help with LED's

  • We are currently upgrading MFK. thanks! -neo
sounds like a busted power supply, i'll try with another unused one i have to see if that helps, thanks dude
 
yeah, guess something happened to the power supply i was using, the back up supply i had worked fine, glad it wasnt the LED it self cause that's stuck to an aluminum bar i glued with thermal epoxy. can anyone recommend me a 12 volt power supply around the 60 watt capacity?
 
If it was the LED that was the problem you would probably be down to no lights. Since you have them in parallel, one fails your sending the amps that would be used by that light to the next in line eventually burning them up.


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anarekist said:
so i connected a volt meter to it, when it's powered it get about 12 volts which is correct, when i plug it into a LED it drops down to abbout 10v which i guess i ok since it has to draw some power and i think the volt meter is drawing power too i duno, the light still strobes so i duno what.. :\

could one led malfunction in a series cause the rest in a parallel series to strobe too?
Click to expand...

When you ask if one led in a series malfunctions can it cause the rest in parallel to strobe?

I don't get what you are asking?
LEDs are either wired in series or in parallel.

I think they were strobing because your lights are constant current and you're running them as if they were constant voltage. The way you wired it makes sense but I don't think it's right for your lights I think you're going to keep going through drivers. But I could be wrong as I've never wired mine in parallel.


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Wiring the LEDs in either series or parallel will both work, and each method has its pros and cons. Depending on which method is being used a different voltage regulator may be needed since one wiring method is a voltage divider and the other is a current divider. It sounds to me like the voltage regulator was failing and was passing AC through to the output, that would explain the strobing. The LEDs would light up during the positive cycle and turn off during the negative phase.
 
Wouldn't the led blow if it were letting AC through? As LEDs need DC current in order to work properly. If you say that they are strobing because of the AC being passed through it really doesn't make sense as U.S AC current is 60 Hz AC so it would be going back and forth 60 times a sec which your eye wouldn't be able to tell that anything was happening.


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i think it was amps, the 60watt driver i have is 8amps and each led even tho its 10watts each pulls about 2 amps, i have 6 of these. it worked for awhile but i guess some where along the way it stopped and started to strobe like a loose wire. im NOT positive hehe, but i think i was short 4 amps to power the whole setup, wired in parallel. i reused the 60watt/8amp driver to power 4 10watt,2amp moon lights and it doesnt strobe so i guess i'll just stick with that for awhile. i order some cheap chinese drivers orginally to power the moon lights but they fell short at only 4 amps so only able to power 2 lights at once even tho it's supposely rated at 45watts each. ugh. doesnt matter i busted one of the leds, just broke apart.. chinese brands. i learned alot and i think when summer rolls in im gona start building another diy led.
 
This has got me so confused! I think your not calculating these right or I'm reading something wrong. Your white lights are

Forward voltage: 12V
Forward current: 1000 ma(1 amp)
And from the specs you gave the blues are also the same.
Your driver is 60w 12v 5 amp? (the link you gave says 5 amps but you said 8 amps)
LEDs like constant current and yours run at a maximum of 1000 ma
Your driver is rated for 5000 ma (5 amps) do each led should receive 833.33 ma which is perfect.
You don't need more amps your at the right amount that is if you had the 5 amp driver. But if you have the 8 amp driver like you said that would probably be the reason for all the trouble. I think you should buy individual drivers for each light. You can get 6 of them for like $25.
Why did you run them in parallel?


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for the ease of running it off one power supply..and it worked perfectly. at first haha. still learning i guess.

first time i tried to hook them up in series it didn't even light up. sorry i got confused too, the dimmer im using is 8amps rated.
the driver is rated at 5 amps yes.
 
Well the only thing I can think of at this point is the two sets of wires coming out of your driver are actually separate. So one of the red wires is actually 6V dc and one of the black is the negative. So each set of wires is actually only using half of the 12 volts you should post a bunch of pictures of your driver where there is writing and if there are actual specs on the driver itself.

You see what I'm talking about? This is just a possibility.


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