Yep and likely more reliable 
2 Likes
Sorry. Really. I was not trying to start a fight, but if you want to complain about ācock measuringā, you guys started it by claiming those 4" long limp power supplies are just as good as a 10" long, fully engorged Meanwell (there is a cock measuring joke in there)
Im not sure if that was a typo on your part, but I was not talking about CCTV supplies. Closed Circuit TV has nothing to do with power supplies. I was talking about CCCV = Constant Current Constant Voltage power supplies.
The link above to the āregulated LED driversā is to regulated power supplies. They are NOT CCCV. They are NOT the same. They are not true drivers at all.
I have no problem with you using them or recommending them - unless you claim there is no difference between them and a quality LED driver that is actually designed to drive LEDās safely and properly at the max efficiency.
Sure they work. Sure they are cheaper. That does NOT equal the same or better.
Im fine if you dont think its worth spending the extra $$$ on a Meanwell or some other true CCCV driver. What you decide is āworth the moneyā or ānot worth the moneyā is entirely up to you. I cheap out on some things but not on others. Im sure you are the same way. Others may want the added benefits and be willing to pay the difference.
I just dont want people thinking there is āno differenceā when there is actually a very large difference in circuit design and function. Which ones you buy or use is entirely up to you.
6 Likes
It was a typo my bad. Well an auto correct anyway but yeah even a meanwell isnāt cccv. Itās CC or CV. I wouldnt use CV in a COB application. I would use CC. And if itās a strip build I would use CV. However you look at it. A regulated power supply is usually CV which is notable by the voltage it runs at constantly usually stated somewhere on the driver.
Iāve only made like 40 light rigs in the last year but I donāt know shit 
I donāt know why people think Iām here to bash meanwell. Iāve got a hlg120hC1050B running on my cob cool tube.
At no point have we said there was no difference either. Thereās an evident difference. All I want people to know is IT IS NOT THE ONLY OPTION to buy a meanwell.
5 Likes
Ok, most of that is incorrect, but Im not going to argue with you any more. I just dont feel well enough to get into the details.
Edit: I lied. Its a personality flaw on my part I guess. I have to correct part of this. Sorry. Im pretty well stoned and fighting kidney stones, so I hope this is understandable and doesnt come across as an attack. I do tend toward being a pedantic ass sometimes. Sorry.
Meanwell drivers are CCCV. They are not CC or CV = they are both. CC is the primary mode. Which mode is active at any given moment depends on a number of things I wont get into, but they can be operating in either mode at any time. The mode of operation (CC vs CV) switches automatically depending on what the āloadā is at that time and the settings. It helps if the āloadā is within the range that supply is designed to handle. If the load goes āout of rangeā, they will limit the damage by limiting the output of the supply.
Im sure you know ohms law - E=IR. Ohms law is why a CV only power supply is a bad choice to drive LEDās.
Thats because LEDās do not have a constant fixed resistance. I feel like I should put that in bold type. Its the key to all this discussion.
The resistance of an LED goes down when they heat up. The harder you drive them, the lower the resistance. Less resistance means a lower voltage drop. A CV supply will try its best to keep the voltage the same while the resistance of the LED drops. The only way to do that is to increase the current flow. As the current flow through the LED increases, the heat increases, which drops the resistance of the LED even more. That lowers the voltage drop across the LED even more, which forces the CV supply to increase the current flow even more, which leads to more heat, less resistance, more current flow, lower voltage, more heat, etc etc etc until things burn up.
This is pretty much the definition of thermal runaway.
Only a true CCCV /power supply/driver can handle that situation correctly. It will keep the voltage AND the current from getting too far out of spec.
Yes, cheaper supplies will work fine - most of the time. Unless you are pushing to hard or the diodes are getting old or have poor cooling, etc, etc.
Take a look at these two graphs. One os from Meanwell and one from the data sheet of the most commonly used LM561C LEDās. They show what Im talking about.
5 Likes
Run cobs in parallel on a meanwell CV without resistors before each diode. They donāt do that well at keeping shit in check. Just as liable to thermal runaway. Go on see what happens. Cos if a resistor is needed for a meanwell then it will be the same for a regulated PSU will it not? So they are not true CCCV because they are meanwell or we wouldnāt have these issues would we.
On another note. Sorry to hear about your poor health mate thatās no good
3 Likes
I have this driver and itās both cc and cv , @anon58740919 mate , when i wire this up will i need to change anything and if i donāt have an ammeter how do i know how much itās putting out etc - just a few ??'s , asi need to know before i use it bro.
Any info appreciated.
