DiY LEDs - How to Power Them

elkamino · Dec 26, 2018

Hello i have a question and I’m hoping you wise LEDfolks can help. I have 4 of these mid grade lights and the drivers are going bad one by one on them. The fixtures each have 3 panels and 3 drivers, 2 drive the white LED boards at 100w each and one drives the red diodes at 50w. I don’t know much about driver tech, but is there any reason I shouldn’t just wire in a new driver? I’ve already swapped out drivers no problem, but I now need to buy either a new light or repair/replace the driver. Anyone have a recommendation? I imagine they may all need replacing... Thanks in advance, here’s whats failing:

Vd22 · Dec 26, 2018

elkamino said:
View attachment 4255250 Hello

No pro here, but i dont think its a driver problem, either wire problem or lights.
try to wire a "working" driver to the other board see if lights work.

elkamino · Dec 26, 2018

Vd22 said:
No pro here, but i dont think its a driver problem, either wire problem or lights.
try to wire a "working" driver to the other board see if lights work.

Thanks but I’ve already swapped a non-working one with a working one and it worked. I also disassembled it as best I could and there was definitely the burnt electronics smell there. I got 4 of the lights in a swap, so 12 drivers total. 3 have burnt out already, and I expect more to go soon.

I will check wires and connections again tho, just because one thing happened once doesn’t mean it’ll be the problem again... good tip.

whytewidow · Dec 26, 2018

elkamino said:
View attachment 4255250 Hello i have a question and I’m hoping you wise LEDfolks can help. I have 4 of these mid grade lights and the drivers are going bad one by one on them. The fixtures each have 3 panels and 3 drivers, 2 drive the white LED boards at 100w each and one drives the red diodes at 50w. I don’t know much about driver tech, but is there any reason I shouldn’t just wire in a new driver? I’ve already swapped out drivers no problem, but I now need to buy either a new light or repair/replace the driver. Anyone have a recommendation? I imagine they may all need replacing... Thanks in advance, here’s whats failing:
View attachment 4255251

I imagine the LEDs in it are epistar diodes if they are even that. Its older tech. Not very efficient. Once you replace the drivers the diodes will start to go next. Just save your money and build a light. If you can replace a driver. You can build one. Either with quantum boards, strips, or cobs. By the time you pay to replace all your drivers as they burn out. You couldve paid for top of line diodes and drivers more than likely.

whytewidow · Dec 26, 2018

Vd22 said:
No pro here, but i dont think its a driver problem, either wire problem or lights.
try to wire a "working" driver to the other board see if lights work.

I agree or diodes are burnt up.

elkamino · Dec 26, 2018

whytewidow said:
I imagine the LEDs in it are epistar diodes if they are even that. Its older tech. Not very efficient. Once you replace the drivers the diodes will start to go next. Just save your money and build a light. If you can replace a driver. You can build one. Either with quantum boards, strips, or cobs. By the time you pay to replace all your drivers as they burn out. You couldve paid for top of line diodes and drivers more than likely.

Ok. Great advice There. Thank you. I won’t waste anymore money on it!

whytewidow · Dec 26, 2018

elkamino said:
Ok. Great advice There. Thank you. I won’t waste anymore money on it!

I'm not sayin they are garbage or anything, bc they will grow decent herb. Its jus older tech that's outdated. And theyve come out with some amazing leds now. And honestly you'll have the same amount of money in it. Except you'll still be running not as efficient or as much par with it.

What size area are you running?,

Canadain Closet Gardener · Dec 26, 2018

elkamino said:
View attachment 4255250 Hello i have a question and I’m hoping you wise LEDfolks can help. I have 4 of these mid grade lights and the drivers are going bad one by one on them. The fixtures each have 3 panels and 3 drivers, 2 drive the white LED boards at 100w each and one drives the red diodes at 50w. I don’t know much about driver tech, but is there any reason I shouldn’t just wire in a new driver? I’ve already swapped out drivers no problem, but I now need to buy either a new light or repair/replace the driver. Anyone have a recommendation? I imagine they may all need replacing... Thanks in advance, here’s whats failing:
View attachment 4255251

No need to replace all the drivers. I would just replace the dead one. You could most likely replace it for less than $50 with an Mean Well driver at arrow or digikey. Once you retire the lights pull out all the drivers as they still will be good to power other stuff.
Cheers
CCG

whytewidow · Dec 26, 2018

Canadain Closet Gardener said:
No need to replace all the drivers. I would just replace the dead one. You could most likely replace it for less than $50 with an Mean Well driver at arrow or digikey. Once you retire the lights pull out all the drivers as they still will be good to power other stuff.
Cheers
CCG

He will have to replace them all. Eventually. Hes already replaced several appearently. Why keep sinking money into old tech. He couldve already built a super nice light by now.

