please help.. frustrated with leds...
- Thread starter Ansphire
- Start date
NanoReefWanabe
Active member
have you checked for continuity with a multimeter? check across the string and each led...also have you checked for dead shorts to the heat sink? youre sure the outlet works right?
just an FYI too...you should have made the wires between the leds a little longer and incorporated an "S" bend in the wires to relieve stress on the contacts created by thermal expansion...
a couple of those soldier joints look a little burnt, you cold have burnt the pad/ star...it looks like you used really heavy gauge wire there, what is it?
you have four blues to two whites there as well not sure that will effect anything though.
did you have to wire a plug to the meanwell or did it come with one?
just an FYI too...you should have made the wires between the leds a little longer and incorporated an "S" bend in the wires to relieve stress on the contacts created by thermal expansion...
a couple of those soldier joints look a little burnt, you cold have burnt the pad/ star...it looks like you used really heavy gauge wire there, what is it?
you have four blues to two whites there as well not sure that will effect anything though.
did you have to wire a plug to the meanwell or did it come with one?
I think what the problem is that you have wires going from the negative side of the led connecting to the positive side. Connect negative to negative and positive to positive. You should disconnect everything and wire one LED. The black power to the negative and the red to the positive. I will bet the LED will light.
joe perry
New member
He has them wired right, just like I wired mine (and mine work fine). They need to be negative to positive! +1 on checking continuity. Wiring blues and white together IS a problem because the blues use 700 milliamps of current but the whites use much more (my whites use 1300 ma). Ansphire, didn't you get instructions with your driver?
dmastracchio
New member
Check each solder point. When I soldered my LEDs it looked like a good solder but it wouldn't work. I had to re-solder and make sure the wire was in contact / closer with the joint.
Some of the little bulbs of solder didn't even stick to the joint and just came right off with a little pressure.
Some of the little bulbs of solder didn't even stick to the joint and just came right off with a little pressure.
Garage1217
GET OFF MY LAWN
Check each wire for continuity to the heatsink. Some of the solder joints look... not so good as in you put some insane heat on them.
Also you should not mix colors as they can have differnet vf.
Last, I am not knocking your soldering, those look like they were sourced from rapid led and their pre-tinned stars SUCK. You have to put WAY to much heat on what they tinned them with to get it to flow.
Also you should not mix colors as they can have differnet vf.
Last, I am not knocking your soldering, those look like they were sourced from rapid led and their pre-tinned stars SUCK. You have to put WAY to much heat on what they tinned them with to get it to flow.
What? This doesnt seem right to me. Are you just guessing, if so that can be dangerous when dealing with electricity.
Garage1217
GET OFF MY LAWN
What he did is called "series" wiring. It is correct.
hardin4019
New member
What you see in the picture is a "Series" circuit or series wiring. What the other guy is saying about wiring positive to positive won't work. LEDs and Diodes in general only pass voltage in a single direction, so you can't have them wired head to head and tail to tail or they go nowhere. Now if he is talking about some weird parallel scheme, then I would have to see it and think about it for a minute.
Im taking it over a friends house.. Someone hit the nail in the head.. Its a combination of my non existent sodering skills and the cables not making contact.. I will take those off and sodder new wire and check as I go.. My buddy has a cont tester.. So hopefully this will be working by tonight.
How do you do this?
hardin4019
New member
Off the shelf digital multimeter available at wally world. set to ohms the little omega symbol in the lowest possible setting, and measure from a solder pad to anywhere metal on the heat sink to see if you have a short.
What might help you determine where you have issues with your solder is a continuity test. There is a diode/continuity test on most even cheap multi meters. It looks like a diode symbol, or if you aren't familiar, it is a little line with a triangle pointing at the flat side of the line. If you put the meter in this setting, you can in theory power up each LED by putting the red lead on the meter on the + side of LED and the black lead on the -. DO IT WITH THE REST OF THE POWER UNPLUGGED. In theory, if you do this touching your solder joints, you can find the bad ones.
If my instructions suck, try googling how to use a multimeter to check continuity, someone out there has to have a youtube video or an ehow posting.
What might help you determine where you have issues with your solder is a continuity test. There is a diode/continuity test on most even cheap multi meters. It looks like a diode symbol, or if you aren't familiar, it is a little line with a triangle pointing at the flat side of the line. If you put the meter in this setting, you can in theory power up each LED by putting the red lead on the meter on the + side of LED and the black lead on the -. DO IT WITH THE REST OF THE POWER UNPLUGGED. In theory, if you do this touching your solder joints, you can find the bad ones.
If my instructions suck, try googling how to use a multimeter to check continuity, someone out there has to have a youtube video or an ehow posting.
I was thinking of parallel wiring. I realized later his wiring is a series circuit and is correct. If one bulb fails in a series circuit the rest of the bulbs will not work. His soldering is not good and maybe the source of the problem. He needs a multimeter to find the problem. By the way when a multimeter is in the continuity mode the red lead is negative.
On a multi meter the continuity setting with produce a audible noise. Set the multi meter to the continuity setting touch the two leads on the multimeter together and listen for a noise. Next go to each lead that you soldered and put one lead on it and the other lead on the heat sink. If you get that audible noise on any of the leads, un solder that lead and re solder until you no longer get continuity threw the lead and heat sink.
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