Meanwell hlg alternativs ?

Do you know any good alternativs for the meanwell hlg driver?
Is there anything less expensive with good quality,
I need a new hlg 480 or two 240's
but thats more than 120+€$

I have seen lab adjustable drivers on eBay,
And smaller units from osram and phillips(under 200w).
What do you juse and what is on the market that is juseable(god quality no burning!, just safty

Check out the meanwell xlg range or maybe the LRS range. Lrs-350 is usually around 40€

Yes, XLG or - if you're in Europe (looks like it) and have 230V mains - look at the ELG range. Cheaper and just as powerful as the HLG range (unless you are on 110V mains, in which case they are de-rated to 75%). Two 240s are usually cheaper than a single 480 and generally provide more current, too.

Inventronics can be cheaper
Though i'm not that familiar with the whole range.

Inventronics are hard to find online, they work mostly with regional distributor or so is what ive heard.

check out these https://www.arrow.com/en/products/search?q=xlg-240-48&cat=&r=true&sortBy=fullPart&sortDirection=desc

I have noticed those 480w drivers are incredibly expensive, and the HLG range is also quite costly compared to the XLG range.

I always grab the 2x 240w ELG or XLG drivers as they are the most cost effective =) hope this helps


XLG range is by far the cheapest of the 3

EDIT : as @Prawn Connery has stated, check to make sure your countries voltage will support these drivers at maximum specs.

Xlg is just as much as HLG basically. LRS I can say are great little drivers. The 350 is a bit much so I'd use combos of 100,150, & 200.

@Airwalker16 the pricing for the XLG-240 is approx $15-$20 usd cheaper compared to the equivalent HLG-240 =)

XLG-240 also have the L/M/H versions which are constant power drivers. Please dont quote me on this, and if anyone actually tried and/or understand these, could you confirm?

-L / M : drivers have a really wide voltage range and work similar to cc drivers. M for example:
Voltage 90-171 V / full power current: 1400-2100mA. If your string is around 90V then output current is something like 2100mA, You continue getting 2100mA til 114V (similar to a hlg240h-c2100) and if you increase voltage of the string to 171V you get 1400mA. Then you have dimming on top of that.

H: 27-56V driver: max output: 4280 to 6600mA
Works sorta like a cv driver but with contant power: from 27-36V you get max out 6600mA, increase voltage load upto 56V and max output drops towards 4280mA.

This is as far as ive understood but can anyone with direct experience confirm?
@diyled @coreywebster @CobKits @1212ham or anyone with more chops than me?
If it works like this it adds a layer of flexibility to designing lights. From what i hear from our exiled buddy Teknik they made this range with the purpose of replacing old hlg range, which now iis old enough to start to fail on 5 y o units, and in order for not having to stock 5000000 different versions of drivers.

It would be so cool to just be able to add chips to your string until you feel your done and not have to worry about going over a voltage limit nor having to worry about filling out a max voltage or losing out on wattage to the Lordss of Ohm.

If anyone knows for sure, or hhave tried please confirm.

the AB type option should help to max out the driver, cool that Meanwell now have a 240 Watt AB option.
To my view youre right there, there is a range in which he works in cc mode, going above a threshold let him go to cv mode, as the overall power is limited A goes down therefore ( btw V by A, there is no constant power mode, constant current it is).
Should be same to what the HLG datasheets explain better.

Just dislike that the HLG is 1.5% percent more efficient, comparing the 1400mA versions, without this the XLG is no full replacement to me.
Cant imagine they skip their HLG line??

Yeah, theres allways one end of the range which is not that great for efficiency but if you keep close to the right of "recommend range graph" you get decent efficiency, at least on paper.

Im just happy about being able to buy one driver for 36v/48v/54v and not locking my self into a specific voltage by driver.

