cxb 3590 damaged?

I recently built a led panel with 3x 36v cobs with a erao lcn200w 180t. Wich I bought from cutter electronics. It's a 1800mah driver and it says on the website it will run between 2 and 3 cxb3590 36v. And for some reason they were working fine wen I first powered them up then they started getting dimmer and dimmer a few moments later. Idk wtf Is happening . They are not very bright at all now... Please help? They sorta flicker too

got a voltmeter? a voltmeter or another driver would be helpful for testing

BOBBY_G said:

got a voltmeter? a voltmeter or another driver would be helpful for testing

Click to expand...

I dnt have a volt meter but I have the lcn200w 140t. The smaller 1400 Mah driver powering my other diy light with 4cxb on it

Take a picture of it with your iPhone. iPhone will adjust so you can see each and every led!

Check to make sure all of the connections are tight. If you have a COB holder make sure the conection to the chip is good and clean. Look to make sure any thermal paste is not on the the COB plus and minus contacts. Check your connection between the driver and the wire to the COBs.

If that dont work look for a ground. What that means is look for a bare wire touching something.

If you dont see one. Get a multimeter. They are around $5 at Harbor Freight or about $10 at Menards or Home Depot. This is what mine looks like. Notice the number 1 on the left side. This is what it reads when the probes are not touching. The other picture shows what it looks like when the probes are touching.

To start you need to set the dial to the ohms symbol. It looks like a upside down u with feet. Goggle it if you need. Then you can use it to to check for a short. If you have the COB holder that is common get a 1mm pin or use a paper clip to disconnect one wire from the COB holder. There should be two places where you can slide a wire in. Shove the pin or paper clip into the open slot and pull the wire out. This can be a pain but keep wiggling the pin around till it comes out.

Once one end of the wire is out you can test that wire for a short. Take a probe and touch the wire end. Then touch the other end to a bare piece of the light frame you COB is mounted to. If that wire has a short you will get the same thing as you get when your two probes touched. It is best to test the frame at several spots to make sure that you got a piece of the frame that the wire shorted to.

If that wire did not show a short do the same for another COB wire.

MAKE SURE THAT THE POWER IS OFF WHEN DOING THIS TESTING.

If this doesnt work maybe someone else has something else you can do.

insert username said:

I recently built a led panel with 3x 36v cobs with a erao lcn200w 180t. Wich I bought from cutter electronics. It's a 1800mah driver and it says on the website it will run between 2 and 3 cxb3590 36v. And for some reason they were working fine wen I first powered them up then they started getting dimmer and dimmer a few moments later. Idk wtf Is happening . They are not very bright at all now... Please help? They sorta flicker too

Click to expand...

do you have an image/schematic of how you have this wired up
Cheers
Mark

welight said:

do you have an image/schematic of how you have this wired up
Cheers
Mark

Click to expand...

I have these pics

blue wire is going to the negative on the cob to the left of the picture, and brown wire to the positive of the cob on the right. the blue wire has the positive going into the negative of the next cob in the series and then that cob is going into the positive of the next cob to complete the series.

Also. I soldered the blue and brown wires to the led drivers brown and blue output wires. But have wagoed the power lead wires

Did you clean out the metal burrs when you drilled threw the heat sink? If not you could have a short on these wires.

take your driver and hook it up to each cob individually

insert username said:

I recently built a led panel with 3x 36v cobs with a erao lcn200w 180t. Wich I bought from cutter electronics. It's a 1800mah driver and it says on the website it will run between 2 and 3 cxb3590 36v. And for some reason they were working fine wen I first powered them up then they started getting dimmer and dimmer a few moments later. Idk wtf Is happening . They are not very bright at all now... Please help? They sorta flicker too

Click to expand...

Interesting. I suspect the driver. You need a multimeter to check what is happening on the string, and on the dimming circuit.
When a COB goes...it goes. Usually see each die burned out little black spots. As well as dimming to the lowest can flicker sometimes on drivers sometimes. So after everything you said, I think the driver is the issue.

BOBBY_G said:

take your driver and hook it up to each cob individually

Click to expand...

Bad idea. Not within spec. 64-112v

I suspect a short after a COB. On the neutral wire. Here is why. The power goes to the COB and it lights up. Then after the COB it grounds out and the driver starts sending more juice to the COBs to keep the voltage constant. The COB gets brighter then the driver drops the power down to keep it constant. So the COB appears to flicker.

This happened when I set up my first light. It was a short. I replaced a wire and had no more problems.

But I dont have any real electronics training so I could be wrong.

The dimmer wires are crossed so it goes to 10% power. At least it looks like they're crossed, idk, looks like frayed wires sticking out uncapped. They have to be both capped off. Actually I can see in the 3rd pic that you have the dim wires taped, but it looks like they're taped together. Have to be separated.

Greengenes707 said:

Bad idea. Not within spec. 64-112v

Click to expand...

My bad yeah youd need two to get to the proper voltage.

so better instruction - pull one cob at a time out to see if you have a bad one

Are the dimmer wires taped off, you dont want shorts on these?
Cheers
Mark

BobCajun said:

The dimmer wires are crossed so it goes to 10% power. At least it looks like they're crossed, idk, looks like frayed wires sticking out uncapped. They have to be both capped off. Actually I can see in the 3rd pic that you have the dim wires taped, but it looks like they're taped together. Have to be separated.

Click to expand...

check these things,and also i wonder if maybe where the wires go into the cob holders,make sure none of those wires are touching the metal holders or they would short out on the heatsink.did you use solid core wire or stranded wire ?

welight said:

Are the dimmer wires taped off, you dont want shorts on these?
Cheers
Mark

Click to expand...

Definately both capped and I am using stranded wire that has soldered tips where they enter the cob

by the way Did you ground the driver? (green/yellow) It doesnt look like it as I can see just 2 pins on the plug. Or what am I missing here?

HighOnDIYLife said:

by the way Did you ground the driver? (green/yellow) It doesnt look like it as I can see just 2 pins on the plug. Or what am I missing here?

Click to expand...

Ye the driver is grounded with a 3pin plug, that plug u can see is for the fan power supply