COB build flickering again..

CanadianONE

Well-Known Member
Sound weird. Put the meter on the ohm setting put the leads together. You should get ~0. Put one lead on one end of the fuse and the other lead on the other end. Should be close to 0 as well. When the leads are sitting in free air not touching anything or each other it should say OL or infinite. We're just trying to find out if your fuse will conduct electricity or not. If it's less then 5 ohms your fine.
I agree sounds weird, It shouldnt matter which probe is touched on what side of the fuse the readings should be the same. One result states the fuse is blown but the other result states its ok lol If fuse is good you should get close to the same reading as when you just touch the two probes together.
 

CanadianONE

Well-Known Member
The diode setting at the bottom which is highlighted in red between the 200ohm and 10A setting, If you switch it to this setting and touch the probes together does the meter beep?
 

CanadianONE

Well-Known Member
ok cause if we had a continuity mode this would be much easier lol. Either way I think there may be issues with the DMM considering you get different readings when making the same measurement just by switching the probes from side to side on the fuse which isnt right they should both read the same IMO
 

CanadianONE

Well-Known Member
I think I am out of suggestions. You don't have a second multimeter to test this one against by any chance do you? Always nice to have a couple meters so you can measure Voltage and Current simultaneously. or to test against another meter in this case when issues crop up.
 

Getgrowingson

Well-Known Member
I'm with Canadian one on this one. Would borrow someone else's meter and try it that way. That one seems a little sketchy to me and wouldn't trust any amount of current flowing through it. Seems as though your having driver issues imo. As long as your dim wires are floating and your within your Voltage limits you should have the max output current and it seems as though it's either limiting current for some reason or its just a faulty driver. There's always a chance one out of a thousand could be screwed. If you plan on building another light in the future in would buy another driver and try it out. If it works keep the new driver and send the other back on warranty. Then when you get your replacement build your new light with it. Either that or get another meter and see what the output current is. But even then it will only be showing you that it's lower then it should be. All signs in my eyes point to faulty driver. I would also check the resistance of the entire circuit and compare it to the sum of all the resistances of each cob. They should be very similar. If not you have a bad connection somewhere. When you check your connections ensure the positive of the cob is on the positive of the holder just to double check. I'll think about it some more over some sleep and come with more suggestions tomorrow. Good luck bro
 

Al Yamoni

Well-Known Member
I'm with Canadian one on this one. Would borrow someone else's meter and try it that way. That one seems a little sketchy to me and wouldn't trust any amount of current flowing through it. Seems as though your having driver issues imo. As long as your dim wires are floating and your within your Voltage limits you should have the max output current and it seems as though it's either limiting current for some reason or its just a faulty driver. There's always a chance one out of a thousand could be screwed. If you plan on building another light in the future in would buy another driver and try it out. If it works keep the new driver and send the other back on warranty. Then when you get your replacement build your new light with it. Either that or get another meter and see what the output current is. But even then it will only be showing you that it's lower then it should be. All signs in my eyes point to faulty driver. I would also check the resistance of the entire circuit and compare it to the sum of all the resistances of each cob. They should be very similar. If not you have a bad connection somewhere. When you check your connections ensure the positive of the cob is on the positive of the holder just to double check. I'll think about it some more over some sleep and come with more suggestions tomorrow. Good luck bro
Thank you. I'll be chugging along trying to figure this out.

Just got back from the store with a new meter. I actually have another unused and unopened hlg-185-c1050b chillin right here, heh. One I check the current I'll swap out drivers.

Thanks all for the help, what a community.
 

FranJan

Well-Known Member
Sorry Al had to step out again. Beautiful eclipse out here in the northeast. Holy shit wtf has happened?
Anyway you should not plug anything else into your circuit until you test the integrity of your circuit and each COB. This is to remove any variables in your design. I can show you how to do this using the way I test my circuits before powering any drivers but we need a few things straight.

Do you have a working multimeter?
 

Al Yamoni

Well-Known Member
Sorry Al had to step out again. Beautiful eclipse out here in the northeast. Holy shit wtf has happened?
Anyway you should not plug anything else into your circuit until you test the integrity of your circuit and each COB. This is to remove any variables in your design. I can show you how to do this using the way I test my circuits before powering any drivers but we need a few things straight.

Do you have a working multimeter?
Just picked one up. I'll open the package here in a second. It had better work. ;)
 

Al Yamoni

Well-Known Member
when powered on with the DMM in the series on the 10A mode it reads 0.07 with the pot all the way up and with the pot all the way down it reads 0.01
 

CanadianONE

Well-Known Member
when powered on with the DMM in the series on the 10A mode it reads 0.07 with the pot all the way up and with the pot all the way down it reads 0.01
wow that is only 10-70mA something drastic going on there. I would have to think faulty driver. DIm circuit is connected to pin 1 & 2 on potentiometer? If you have the other driver handy I would plug that one in and that will verify you dont have an issue in your LED array and its in fact in the other driver.
 

FranJan

Well-Known Member
OK we need to get some readings from your circuit. Wire the circuit up like you had it originally. Just connect the wires you used to measure the amps with together, we may need them later, then remove the driver from the circuit. You should have two unconnected wires now, one negative and one positive. We are going to get a few readings here first. Odd readings here means it's a COB or wiring error in your circuit.

Set the multimeter to Vdc 2000m or 200m and make sure the red probe isn't in the 10 amp plug. Your going to connect the positive wire to the red probe and neg to the black probe. Take a reading with both the 2000 and 200 settings. Then tell me what numbers you get.

Al I have work in a few hours so I may pass out on you.
 
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