Troubleshooting 1818 build

This is the second led I have built. Current build is 4 1818s on an HLG-185-48A. They are mounted on pin fin sinks with ideal holders connected with 18 gauge thermostat wire. AC side is wired brown to smooth, blue to ridges and green to green. DC side is red to positive on led and then negative to positive until the last negative connects to the black.

I have been looking forward to DIYing some cobs for a couple of years and was left unsatisfied when the light did not turn on when it was plugged in.

I have tested the ac cord by wiring it to a different light and it works.
I tested the DC leads from the driver with a multimeter and was getting voltage.
I tested the continuity of the wires (and tried to test the series, but not enough voltage in the meter?)
I wired the meter in the series and got nothing
I tried to drive just two cobs and got nothing
I took everything apart cleaned any stray thermal grease and ensured everything was located and the correct polarity (it was) and I could see that the contacts had made good connections with the pads on the chips

What else can I do to determine what is causing the malfunction, and make it work?

Cheers,
Jim

are the pots on the driver turned all the way up?

are you wiring them in series? they'll never light up with an HLG-185-48A wired that way

it does sound like he wired them in series

So of course in reviewing the fundamentals, I did not think to check the really fundamentals. The voltage stacks in series, so the driver would need to be outputting 200ishv rather than 48v.... It is really hard to type with all of these glowing spots in my eyes...anyway off to read about running in parallel...

Thanks Gentlemen!

Also it was really hard to find information on the which way the pot. volume turned up and down, do they generally work all the same way? (did figure it out by turning the dial)

Jimsmut said:

Also it was really hard to find information on the which way the pot. volume turned up and down, do they generally work all the same way? (did figure it out by turning the dial)

Click to expand...

clockwise like a radio dial/tv dial/thermostat/etc