bhazard451
New member
You are the one that has not provided facts or first hand experience actually. Bean + Wilson have provided an extensive answer and you have not provided anything to counter it.
Minimalistic multichip DIY LED build
- Thread starter maglofster
- Start date
You are the one that has not provided facts or first hand experience actually. Bean + Wilson have provided an extensive answer and you have not provided anything to counter it.
mr.wilson
.Registered Member
You can choose not to follow the advice of others but you can't call BS because it doesn't fit with your personal beliefs, and you can't categorically declare that the people reading the forum will all agree with you. Perhaps if you offered some infirmation, your opinions would have some clout.
Failure is not always instant. Most of the drivers that I have had to replace lasted a year, which conveniently meets the requirement of a one year manufacturers warranty.
I really wish I could tell my customers that it is impossible that their light isn't working and refer them to your comments. When I spend hours repairing generic electronic components it certainly isn't anti Chinese rhetoric and you can't call me a troll for offering a friendly caviete. I didn't criticize Chinese components, I simply gave fair warning that you get what you pay for with low quality parts. I even went in to state that I use many generic parts providing they meet my quality expectations or at least have a good track record.
Failure is not always instant. Most of the drivers that I have had to replace lasted a year, which conveniently meets the requirement of a one year manufacturers warranty.
I really wish I could tell my customers that it is impossible that their light isn't working and refer them to your comments. When I spend hours repairing generic electronic components it certainly isn't anti Chinese rhetoric and you can't call me a troll for offering a friendly caviete. I didn't criticize Chinese components, I simply gave fair warning that you get what you pay for with low quality parts. I even went in to state that I use many generic parts providing they meet my quality expectations or at least have a good track record.
megadeth72
New member
I can call bs and I did LOL, 20 % my behind. Certain people are making wild generalizations, post that in the chinese led thread, let's see how that goes
mr.wilson
.Registered Member
I'm not trying to escalate the conversation, but I would like to point out that virtually all aquarium LEDs are made in China. There are a few brands made in Europe that use Chinese components, but I don't know of a single brand made in the USA other than maybe Kessil.
TimmyD16
New member
Could not agree more... People severely under-estimate how important quality components are... Coming from the world of audio (which is what I know best), the main differences between a $100 amplifier and a $1,000 is the filter components and the transformers... Basic electrical functions are not hard to accomplish, I could probably make a CC LED driver with things I have laying around my house, but it would be no where near the quality which I would require. The basic functions are just that, basic, where quality and reliability come from are the supporting functions such as filtering and power supply... And these are where "knock-offs" knock the most off, they are called "knock-offs" for a reason don't you know?
If you don't believe us, seriously rip something apart (or find the many many examples online) ad just see how much more basic the knock-offs are... with something as complicated as electricity you can not just take components out without there being consequences...
TimmyD16
New member
sfsuphysics
Active member
So ummm... are those Meanwell drivers that various LED retailers sell considered "premium" ?
Nice to know about the staggered on time, I thought it was a pulsing current draw that they use while they were on which was the issue.
Back to the Meanwell drivers, the dimmable ones can open up to adjust the output, does that mean they're not rated for outdoor use? Obviously not epoxy encased.
Driver configuration
Driver configuration
I've ordered LEDs for a large DIY build and would like to confirm that I'm choosing the right drivers before ordering them. Any help would be appreciated!
Plan:
2 100w (36v) hybrid blue/white LEDs on 1 mean well HLG-240H-48B http://www.meanwell.com/search/hlg-2...-240H-spec.pdf
24 10w (9-11v) UV, Red, 470nm Blue, Green, & hybrid blue/white LEDs on 1 mean well HLG-240H-15B http://www.meanwell.com/search/hlg-2...-240H-spec.pdf
The drivers are dimmable and I'm planning to control the 10w's in 3 strings of 8 leds on three pwm dimmers and the 2 100w's on a single pwm dimmer.
Do these drivers look ok?
Driver configuration
I've ordered LEDs for a large DIY build and would like to confirm that I'm choosing the right drivers before ordering them. Any help would be appreciated!
Plan:
2 100w (36v) hybrid blue/white LEDs on 1 mean well HLG-240H-48B http://www.meanwell.com/search/hlg-2...-240H-spec.pdf
24 10w (9-11v) UV, Red, 470nm Blue, Green, & hybrid blue/white LEDs on 1 mean well HLG-240H-15B http://www.meanwell.com/search/hlg-2...-240H-spec.pdf
The drivers are dimmable and I'm planning to control the 10w's in 3 strings of 8 leds on three pwm dimmers and the 2 100w's on a single pwm dimmer.
