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COB Compatible LED Drivers

Firebrand

Firebrand

Active member
Been a while since I've been here, I'm thrilled to see this thread is still going strong and helping folks to better understand how LED's work, also it's nice to see everyone helping everyone else. ICM forum, one of the very best on the net.
 
Dion

Dion

Active member
hi, i see a lot of questions around the forums about drivers, i just wanna say choosing the driver is super simple.

take total volts(not watts, volts) of your leds
e.g. 12v led, 4 of them= 4x12=48

then decide the current you want based on what the manufacturers suggest

e.g. 640mA(thats .64 amps)

ok so i need a driver that will push 48 v at 640mA(usually the higher the amps the more volts the led will use, so check the spec sheet)

the driver's volts will change within listed range to whatever your leds need as long as it is within listed range
so here we could use a 36-52v driver @640mA(or a 32-70v@640mA or...etc) notice the current is "constant current"-VERY IMPORTANT

the current needs to be constant, voltage is a bit more flexible, your led spec sheet shoudl also indicate what voltage the led will consume at what mA

eg 36v@1400mA 41v@2000mA etc cree lists these, most companies you can just figure it out if it says "10-11v 500-600mA then at 580mA you will pull aprox 10.8v)

basically totall voltage of all the leds you want to run off the driver and the ampage is all you need to know

let me know if i need to explain that better
 
Firebrand

Firebrand

Active member
Well, today I completed my first COB project, and I have to tell you, it is very empowering.
I feel great that I was able to do this without any setbacks, and I really dig the results.

So, all of that being said, if there are any of you out there that don't think you can do this, take it from me, you can. I was green as grass when I started looking at DIY for COB LED's, I didn't have a clue, but I kept reading, and researching, and I matched COB's to drivers that I already had, and it worked, it can be done.

I bought China lights about 2 years ago and they didn't work worth a shit, but I re-purposed them, using everything except the LED beads and now I have a working fixture. Inside the fixture there are 4 drivers, I used only 1 driver to power the 3 COB's that you see in the photos below, this means that theoretically I could place 9 more COB's in the fixture if I wanted.

To see how I started, please refer to the beginning of this thread.



I used the parts that I described at the beginning, I plan to ad 3 more COB's to this fixture in the very near future.

(Single left click to enlarge thumbnails)
 
Firebrand

Firebrand

Active member
Dion said:
when do we get to see ur grow?
Click to expand...
Well, I got the other 3 COB's, and they are installed and working. So now I have 3 at 3000k and 3 at 5000k, a nice blend, a 102 watts total if driven at data sheet specs, I suspect though that the China drivers I'm using aren't all they claim to be, so probably around 80-90 watts total out of the fixture.

I'm using the fixture for seedlings.



Please left click on photo to enlarge.

getstoned.gif
 
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