I checked each for DC volts 36.6-7 each. All are running equal, maybe it's the watt meter will check it on others later.

It's Alive! My latest creation a 4 CXA3070's running @ 700mA. The wattmeter said 126w that is fans running fast ect. I took 2 of my old lights apart and made this one. The lights weren't that old about 6-7 months. One was a spare along with my Hans panel that is temporarily over a Lemon Kush until tomorrow when the lights come on. This will replace 2 @1400mA, it will be much more efficient now .

Awesome, now you are in business! If they are ABs, 50.5% efficient typical at Tj 50C but you are probably running well below Tj 50C. That is pretty cutting edge and you could even reduce your fan speed to 5V without any loss of light if you want to reclaim a few more watts.

From the testing I have seen, it is relatively easy to show that knocking the junction temps down is a nice but small gain in output/W, but reducing current droop is a huge gain in output/W, even with generic COBs. I guess the difference is, reducing temp droop is almost free while avoiding current droop is expensive at these levels.

They are Z4's, Thank you.

SupraSPL said:

Gotcha, sounds like a nice boost in efficiency! Definitely something wrong drawing 170W instead of (edit) 110W though.

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just got another new quad driver, I will hook it up in the morning and see what it reads. Hopefully not more than 160w.

hey guys, just got these in:
http://www.aliexpress.com/item/2pcs-new-100W-LED-Driver-Light-lamp-Driver-Power-Supply-Heatsink-30V-36V-110V-220V-AC/2055286402.html

funny story-- I attempted to turn amperage all the way down and connected it to an old 10x cree xpg "cob" I bought a year and a half ago. Good thing was, it was already damaged goods - 1 of the 10 LEDs was out. Anyway, it flickered a bit, then went dark and I smelled that 'something burned' smell. I then tested on a newer VANQ full spectrum phosphor cob - lit up nice and bright and I noticed on my KillAWatt 130W. Quickly turned the little screw the other direction until it went down to 50W. Only then did I notice that the driver is actually marked 150W on the PCB. Long story short, i think these will actually do 3.5A at only $15 a pop. Not bad, and I don't feel too bad for the old XPGs i burned up in the process.

I don't yet have a Vero29 to test with, so I'm not sure how high vF will go.

Good info Caretak3r. I got one of these in yesterday also and here is what I have seen so far:

This data is with the driver cold ~25C:
Max output current 3.2A
Min current fully dimmed 1.4A
Max Vf 37.3 so it is a no-go for CXA3070 or Vero29
efficiency 86-88%
NON PFC, that is kind of not cool
The bracket/heatsink is actual aluminum, not steel thankfully.
The dimming pot is a high precision pot, hooked up backward so turning clockwise reduces current.

i should have known you were 1 step ahead of me

call me a rebel, but I've been playing around running v18s in parallel (after testing vf and finding matching cobs). So, I'll probably use these to run 2-3 v18s.

I installed a new Inventronic 1050mA Quad driver and the watts were just the same as other 172w, so checked a 5000k cob and it is drawing 68 watts off a 60w driver. Then checked a space heater, it was 87w over. I think that my watt meter is a little screwey. Can't be that everything else went bad all @ once. At least hope not

I discovered that my old kill-a-watt ez meter was way off also. You can check things like compact fluoros which are usually pretty close to their listed power draw once warmed up.

So how does dimming a driver affect the driver's efficiency?

Based on spec sheets and what I see to be logic, the lower the amps, the lower the potential (of a COB).

Additionally I'm given the impression (once again through spec sheets) that a driver's (constant current) efficiency depends on it's load, which I believe to be directly related to voltage.

In short, I'm led to believe that while dimming may lower light intensity and power draw, it inadvertently results in a less efficient driver.

AquariusPanta said:

So how does dimming a driver affect the driver's efficiency?

Based on spec sheets and what I see to be logic, the lower the amps, the lower the potential (of a COB).

Additionally I'm given the impression (once again through spec sheets) that a driver's (constant current) efficiency depends on it's load, which I believe to be directly related to voltage.

In short, I'm led to believe that while dimming may lower light intensity and power draw, it inadvertently results in a less efficient driver.

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I agree. However, there are cases (such as MW HLG-XXXh-C) where efficiency drops only a little bit (dimmed to no less than 40%). The "dimming losses" are so small, that gains from running softer make the whole system run more efficient.

Gotta test these, chinese drivers out - 1500mA +/- 5% - 39V

Damn, tested out those AB's - damn, just flipped them on for a second. Almost burnt my eye, then took sunglases, and closed my eyes when i were testing other cobs, and still - even with closed eyes cob tends to burn in my retina that cob pattern, haha....
Sick!

UZ, do you have a link to those drivers?