Also, pretty neat to build say a 3 cob, 36v each fixture at 2100mA, filling out the driver completely. And when i find i just must have some red sup, no prob just buy 2 redstrips at say 25ish V, put them on the same string but the 2 strips in parallel so i dont go over max amp. 5 mins of rewiring later and i have my red sup of approx 25/(108+25)= 19% approx and im still filling out the driver in a meaningful way. Say theyre stretchy later just rinse repeat with some blue. Im sure you can squeeze a few more percent out of hlg but this kinda flexibility is cool af.

cobshopgrow said:

Cant imagine they skip their HLG line??

Click to expand...

No, not for range replacement, more like for making it easier for distributor to have stock of a driver that works for many different scenarios; so as one driver will replace 1400/1750/2100 versions of hlg without actually having to stock 3 versions.

inventronics not really much cheaper here

there are decent china ones 40% cheaper..its a crap shoot if you get a bad batch..but they are fine when they are

What do you Think about the meanwell ndr-480-24
Iam not sure , i want to ask my electric guy whats the diffrens

OLD MOTHER SATIVA said:

inventronics not really much cheaper here

there are decent china ones 40% cheaper..its a crap shoot if you get a bad batch..but they are fine when they are

Click to expand...

Thats my fear with these cheeper China builds .
Like sanpu, huatec ...

And 4 ×100w is another Option, but not an ideal one, there are some cheep ones , for 10 Bugs,
But 4 Times more error-prone ...
Not my way!

Rocket Soul said:

XLG-240 also have the L/M/H versions which are constant power drivers. Please dont quote me on this, and if anyone actually tried and/or understand these, could you confirm?

-L / M : drivers have a really wide voltage range and work similar to cc drivers. M for example:
Voltage 90-171 V / full power current: 1400-2100mA. If your string is around 90V then output current is something like 2100mA, You continue getting 2100mA til 114V (similar to a hlg240h-c2100) and if you increase voltage of the string to 171V you get 1400mA. Then you have dimming on top of that.

H: 27-56V driver: max output: 4280 to 6600mA
Works sorta like a cv driver but with contant power: from 27-36V you get max out 6600mA, increase voltage load upto 56V and max output drops towards 4280mA.

This is as far as ive understood but can anyone with direct experience confirm?
@diyled @coreywebster @CobKits @1212ham or anyone with more chops than me?
If it works like this it adds a layer of flexibility to designing lights. From what i hear from our exiled buddy Teknik they made this range with the purpose of replacing old hlg range, which now iis old enough to start to fail on 5 y o units, and in order for not having to stock 5000000 different versions of drivers.

It would be so cool to just be able to add chips to your string until you feel your done and not have to worry about going over a voltage limit nor having to worry about filling out a max voltage or losing out on wattage to the Lordss of Ohm.

If anyone knows for sure, or hhave tried please confirm.

Click to expand...

XLG drivers are great but not for amateurs, there isnt a limit on the max current. You have to manually set the current with a multi meter then use the leads for dimming. The current doesn't reduce if you put a 54v led on it. The protection usually kicks in but you can get well over 300w out of a 240 H and 225w out of a 150 H. If you look at the datasheet they have a recommended range between voltage and current.

ELG drivers are a better DIY alternative to HLG for those on 230-240v mains.

diyled said:

XLG but they are not for amateurs. You can over load them very easily. A multimeter is required.

The internal pot is not a dimmer!!


XLG drivers are great but not for amateurs, there isnt a limit on the max current. You have to manually set the current with a multi meter then use the leads for dimming. The current doesn't reduce if you put a 54v led on it. The protection usually kicks in but you can get well over 300w out of a 240 H and 225w out of a 150 H. If you look at the datasheet they have a recommended range between voltage and current.

ELG drivers are a better DIY alternative to HLG for those on 230-240v mains.

Click to expand...

Finally someone who knows. Is there a resource for this somewhere?

Rocket Soul said:

Finally someone who knows. Is there a resource for this somewhere?

Click to expand...

I have the full range of XLG-H-AB drivers.. Ive only done the basic function tests so far to understand them, anything detailed you want just let me know.