1 of my drivers is hot to touch.

Hey diggs sorry to butt into your post but since we have some knowledgeable driver people here I thought I’d double check weather mine are normal.


They are 240 watt drivers but go up to 330 watts. Just wondering if the amp draw and wattage are safe?
 

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bk78 said:
Hey diggs sorry to butt into your post but since we have some knowledgeable driver people here I thought I’d double check weather mine are normal.


They are 240 watt drivers bud go up to 330 watts. Just wondering if the amp draw and wattage are safe?
Click to expand...

Hey Bk, just curious, are your drivers real warm/hot? like you can still hold your hand on them for a bit but its not comfortable lol
 
diggs99 said:
Hey Bk, just curious, are your drivers real warm/hot? like you can still hold your hand on them for a bit but its not comfortable lol
Click to expand...


I’ve always had a fan directly on them. But when cranked up to 330 watts yes they get real warm. I ran them last grow dialled down to 220w a piece as my plants told me it was too much light at the 650+ watts
 
bk78 said:
I’ve always had a fan directly on them. But when cranked up to 330 watts yes they get real warm. I ran them last grow dialled down to 220w a piece as my plants told me it was too much light at the 650+ watts
Click to expand...

Ya ive noticed the same with mine. Running at max they are real hot, dimmed a little and they run decently warm. I think i might run a couple pieces of aluminum across the board to hang them on rather than having the board take all the heat.

I think when this thread started, the driver that was staying cool was just running softer, once both were setup the same, the heat was consistent on both

The noise is still there tho. So im going to try and get a replacement for it.
 
whytewidow said:
That is the right driver. 18 strips on the 480/48 driver is perfect.
Click to expand...


Ya i assumed so, we talked extensively about this back when i was planning.

The numbers were throwing me off tho, until Chief explained it to me, it seems normal for these strips.

you think if i tested load free my drivers would also hit 48v/49v? like yours are?
 
i just noticed i had a strip go out and then the whole fixture shorted.

I checked to see what was going on and it appears as though another one of those cheapass plugin connectors that are on the cutter strips released from the strip/solder and moved over to the postivie wire and stuck to that connector, shorting out the whole fkn light.

How dangerous is this? should the light be shut down until its fixed? I assume the only way to fix it would be to solder the connection between strip and wire?

you can see the strip in question in the middle of the fixture at far end

My first few days under leds hasnt been all rainbows and unicorns lol
 

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bk78 said:
Hey diggs sorry to butt into your post but since we have some knowledgeable driver people here I thought I’d double check weather mine are normal.


They are 240 watt drivers but go up to 330 watts. Just wondering if the amp draw and wattage are safe?
Click to expand...
I'm not an expert and aside from testing V, A, & effeciency, I don't know how to diagnose anyone's driver. I can speculate forever, but that's all I'm doing.

Generally speaking you really don't want to operate outside of specs, but I'm also not going to say I'm always within specs either. I'm a +/-5% of min/max kinda guy.

Heat is a big factor that plays into electronics deteriorating. Personally, I try to keep driver temps under 105°F (just an arbitrary temp limit I set for myself).

I'd be curious what your DC side ran when your AC side was 330W. Acording to the data sheet the 240h operates at ~90% effeciency with a 115VAC input and a greater than 120W load. That means that 330W AC should convert to about 297W DC. If your "AC watts in" × 0.9 still equals the "DC watts out," then the increase in heat is scaling accordingly to the increase in power, though not exactly sure the driver is designed for the extra power (driver is rated for 240W not 300W). If the effeciency is worse at 300W than 240W, then you're probably compounding wear & tear.

I personally can't say whether your drivers are malfunctioning, it seems they are working just fine and I'd only watch for heat. If it's just one area of the driver that gets hot, it's probably due to the transformer. I wouldn't run em at 300W, but I don't think you have anything to worry about 250W and under.
 
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Just to confirm the assumptions. yes the strips are 112 leds, configured in 16 string in series and 7 in parallel. nominally we designed for 1.a max but you can drive harder if you have the heatsink to match, at 577ma per strip you should be getting around 45 v per board
Cheers
Mark
 
diggs99 said:
i just noticed i had a strip go out and then the whole fixture shorted.

I checked to see what was going on and it appears as though another one of those cheapass plugin connectors that are on the cutter strips released from the strip/solder and moved over to the postivie wire and stuck to that connector, shorting out the whole fkn light.

How dangerous is this? should the light be shut down until its fixed? I assume the only way to fix it would be to solder the connection between strip and wire?

you can see the strip in question in the middle of the fixture at far end

My first few days under leds hasnt been all rainbows and unicorns lol
Click to expand...
Whether it's a plugin, a solder joint, or a terminal, ect, you just want connection.

I'm not sure I'm comprehending correctly, but it sounds like one of the strip connectors came loose, or the power wire that was inserted to the strip connector came loose, and when that happened it came loose to the point that it made contact with the opposite polarity power wire, and ended up shorting out the whole light?

^^If that's the case then yes Id just solder the wire directly to the strip. I'd solder the power wire that came loose to the solder pad the connector came off of. If its just the connector not holding a bite onto the wire, then some people have had success with single core over stranded wire, or I've seen people use tinned wires with success as well.
 
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diggs99 said:
i just noticed i had a strip go out and then the whole fixture shorted.

I checked to see what was going on and it appears as though another one of those cheapass plugin connectors that are on the cutter strips released from the strip/solder and moved over to the postivie wire and stuck to that connector, shorting out the whole fkn light.

How dangerous is this? should the light be shut down until its fixed? I assume the only way to fix it would be to solder the connection between strip and wire?

you can see the strip in question in the middle of the fixture at far end

My first few days under leds hasnt been all rainbows and unicorns lol
Click to expand...
Hi Diggs
I would suggest soldering wire on if your having issues with the connectors, the connectors are not cheap
Cheers
Mark
 
Sorry did not read whole thread. What temp is your driver? My two MW 240H-C1050A goes to 335W at kill-a-watt meter. With ambient temp at around 26-28°C drivers gets to 70°C. I have it at the wall outside of the tent.
 
ChiefRunningPhist said:
Whether it's a plugin, a solder joint, or a terminal, ect, you just want connection.

I'm not sure I'm comprehending correctly, but it sounds like one of the strip connectors came loose, or the power wire that was inserted to the strip connector came loose, and when that happened it came loose to the point that it made contact with the opposite polarity power wire, and ended up shorting out the whole light?

^^If that's the case then yes Id just solder the wire directly to the strip. I'd solder the power wire that came loose to the solder pad the connector came off of. If its just the connector not holding a bite onto the wire, then some people have had success with single core over stranded wire, or I've seen people use tinned wires with success as well.
Click to expand...

Thanks as usual Chief,

Yes thats correct, the connector on the strip came loose and th wire and connector flicked over to the other polarity on the same strip and stuck to it, shorting out the light.

Ya, it looks like ill be learning how to solder this morning lol

The light has been taken down and is sitting on my work table.

So lucky it didnt fry the driver, this is the good driver btw lol
 
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