Quick Driver Question

DukeFluke

Well-Known Member
Hey folks, is it advisable to use a HLG-480H-48B to power Bxeb Gen 3 strips?
Does the driver adjust for the lower voltage (38ish) of the strips, or is there a way to mitigate by using more strips etc?

Thanks in advance
 

Rocket Soul

Well-Known Member
Hey folks, is it advisable to use a HLG-480H-48B to power Bxeb Gen 3 strips?
Does the driver adjust for the lower voltage (38ish) of the strips, or is there a way to mitigate by using more strips etc?

Thanks in advance
It will run in CC mode for voltages under 48, same max current as with a 48V load. So you wont get 480 w out of it, youd get approx (38/48)*480w output. Comes out as 380w output.
Mitigation: making the voltages match up better, adding about 10V for each string/strip. For example adding a 1 foot bxeb 3, slim version to every string. Please double check the voltage of the slims cause im a bit rusty on specs
 

DukeFluke

Well-Known Member
Hey, another quick question. Just ordered two HLG-480h-42AB from Ledlightingsave but they're out of stock and are offering me 6 x HLG-185h-42AB instead. Any reasons why that would be an issue to use the 6 instead of the two? Cheers

Apart from the extra wiring of course.
 

DukeFluke

Well-Known Member
Yea I've used Mouser and Digikey before but I've also heard decent reviews of this place from people who've checked out serial numbers with manufacturers etc, just want to know whether the 3 x 185s would be a pain in the ass or an advantage over the single 480? Thanks again
 

7CardBud

Well-Known Member
Yea I've used Mouser and Digikey before but I've also heard decent reviews of this place from people who've checked out serial numbers with manufacturers etc, just want to know whether the 3 x 185s would be a pain in the ass or an advantage over the single 480? Thanks again
Unless there is a big price savings I would rather wire 2 drivers instead of six. 2 mains lines, 2 dimmers and 4 dc leads vs 6 mains, 6 dimmers and 12 dc leads.
 

grotbags

Well-Known Member
Yea I've used Mouser and Digikey before but I've also heard decent reviews of this place from people who've checked out serial numbers with manufacturers etc, just want to know whether the 3 x 185s would be a pain in the ass or an advantage over the single 480? Thanks again
no disadvantage other than the wiring like you mentioned.

using 6 drivers instead of 2 could have its advantages, depending on your strip layout you could power and dim the center of the light fixture independantly of the edges allowing you to get a more even ppfd across your canopy.

if you didnt want independant control of different lighting sections you could still use all 6 drivers with just 1 dimmer to make things a bit more simple.
 

shimbob

Well-Known Member
There's also the little tidbit that those hlg-185s can actually do 200W (maybe even up to 225 when conditions are right) so you could be getting 600W total.
 

7CardBud

Well-Known Member
If you max out the trimpot on the -A models the drivers will often go past the rated spec. I have a 480H-C2800 and it will do 515 watts when maxed out.
 

Rocket Soul

Well-Known Member
There used to be plenty of chatter in this forum about the hlg-185 delivering more than spec'ed. (In general all MW drivers seem to give a little more than promised)

Looking at the test report shows it can do up to 4.8A
Everyone of these threads i rec the test report, love to see someone else using it. Between about a few percent more in actual current, and the sometimes up 10% extra Voltage the A-type driver can give theres almost 15% extra output over rating. Im not sure but i think when i looked into this its generally more prominent on the lower watt drivers. If OP wanted he could probably make this work with 36A drivers, especially if he wanted to run around nominal power, for about 38V output. The 185-36A can get up to 40V output which is enough. But then again you can never be 100% sure that you can get over spec, but i believe 38V would be in spec.
It was actually @CobKits who clued me in in an old thread: test report will give you values which are closest to actual measured output.
So, wouldn't that apply to the 480-A drivers as well?
The extra power from A-type drivers are twofold: 1: some extra current in the output. Usually a few percent at least. Again, check test report.
2: extra voltage: you can adjust voltage up by about 10% or even more which would make it easy for a 48A driver to handle 50V boards/cobs usually.

For the B-type driver the extra power lies in running the driver without dimmer pot: the dimmer will make the range from 0/5% (some will dim to off) to 100% out current but if you either unplug the dimmer (or just keep a switch on the circuit to break it whenever you want that extra boost) or you set up your pot with a small resistor in series taking the restiance of the dimmer circuit up a bit to get the extra juice. I cant remember quite how to do this though, its on some thread somewhere.
But you wouldnt get that extra voltage on a B-type driver, only on A-type.
Ive still not got a real sense of what actually is the case of AB-type drivers; ive seen some say they have voltage + current dimming knobs, and external dimming aswell. Some says its only current for onboard dimming. Some schematics show 2 knobs (or holes) some show only one.
 
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