Modifying Old Blurples for Greater Efficiency...

ganjamystic

ganjamystic

Well-Known Member
Mohican said:
So you could run each bar with one driver.
Click to expand...
Mohican said:
...I would ad a plug to one driver and connect it to all five modules and make each bar a separate light...
Click to expand...
ya for sure, that is one option.. which would mean taking 2 drivers and wiring each to 5 modules in parallel.. that's what I'll probably do..

but.. I'm just curious about wiring the modules in series... like what if I took one of the bars and connected the 5 modules in series.. what driver would I need to run that?.. and if I did the same to the other bar, what driver would I need to run both bars?... I know it probably doesn't make sense to buy a driver for this project when I have these 5 already, but this is just hypothetical.. just out of curiosity..

I was also wondering about the way the drivers were connected originally and if there's any way to combine multiple drivers.. for example, would it be possible to run 1 bar off of 2 drivers combined somehow? what does connecting them like this do? lolIMG_0438.JPG
 
ganjamystic

ganjamystic

Well-Known Member
maybe I'm just curious about wiring the modules in series because of how simple it would be and how neat it looks...
IMG_0439.JPG
 
ganjamystic

ganjamystic

Well-Known Member
see how ugly and complicated this parallel wiring job looks in comparison?.. and how many more connectors it uses?...:???:IMG_0443.JPG
 
ganjamystic

ganjamystic

Well-Known Member
aaannd.... it doesn't work right either lol... when I plug it in as wired above, it flashes on and off (super brightly!) instead of staying continuously lit.... hmm... wtf did I do wrong here??
 
lukio

lukio

Well-Known Member
Sorry for your loss dude Haha! I have an Apollo 16ish...ive been dying to upcycle it. Hope you get yours working man...
 
Mohican

Mohican

Well-Known Member
You have two sets of power wires going to the same loop. Just use one black and red wire to power the bar.

Sorry I took so long, I was out at a job interview.
 
ganjamystic

ganjamystic

Well-Known Member
Mohican said:
Never mind. I see that the one set is powering one module. I think the current draw imbalance might be an issue. Try just using one set of wires to run all five modules...
Click to expand...
right. each driver was originally powering 2 modules (in parallel I assumed), so each driver has 2 sets of black/red wires on the dc side, one set for each module... the largest connectors I have are 5 port wagos (is there a 6 port wago?), so it isn't possible to connect one set of black/red dc wires to all 5 modules, because 1 port gets used by the wire coming from the driver... in other words 5 port wagos can connect the driver to 4 modules but not 5.... since there was another set of black/red dc wires, I just used 2 port wagos to connect the 5th module to those.... maybe I should try only connecting 4 modules, 2 to each set of dc wires from the driver? would that balance the current?

Mohican said:
...Is it grounded?
Click to expand...
no, not yet, there are only black/red wires on the ac side as well... but my power cord is a 3 prong grounded cable... where should I connect the ground wire from the power cord?.. the driver case?.. heatsink?...
 
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P

Photon Flinger

Well-Known Member
Yeah start with 2 to each. Only use 1 of the outputs for simplicity to get it working first.

With 5 in parallel they may not produce enough heat to require heat sinks. Then you can place them wherever you want.
 
Mohican

Mohican

Well-Known Member
Did the light have a 3 prong cord originally? Where was the green wire attached? Probably the case.

I wonder whether the two sets of wires from the driver are carrying half the current each or both have full current. Do you have a multi-meter?

You could use another wago to have two module wires together and then bring one wire from that wago to the 5-way wago.
 
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