I wasnt meaning replace them all at once.

exoticcloud · Dec 26, 2018

whytewidow said:
No problem. You only need to buy one programmer. You can program 100s with one programmer. Once you program the driver you unhook it. And it holds the memory of whatever settings you set. Then if you wanna change it at some point. You unhook the power from the driver. Hook up your programmer. Adjust it. Unhook. Power it back up.

Thx for making this more clear, so for two different schedules,with two 480H hlkgs, would I need two programmers or just this one would allow me to select the specific driver and set it to specific schedule? One last question do you by any chance know which inventronics model can be compared to hlg 480h? If I would not find the inventronics for cheaper than MW, ofcourse I would go mw, for the quality
I would appreciate your help

TokenBlackGuyIC · Dec 26, 2018

I have a question about the HLG-600H-54A that I purchased and received. I am confused about the three wires shown below in red. What do they wire upto?

This driver will be first wired to only 2x 288v2s for Vegging and be dimmed. I will be adding two more 288v2s for flowering.

KonopCh · Dec 27, 2018

Last night I open the tent and lights were off. But I looked into "sky" and saw FR diodes shining, which are on their own driver. Also some diodes of the Q strips were shining. Just a little, not like if they would be on.
So, is this normal? I guess some mA goes to diodes and they need so little, so they're shining?

Randomblame · Dec 27, 2018

KonopCh said:
Last night I open the tent and lights were off. But I looked into "sky" and saw FR diodes shining, which are on their own driver. Also some diodes of the Q strips were shining. Just a little, not like if they would be on.
So, is this normal? I guess some mA goes to diodes and they need so little, so they're shining?

Yepp, there is a residual voltage stored in the capacitors after a few minutes that should go off. If not you have leakage currents ...or it is triggered by heat. Normally they should go off in a few minutes.

Randomblame · Dec 27, 2018

TokenBlackGuyIC said:
I have a question about the HLG-600H-54A that I purchased and received. I am confused about the three wires shown below in red. What do they wire upto?

This driver will be first wired to only 2x 288v2s for Vegging and be dimmed. I will be adding two more 288v2s for flowering.

View attachment 4255441

Thats just a 5v dc output one can use for an additional relay to switch the light off. If you dimm it down without relay the driver will switch in standy by mode. You can also use it to power a 5v PWM controller. But there is no need to use them; put a bit iso tape around the wires and hide them as good as possible.

TokenBlackGuyIC · Dec 27, 2018

Randomblame said:
Thats just a 5v dc output one can use for an additional relay to switch the light off. If you dimm it down without relay the driver will switch in standy by mode. You can also use it to power a 5v PWM controller. But there is no need to use them; put a bit iso tape around the wires and hide them as good as possible.

View attachment 4255660

Thank you for that info.

Randomblame · Dec 27, 2018

elkamino said:
View attachment 4255250 Hello i have a question and I’m hoping you wise LEDfolks can help. I have 4 of these mid grade lights and the drivers are going bad one by one on them. The fixtures each have 3 panels and 3 drivers, 2 drive the white LED boards at 100w each and one drives the red diodes at 50w. I don’t know much about driver tech, but is there any reason I shouldn’t just wire in a new driver? I’ve already swapped out drivers no problem, but I now need to buy either a new light or repair/replace the driver. Anyone have a recommendation? I imagine they may all need replacing... Thanks in advance, here’s whats failing:
View attachment 4255251

Hmm! Instead of a 100w 24v driver for each two boards you could use an HLG-480H-24 to power all the boards with just one big driver. These big Meanwell drivers have 7 years warranty! And the good thing is, you can use it also to run ~20-30 Samsung H-influx L06 strips in parallel(same LM301b you'll find on quantumboards).
You could build the new light while using this one and when its done you only need to change the driver to fire the new one up. I would also reuse the deepred strips until you have something better. Those strips are still rare and to make own strips from XP-E's or Osram Square can be expensive. Such a diodes costs 2-3 bucks each..

exoticcloud · Dec 28, 2018

whytewidow said:
I'm not sayin they are garbage or anything, bc they will grow decent herb. Its jus older tech that's outdated. And theyve come out with some amazing leds now. And honestly you'll have the same amount of money in it. Except you'll still be running not as efficient or as much par with it.

