led popping fuses now...

[criticalencore]

So I have a led setup I builta couple years ago. its 120 Cree royal blues, 60 cree neutral wipes, and 24 cree UV. I'm driving my whites and blues off of 3 mean well hlg 185 42 b drivers. I have them in strings of 10 white 6 strings per driver (60 per driver total). I had a blue string go out a couple months ago but have just been letting it go because I was waiting to fix it when I had a chance to add the 24 Phillips limes I added last night. Anyways last weekend 2 more of the strings on the one driver had went so it popped all the fuses and I was with half my blues until I pulled it down last night. I replaced all the burnt blues and a couple dims ( 7 led total). Now that I have hung it back up neither side blues work. The side that was working is flashing bright a couple times then pops 4 of the 6 fuses. The side that 21st bad is dimly lighting and popping 5 of 6 fuses..... if I use a lpc 35 700 driver I can light each string Ino divide ally when I have it in my living room but when I hook it back to the fuse blocks when. I power one string off the fuse holder (no fuse in it) on the light side not the drivers side it lights all 6 strings. Sound like a bad ground or something else? I'm buying more fuses now and plan to work on Iit until I get it right when I get home but looming for maybe something I'm missing..... I know I will have a limited amount of fuses to get it right without ordering some...

 

[criticalencore]

 

[mcgyvr]

complete schematic?
Vf of LEDs?
Whats in parallel?
Where are these fuses in the circuits?
What size fuses?

fuses "blow" from over-current situations.

If you have LED strings in parallel and you lose some strings then the other strings will now have more current going through them. This may/will blow fuses.

 

[perkint]

Just to clarify - you say the string lights even when you have no fuse? That's telling you what your problem is - definitely a short somewhere and if the fuse is on the live feed, suggests the short is before the fuse holder?

Unless i misunderstood what you meant, which is possible - one or two typos in your post, and it's late Friday night...

Tim

 

[criticalencore]

Soo... a while back I had plastic in line fuse holders holding my 1a quick blow fuses per string... the springs were crap and kept failing so I ordered brass marine fuse holders.... apparently these were slightly corroded and, well took like 6 hrs of my life. I bypassed my fuse holders and all led are running strong... the fuse holder is probably what caused my string to blow months ago in the first place.. everything is running great.. guess I'll look into corrosion resistant fuse blocks but I figured marine ones would be as close as it gets.

Thanks for the responses guys

 

[perkint]

Glad you got it sorted

Tim

 

[salty joe]

Could you use a little grease on the fuse assembly to inhibit corrosion?

 

[criticalencore]

Could you use a little grease on the fuse assembly to inhibit corrosion?

That might be worth trying. I saw they sell marine fuse blocks with glass covers I was thinking about trying. I'm building an addition off the back of my house to move all my filtration/frag tanks to. There is a lot of humidity in the room now with 800+ gallons of water moving and just a window fan sucking out. Hopefully after its in a different room I will have less of a problem but I may sand the fuse holders tomorrow and grease them up in the meantime. Good call