Hlg-480h-48a driver help

Wondering if someone could give me just a bit of guidance about my driver. I'm just now about to finish wiring up my strips. Been waiting til this harvest is done. About another week or so. Anyways, my question is about amp draw. The HLG-480H-48A draws 10 amps and puts out 480 watts. I know that those can be adjusted, but can it still put out the max watts while drawing a lower amperage? This is my first diy job, so I'm just trying to get a grasp on things. I keep seeing a number of prebuilt units out there putting out similar or higher watts, but drawing only 50-75% of the amps. I'm going to run with it either way, but the answer will determine my overall new setup since that room is on a 15 amp circuit and I'd like to keep it around no more than 12 amps.

Gullett79 said:

Wondering if someone could give me just a bit of guidance about my driver. I'm just now about to finish wiring up my strips. Been waiting til this harvest is done. About another week or so. Anyways, my question is about amp draw. The HLG-480H-48A draws 10 amps and puts out 480 watts. I know that those can be adjusted, but can it still put out the max watts while drawing a lower amperage? This is my first diy job, so I'm just trying to get a grasp on things. I keep seeing a number of prebuilt units out there putting out similar or higher watts, but drawing only 50-75% of the amps. I'm going to run with it either way, but the answer will determine my overall new setup since that room is on a 15 amp circuit and I'd like to keep it around no more than 12 amps.

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That driver doesn't draw 10 amps, it produces 10 amps output to the LED strips at a voltage between 40V and 50V DC. They call it a 480w driver, because it's generally rated to power 10amps at 48volts.

Amps x Volts = Watts

Assuming you are running a 48v system driven at 10amps, the above formula would be shown as: 10A x 48V = 480W

In regards to how much that driver is drawing from your wall, that's a different voltage, so you need to do some number replacement, algebra like back in school. Power from the wall varies, but in the US it's generally between 115V and 120V at the wall. For the sake of easier math, lets assume that ithe wall voltage is 120V. The wattage will be the same for this (480W), not accounting for any loss. We know the voltage is 120V, so using the formula, we get: ?Amps x 120V = 480W ..then if we break that down further you see the Amp draw of 480w from the wall is 4 Amps.

PJ Diaz said:

That driver doesn't draw 10 amps, it produces 10 amps output to the LED strips at a voltage between 40V and 50V DC. They call it a 480w driver, because it's generally rated to power 10amps at 48volts.

Amps x Volts = Watts

Assuming you are running a 48v system driven at 10amps, the above formula would be shown as: 10A x 48V = 480W

In regards to how much that driver is drawing from your wall, that's a different voltage, so you need to do some number replacement, algebra like back in school. Power from the wall varies, but in the US it's generally between 115V and 120V at the wall. For the sake of easier math, lets assume that ithe wall voltage is 120V. The wattage will be the same for this (480W), not accounting for any loss. We know the voltage is 120V, so using the formula, we get: ?Amps x 120V = 480W ..then if we break that down further you see the Amp draw of 480w from the wall is 4 Amps.

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You may have just saved me a ton of aggravation lol. I've looked everywhere trying to figure that out. The paperwork that came with it only had the 10 amp figure listed, so I've been going through all of my equipment trying to keep at 12 amps for the room. All these electrical figures just start to blur in my head. Thank you!

PJ Diaz said:

That driver doesn't draw 10 amps, it produces 10 amps output to the LED strips at a voltage between 40V and 50V DC. They call it a 480w driver, because it's generally rated to power 10amps at 48volts.

Amps x Volts = Watts

Assuming you are running a 48v system driven at 10amps, the above formula would be shown as: 10A x 48V = 480W

In regards to how much that driver is drawing from your wall, that's a different voltage, so you need to do some number replacement, algebra like back in school. Power from the wall varies, but in the US it's generally between 115V and 120V at the wall. For the sake of easier math, lets assume that ithe wall voltage is 120V. The wattage will be the same for this (480W), not accounting for any loss. We know the voltage is 120V, so using the formula, we get: ?Amps x 120V = 480W ..then if we break that down further you see the Amp draw of 480w from the wall is 4 Amps.

Click to expand...

PJ Diaz great info

So, between work and another grow that has been going, I hadn't had time finish up my build. I decided to get it finished up and ready to switch out since I just went into flowering, but now I'm having an issue that I wanted some advice on. I've read alot of people recommending to wire a fuse from the driver to the rig, so I placed a 10 amp inline fuse off the positive line to the first wago connection and fired it up. My lord, was it beautiful. A couple minutes later, everything kicked off. I checked the fuse and it wasn't blown, so I turned both the onboard pots down a hair. I waited a bit and tried again. Same thing happened, but this time, the fuse holder had melted. The fuse was still not blown. Am I missing something here, or am I able to just wire it without the fusing? I've seen posts with them wired with and without, but I just figured a little more safety was a good thing but not if I'm melting fuse holders.

Gullett79 said:

I waited a bit and tried again. Same thing happened, but this time, the fuse holder had melted. The fuse was still not blown. Am I missing something here, or am I able to just wire it without the fusing?

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What was the amp rating of the fuse holder? Pictures? A fuse usualy isn't used and something is wrong if the driver shut down. We can't offer much help since the only info you provided is the driver model.

1212ham said:

What was the amp rating of the fuse holder? Pictures? A fuse usualy isn't used and something is wrong if the driver shut down. We can't offer much help since the only info you provided is the driver model.

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Thank you for the response! I've been at work, so I didn't have time to take any pictures. I was just looking at the fuse holder and it appears that anything above 4 amps will be too much power based on some reviews from pissed off customers I just found. The kit was an Amazon buy with the 10 18awg holders and assortment of 5x20 fuses up to 15 amps. Lesson learned. Thankfully I took the time to really keep an eye on things before finishing up. I'm using 15 of the $5 Samsung strips wired in parallel. I'm also using good 18awg wiring for everything. You said a fuse isn't usually use, so I should be able to wire everything up directly from the driver to the first wago connectors?

Correct, just delete the fuse holder.

1212ham said:

Correct, just delete the fuse holder.

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Thank you! I'll give it a go in the morning. I kept reading others saying the safest way to do it was to have it fused in case of an overload, so I wanted to be as safe as possible. But it seems as though from what I'm reading now is that the driver itself should have sufficient protections in place to prevent this.

Gullett79 said:

Thank you! I'll give it a go in the morning. I kept reading others saying the safest way to do it was to have it fused in case of an overload, so I wanted to be as safe as possible. But it seems as though from what I'm reading now is that the driver itself should have sufficient protections in place to prevent this.

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If you're worried, just plug the driver into a power strip that has a circuit breaker for 15 amps, which is standard for most power strips.

PJ Diaz said:

If you're worried, just plug the driver into a power strip that has a circuit breaker for 15 amps, which is standard for most power strips.

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I will be. I have a Belkin timer surge protector power strip I'll be using for the lighting and exhaust fan.