Drive and wiring recommendations.

Growroom Design
#1

I’ve decided to build another light and was looking for a recommendation for the correct driver to use and best practice of wiring it parallel or in series and the pros and cons to each of the two methods. My last light I wired it in series…worked great. One question, I know if you wire in series and one strip goes out you loose the whole thing…but what if one or a few chips on a strip goes out does it still take out the whole strip and whole series? I know parallel won’t do this but my question about that is…if a strip fails all the other strips now get the excess current the failed one was using. Right? I assume if you’re running the strips at say 80% max this isn’t a big deal since they all divide the extra current up and chances of a overload is non existent?

Anyways I just bought nine (9) of the following strips and was wanting opinions on wiring them and some driver options. I’d prefer, not absolutely necessary, to have the ability to adjust the current with a external potentiometer as my last driver had it built in and it was kinda a pain.

https://tinyurl.com/mthxkxya

The specs say each strip is:

60W
48V
500-1500mA

I was planning on running them at 70-80% for longer life and efficiency. So, I guess that would be like 42/48 watts each. Hopefully the driver can adjust down to this but give me enough room that if I wanted to push this up close to 60W each say when ending flowing I can. I guess a 500-550W driver capable of currency adjusting down enough. If possible I wouldn’t mind getting a 600W driver so if I wanted to I could add a few extra strips latter on if the driver can adjust current down to where I want to be with these 9 strips.

Now how would you guys go about this…getting a driver at 48V for parallel or running in series. The higher the volt the less Amps so would this help to say run them in series for efficiency and heat concerns.

2 Likes
#2

I used this site as a guide to build and wire my light, DIY LED Strip Build Designs for Samsung H-Series, F-Series, Q-Series, and Bridgelux EB Gen.2 - LED Gardener

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#3

parallel Is best that way, nothing is dependent on the the power passing through the one before all have a direct source and no dependencies on the other device’s functioning properly. I can help you should you have other questions been in the electrical industry for 42 years Master Electrician and a degree in electrical engineering :wink::sunglasses::v:

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#4

The only bad thing I’ve read about parallel is the power isn’t balanced as some strips might consume more than others or you might have a runaway on one such as a condition of fault. I’ll look more into this and honestly I fell more comfortable with a lower voltage.

Thank you OhNo555!

1 Like
#5

Thanks Tejas!

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#6

You might want to read this :arrow_down:. Very good article and explained very well.:wink: good luck with your project! :clap::facepunch::partying_face::sunglasses::v:

https://www.physicsclassroom.com/class/circuits/Lesson-4/Parallel-Circuits

#7

Thank you!

1 Like
#8

Stay with the lower voltage as its much safer in case of you getting shocked in a mis-hap. Parallel wiring would be the way to go and I would recommend getting a good driver that is both constant current and constant voltage. These settings can act as limiters on the driver so that if something fails you dont get failure cascade where the power draw ramps up.

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