nfhiggs
Well-Known Member
Adding more strips and reducing the current yields more light overall as the L/W increases and temps drop.And every additional strip wired in parallel gets to share the available current which then drops the output. If the driver can hit a max of 7.2A then at five strips they're each seeing only 1.44A, and at eight only .900mA. In effect they become goldfish when I want a sharks with lasers on their heads.
You are misinterpreting that line. What those three numbers mean is a given diode from that color bin will "typically" have an efficiency of 171 @ 1.12 A, and some will have a lower range of efficiency or "minimum" of 154 @1.12A and some will have a higher efficiency of up to 190 @ 1.12A. That is where they further break them down into efficiency bins also referred to as the "S bins" - S4, S5 and S6. The ones that test in the lower third of the range will be binned "S4" and the ones in the middle of the range will be the "S5" bin and the ones in the upper range will be the "S6" bin.The efficacy of the 3500K strip jumps from 171 to 190 lm/W when driven to 1800mA
Edit: the S bins apply to the individual diodes, but the concept is the same for the strips - some will test with the lower efficiency, most will be in the middle and some at the higher end.
LEDs will ALWAYS have a higher L/W at lower amperage and pushing them harder ALWAYS reduces their L/W.
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