Do these drivers look ok?
lingwendil
Man who sold the world
Having owned 9 cheap chinese led drivers, 5 for the 50w multichips, and 4 for the 10w multichips, 1 50w driver was DOA, 1 failed in a month, 2 of the 10's lasted 3 months or so, and another failed after about 6. All had open circulation and were always cool to the touch. I don't feel like doing the math, but think thats a fairly large percentage of them failing prematurely. Please speak from experience when you can, calling bs without personal experience gets this kind of discussion nowhere. I wholeheartedly agree with mr.wilsons opinion, and also like to add that you get what you pay for.
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mr.wilson
.Registered Member
Mean Well drivers are considered a premium brand. They are made in Korea, which is no indication in and of itself of quality being good or bad.
There may be a pulsing current draw issue that I'm not aware of (PWM?). The only one I have heard is trying to turn too many of them on at once.
I'm not sure which models have internal potentiometers, but the outdoor-rated HLG models do. These are what I use, when using Mean Well. They have all of the specs on the website.
nanolover80
New member
Hello, question ..
I bought a few of these multi led chips off Ebay and hooked it to a old PC power supply +12v line as it says to use +12v to power these .. after hooking it up and powering on the power supply .. i get it to fire up, but its strobes so bad that it makes it useless..
Do i need a special driver to run these or can i make and use an alternative like a pc power supply??
Robert
I bought a few of these multi led chips off Ebay and hooked it to a old PC power supply +12v line as it says to use +12v to power these .. after hooking it up and powering on the power supply .. i get it to fire up, but its strobes so bad that it makes it useless..
Do i need a special driver to run these or can i make and use an alternative like a pc power supply??
Robert
mr.wilson
.Registered Member
People working in the industry know how many returns there are. Most companies offer a prompt replacement, and in some cases, do so even if it is past warranty. The end user is so happy that they got the light fixed, the last thing they are going to do is make a big deal on a forum about it.
Not all inexpensive products are faulty. It takes a few years of experimentation with hundreds of lights to evaluate the longevity of a particular component. This is why manufacturers are slow to release new products and have growing pains as the new lights enter the market. Yu really don't know what issues you are going to have until hundreds of lights are out there. It's typically 6-9months down the road where return/failure trends are spotted. By that time, there are a lot of ticking time bombs out there.
Most manufacturers have issues with fans, drivers, power sources, and heat sink design. This is the inherent danger in buying a first generation product in any industry. It's also a major stumbling block in DIY projects. The one sure fire way of getting around it is to invest in top of the line components and overbuild everything.
I gave an example earlier of a low cost generic driver that I use for an LED array. My cost is $5 for each of the two drivers in the 144w light. My cost on Mean Well drivers for the same fixture is $50 ea. So far, I have only had a few DOA drivers and the rest have been okay for the past 6 months. There is a 3 year manufacture's warranty, so the only risk is inconvenience. It is entirely possible that I will have to replace a lot of these drivers two years from now, but it's a calculated risk I'm wiling to take. With a $100 savings per fixture, it's a risk Im comfortable with. I really won't know if it's a good move until three years of use has come and gone.
I have other lights where I am not confident in the generic drivers that come with them due to past failures. For this reason, I'm willing to pay the extra for premium models. It's a lot easier to use expensive drivers in a high end fixture, as the added cost can be justified by the end user. People looking for a cheap solution and are less concerned about having it in working order 3 years from now are happy with the cheap alternative.
mr.wilson
.Registered Member
They need to be driven at a specific voltage and current. It sounds like you have small multichips (10w?) as the 50 & 100w models usually need to be run at 36v.
I too have bought several multi chips from ebay I have had good success with the drivers they are selling I have put together a few lights to experiment with.
I am not picky in sense that I don't want to simulate sunrises and sunsets so the basic drivers work fine for me. the current lights I have on my tank are 50W 20K chips with basic heat sink and computer fans to cool and basic driver recommended by the seller total cost under 100.00 per light.
just my .02
sfsuphysics
Active member
Ok, I went searching through the archives and found out it's the ELN versions of meanwell drivers that don't have a PFC as a result lots of them could spell trouble, apparently the HLG models do have PFC which fix it.
mr.wilson
.Registered Member
Ah yes, now I remember. Thanks.
mr.wilson
.Registered Member
Keeping it simple helps. I have had problems with the dimmable drivers in PAR38 lights (3 returns out of the ten I sold), but the non-dimmable ones have been fine.
TropTrea
New member
The driver for your 2 100 Watt should work just fine.
As far as your 24- 10 Watt the first thing that caught my eye is that the driver is 240 watt and the draw would could be 240 watts with no saftey margin. Then noting you want to run three seperatly dimmed strings on this driver which I do not think is possible,. A better option might be to run run three seperate drivers for these one for each color like 3 HLG-100H's. Sorry th4ey do not offer an HGL 90.