Gaz
2 Likes
Buy one of these @Gaz29
4 Likes
If your running 4 strips at 40w each the meter will obviously read 160w. If it doesnāt adjust the pot until it does
2 Likes
So using this plug thingy will tell me what im drawing from the wall and the voltage etc , excellent find and the price is reasonable. I think Iāll get me one , is this what you use @Esrgood4u ?
Iāll get on fleabay and get one mate cheers.
Gaz
2 Likes
There may be safe and efficient alternative to Mean Well drivers out there somewhere, but make no mistake. SolStrip Photon Solutions, at this point, does not recommend any other brand of driver to power SolStrip systems than Mean Well drivers. The only exception is a single-strip 70w driver we have tested and stocked for low-wattage applications. We tried and threw away drivers from almost a dozen different suppliers over a yearās time before settling on those we stock.
@anon58740919 my friend, I am all for saving folks their cash. But much of your defense of these cheap power supplies gives both operating cost and safety short-shrift, and some of it is just misinformation.
-
Mean Well HLG model LED drivers are both constant current and constant voltage power supplies. Your statement that they are either one or the other is incorrect. That is why we sell and recommend this series of driver almost exclusively. Iāve never found another driver maker that even dared to make the claim, let alone deliver the goods. As @anon32470837 mentioned, the generic drivers donāt regulate either voltage or current in any way that any electrical engineer could call āconstantā. Thatās why they burn up. As LEDs heat up, the diodes draw a higher voltage, which increases current, which increases heat, which increases voltage, andā¦zzzaappp. Thermal runaway, dead diodes. Mean Wells simply will not allow that to occur under most scenarios. They will shut down before they burn up your lights, or themselves. The cheap power supplies usually burn themselves out while they are toasting your diodes.
-
Mean Well HLG drivers are 93-96% efficient. That means to get 100 watts of DC power to your LEDs, you need to BUY about 105 watts of power from the PowerCo. Do you know how efficient your generic drivers are in converting 240v AC to ~24v DC? Probably not, because the generics almost never come with a spec sheet. Every once in a while a supplier will offer one up, and the numbers are aways horrible, 67-79% is typical. Which means for that 100 watts of DC power for your LEDs you have to BUY 140-150 watts of power from the PowerCo., every month for as long as you use that shitty inefficient driver. You cannot base a cost analysis on purchase price alone for a product that you will pay to operate 12 or 18 hours a day, 365 days a year, for years on end. You must consider annual operating costs, and in that analysis Mean Wells pay for themselves in a couple of months of operation simply due to their efficiency.
-
Mean Well HLG drivers are IP65 or 67. Which means you can pretty much drop them into your nutrient tank or compost tea bucket and keep on trucking. You can spray them with a hose. What are those generics rated? Oh, yeah, not rated at all. In fact, all circuitry is open to the air. ZZaaapppppā¦
Safety around high-wattage circuits housed in continuously damp and wet environments, built mostly by unlicensed DIYers, and used in often un-monitored operations over long periods of time, is not a small issue to me. It is paramount - this hobby isnāt much fun, and the medicine isnāt very effective, if it kills people in the making.
I could make a half-dozen other points based on the 5-year warranty, dimming features, quality of power generation, over-powering protection, etc., but the three above are all you need to know to know why I only recommend Mean Well power supplies for SolStrip systems. Believe me, Iād love to have an alternative - selling wired drivers is time consuming and not very profitable - but for price and quality, with the above minimum requirements, Iāve not found one.
13 Likes
Hey I didnāt start this thread. I only made a statement that my Chinese driver works perfectly well and that Iāve had no problems running it. I never made any comparative statement other than the price difference between the two. I canāt compare them when Iāve never owned a meanwell driver. I donāt like the fact that itās me thatās supposedly started this thread. Not happy at all.
3 Likes
Thank you @Baudelaire for putting a description and disclaimer on the top post for me. I donāt want people thinking Iām bashing meanwell products. If I had the cash to buy meanwell over Chinese I know what choice Iād make. I gave a true statement that Iāve not had any problems other than a slight voltage drift downwards using the Chinese driver. If they drifted upwards Iād be advising people to stay away from them but personally both of mine have been fine. 480w been running 3 months or so and the 120w around a month.
5 Likes
Fluence is apparently using Powerland drivers in their new rack-style SPYDR 2 line. Maybe we will finally have an option to Mean Well available to DIYers soon.
Thanks for your understanding on this @Esrgood4u. I thought is was important for the community to know the pros and cons of using different classes of power supplies in LED grow room projects, and your comments sparked an excellent discussion.