What size area are you running?,

sorry for my bugging ass but just want to ask 2question
for example three drivers, one programmer three different lighting schedules, can it be done? or each driver /schedule needs programmer?
second one : any inventronics or similar budget driver that would suffice going 2100ma or more and being on par with HLG 480H
?
thank you very much have a beautiful holidays

whytewidow · Dec 29, 2018

exoticcloud said:
sorry for my bugging ass but just want to ask 2question
for example three drivers, one programmer three different lighting schedules, can it be done? or each driver /schedule needs programmer?
second one : any inventronics or similar budget driver that would suffice going 2100ma or more and being on par with HLG 480H
?
thank you very much have a beautiful holidays

One programmer and you csnt set as many drivers as you want. For any settings. Buy one programmer you can set 500 different drivers if you wanted. The actual driver store their settings inside the driver itself. And you unplug the programmer from the driver after you set your settings. Then plug it into your next driver. Set whatever setting you want. Unplug it. Move on to the next driver. Same thing. Plug in. Set it. Unplug it. They stay to whatever settings you set it at until you plug the programmer back into it and change them again. And as far as drivers they have programmable ones up to 1200 watts. They have the same as meanwell. They have 100,120,150,200,240,320,480,600, and then a 1200. Heres a link with all their drivers..

https://www.inventronics-co.com/programmable-led-drivers/

elkamino · Dec 29, 2018

whytewidow said:
I'm not sayin they are garbage or anything, bc they will grow decent herb. Its jus older tech that's outdated. And theyve come out with some amazing leds now. And honestly you'll have the same amount of money in it. Except you'll still be running not as efficient or as much par with it.

What size area are you running?,

Thanks for asking, I just saw these posts...

My flower space is just shy of 4’ x4’

Canadain Closet Gardener said:
No need to replace all the drivers. I would just replace the dead one. You could most likely replace it for less than $50 with an Mean Well driver at arrow or digikey. Once you retire the lights pull out all the drivers as they still will be good to power other stuff.
Cheers
CCG

Thanks, I’ll look into this

Randomblame said:
Hmm! Instead of a 100w 24v driver for each two boards you could use an HLG-480H-24 to power all the boards with just one big driver. These big Meanwell drivers have 7 years warranty! And the good thing is, you can use it also to run ~20-30 Samsung H-influx L06 strips in parallel(same LM301b you'll find on quantumboards).
You could build the new light while using this one and when its done you only need to change the driver to fire the new one up. I would also reuse the deepred strips until you have something better. Those strips are still rare and to make own strips from XP-E's or Osram Square can be expensive. Such a diodes costs 2-3 bucks each..

Oh my! Thanks for weighing in. I have some research to do in order to understand all of the terms you used… But I’m on it. Thanks for the advice, I will look into that big, well-warranteed Meanwell driver. :eyesmoke:

exoticcloud · Dec 30, 2018

whytewidow said:
One programmer and you csnt set as many drivers as you want. For any settings. Buy one programmer you can set 500 different drivers if you wanted. The actual driver store their settings inside the driver itself. And you unplug the programmer from the driver after you set your settings. Then plug it into your next driver. Set whatever setting you want. Unplug it. Move on to the next driver. Same thing. Plug in. Set it. Unplug it. They stay to whatever settings you set it at until you plug the programmer back into it and change them again. And as far as drivers they have programmable ones up to 1200 watts. They have the same as meanwell. They have 100,120,150,200,240,320,480,600, and then a 1200. Heres a link with all their drivers..

https://www.inventronics-co.com/programmable-led-drivers/

Thanks for the reply man ! really appreciate your help,
Im wondering why people want MW when these drivers seems more advanced by far, they even got led protection and Im amazed about the built in programming dimming capability
seems like the
EUD-480SxxxDV with 2100 ma to 2800ma can be good candidate hope the arctic 64 will handle the heat better said 3 of them would you agree?
thank you for the link and the help

DiY LEDs - How to Power Them

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