I should be clear here: as sentient adult free beings I believe anyone should use any driver they want in their LED builds. I just canāt recommend some of them to customers who purchase SolStrip products with a warranty and a belief that we at Photon Solutions are endorsing their use. Until another driver maker brings an offering to market that meets or exceeds the minimum requirements we believe are necessary for safe, efficient, and reliable operation at good value, we will remain Mean Wellās bitchesā¦
6 Likes
No worries at all @Baudelaire. Itās all good and I understand the reason for the thread. It just looked a little like it was a comparative thread that i had personally started myself. I just didnāt want to be the target of any meanwell fanboys arguments. Crossed wires (pun intended) happen. Now itās settled letās move on with the thread people 
1 Like
IMO, Iām willing to use other CC drivers than MeanWell, but I will never use a CV driver again with COBs. I had a few COBs setup in a temporary tent, and all I had was a CV supply available. I decided to use it, and one day it heated up a bit too much and broke the thermal adhesive holding it to the heatsink. I smelled smoke, and ran to check it out and my COB set fire. Thermal runaway happens, and CV is dangerous.
Lesson #1 was use a mechanical connection like a metal screw to hold the COB to the heatsink.
Lesson #2 was never leave a COB with CV supply unsupervised for any amount of time.
3 Likes
Yeh it can be a big gamble. I got a wee 30W candybar driver for a single solstrip in a starter cab but it went into runaway within minutes. The solstrip was roasting and that 30W driver was drawing 70W from the mains. If i hadnāt been paying attention it would have released Chinese magic smoke and possibly the firecrackers too 
2 Likes
Sorry if I came across too harshly earlier.
That downward voltage drift is what I was talking about earlier. Its a sign that those drivers cannot properly handle the way LEDās change resistance as they heat up.
Its all back to Ohms Law.
Those cheap ādriversā are not really drivers at all. They are regulated power supplies. The āregulatedā part of that is the voltage. They arent really CV though. CV is a whole step up from regulated.
Anyway, by regulating the voltage, those drivers place you at greater risk of thermal runaway. Lets say they are putting out 24 volts at 2 amps for some ledās. They are designed to keep the voltage at or near 24 volts. The problem occurs when the LED resistance drops.
Ohms law states that if the voltage is 24 volts and the current is 2 amps, then the resistance must be 12 ohms - E=I*R
But what happens when the LEDās resistance drops as it heats up? Lets say it drops to 10 ohms. The regulated power supply will do its best to keep the voltage at 24 volts, that means the amps must go up to 2.4 amps. Now your power sully was putting out 24 * 2 = 48 watts, but now its putting out 24 * 2.4 = 57.6 watts.
But - the LED is now running hotter due to the higher current, so its resistance drops again.
The voltage drop will occur when you power supply cant provide any additional current. At that point, the āregulationā begins to fail, and the voltage will drop. Actually, the voltage may drop from the get go if the power supply isnt designed very well or is being pushed beyond its design spec.
As long as that occurs before the diodes can go into thermal runaway, your fine 
This is why CV ādriversā or āregulatedā power supply ādriversā are not the best choice for LEDās.
5 Likes
Thanks for the info @anon32470837. To be fair the drop I get is very minimal. Most itās ever dropped was 20w and that was when I very 1st started to run them. I do check weekly and make ever so slight adjustments to the bigger driver if needed but honest itās nothing that really concerns me. Iāll keep running them and Iāll save for meanwell or similar until they fail (if they fail) on me.
2 Likes
Thats a perfectly reasonable stand to take, and they may well last the life of the fixture.
As far as saving up for a Meanwell, lets look at the monthly costs for each driver.
My lights run at around 300 watts average during flowering on a 12/12 schedule. My electricity costs about $0.10/kWh.
My lights themselves uses about 216 kWh/month. The Meanwell is about 95% efficient, so Im actually drawing 227 kWh from the wall. That is costing me about $22.70/month.
If my driver was only 65% efficient - which is being a bit generous - and I wanted the same amount of light on my plants, that works out to 216kWh/.65 = 332 kWh/month or about $33.20 per month. Thats an extra $11 per month that the cheaper power supply is actually costing me. My 320 watt Meanwell costs about $125. That cheap supply linked to above costs about $24, so a difference of about $100. Running the Meanwell paid for itself in the first 9 months. Ive had it for almost exactly one year, so Im about $33 ahead compared to where I would be if I had bought a cheap supply - and saving that $11 each and every month from hear on out 
By the time the Meanwell and these lights are worn out, I will have saved enough to pay for a whole new fixture and driver. Well, a good part of it anyway
3 Likes
Ignore my last post as my math was waaaayyyyy off 