LED Drivers: Cheap generic drivers vs Mean Well?

Your English is on this one. It’s maths sir :rofl:

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I just woke up so I have a excuse @anon58740919 mate :rofl: fell asleep as soon as I got in from work. Got a long night ahead of me now haha

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Your drivers will not fail, but they might dump all of their power into your LED until the LED itself bursts into flames.

Thermal runaway happens in the LED. At a fixed voltage, the hotter the LED gets, the more current it takes until it either equilibrates with the heat dissipation of the heatsink or it burns itself into an open circuit.

If you use a CV driver on an LED you might find yourself literally playing with fire. CAUTION.

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They are only driving the solstrips at around 44w each. They are capable of handling a lot more but yep I don’t really “trust” Chinese stuff but the drift I get is always downwards so… Less power to LED means they will be running cooler. If it was to ever show signs of increasing the voltage/wattage they will be removed and replaced. Thanks for the word of caution though :+1:

Unfortunately, that is not always true for LED’s.

Its NOT the total power going through the LED that heats it up and kills it. Its the amps ONLY.

Power in watts = volts x amps …but…but…but… that is not how you calculate heat losses or how heat is generated in a load.

Its all about the amps and resistance when it comes to heating - courtesy of Ohms law again. Its because heat losses are calculated based on the “voltage drop” across the load - the led diode in this case. When you do the math, the voltage itself gets cancelled out or drops out of the equation.

Heat losses in watts are = IIR Heat increases, or decreases by the square of the change in the current. So, the heat generated in any load is amps times amps times the resistance. That means that if the amps go up by 10%, then the heat generated in the LED goes up by 21% - 1.1 x 1.1 = 1.21. If the amps go up by 15%, then the heat goes up by 32% - 1.15 x 1.15 = 1.32. If the amps go up by 20%, the heat goes up by 44% - 1.2 x 1.2 = 1.44, etc. If the amps double, the heat is 2 x 2 = 4 times as much. If the amps triple, the heat goes up 3 x 3 = 9 times.

If you have been keeping up with your homework, you will say that the resistance of the LED is going down while the amps goes up, so that should balance out. BUT, thats not how the math works out.

The heat in the load changes linearly as the resistance changes.

That means that if the resistance changes by 10%, the heat changes by 10%. If it changes by 20%, the heat changes by 20%, etc Double the resistance, double the heat.

So the resistance going down 10% lowers the heat by 10%, but the 10% increased amps raises it by 22%.

If the resistance goes down by 20%, the heat goes down by 20%, but the increase in amps raises it by 44%.

So, its the current you need to watch, not the power or voltage as far as heating.

I have just picked numbers out of thin air. The actual way LED resistance changes is non-linear, and there are hard limits where the progression deviates dramatically - where the thermal runaway occurs. So, you may get away with this heat progression for quite some time, and you think a little more wont hurt, but its the straw that broke the camels back instead.

So, monitoring the power out of the wall from the supply tells you nothing about diode heating. Much better, and easier - check the temp of the LED strips right near the diodes. Thats much easier than trying to measure the resistance of the diodes or worrying about my silly math :).

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I can physically touch my strips and hold my hand just below them and my arm gets tired before I move it because of heat issues. Honest I understand your concerns and your advice is 100% sound but until I see with my own eyes there is a problem with the driver I’m gonna keep using it until I can afford a better driver (not necessarily a meanwell) or I have no other choice but to pay because of driver failure. They are working perfectly well at the moment and I’ve increased my yield massively compared to when I ran HPS. I’m one of them people that live by the code “if it’s not broke don’t try to fix it”. I don’t really have time to do homework and read a up about these things as I’d like to but I know about resistance (hence the 30amp car loom cable I’m running the strips on). Here in the UK we have a one of the safest power designs. Most appliances come with a permanent earth that kicks out the switches on the consumer unit with even the slightest problem with the wiring. I’ve seen me trigger the safety cut out when changing out a light bulb that I’ve forgotten to turn the supply off to. I’m in no way saying that the meanwell are not a safer option as they certainly are.

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Would the Meanwell LRS-200/LRS-350 Series Power Supplies work with Solstrips x2 and x3? They have a 24v LRS-350-24 and a 36v LRS-350-36 and are very cheap about $35 USD each. I run tents and operate my power supplies outside the tent. Waterproof sealed ip67 rated power supplies are great but 6 times the price. If they would work I’d buy more Solstrips x2 and x3s to replace all my lamps!

They are probably the best of the breed but still no reference in the data sheets to constant current capability, so @anon32470837 's cautions would still apply I believe. But there is this note on prohibited use cases:

c) seems to rule the series out entirely as appropriate for LED light systems, certainly anything larger than a strip or COB or two. On the plus side, at least they offer a detailed data sheet with the use case warnings.

Bottom line is as a company we can’t endorse using non-water resistant, non-grounded power supplies in horticultural environments. Your mileage, as they say, may vary.

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The constant current driver isnt new or difficult technology.
http://www.neufeld.newton.ks.us/electronics/?p=475
I won’t pay name brand prices for a common technology.
Efficiency is a serious consideration, however on a strained budget it’s a very simple decision, having plants growing now vrs several months from now.

If you know your way around a fluke and have some low voltage background, cheap is fine however
With cheaper products we need to remember to take extra safety precautions so, If you don’t have an electrical background, play it safe and stick with name brands!!!
IP wet rating can be also achieved with a dab of silicone lol.

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I hope you guys don’t mind me asking but

I have 2 of the above driver per light and a total of 4 lights. Each of the 8 drivers is 126f.

Any ideas to cool them? Lights of course being the biggest source of heat in the garden. Cooler drivers mean longer more efficient life and a happier garden

Those are hotter than that. IR doesn’t reflect off aluminum properly.

Someone should make a duct mount for drivers. Until then, point your exhaust at em.

Yeah I didn’t think it was 100% accurate. You can keep you hand on the driver but it is warm not yank your hand back hot.

Did you make those cables to detach your driver’s or did you buy the cables premade?

I would need like 10 foot long cables to detach my driver’s to get them out of the room?

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Just to note, you will lose power due to voltage drop with this long of a cable IME.

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Yeah and I don’t really want to loose power.

Good point bringing that up. Ideally I want cooler drivers and no loss of power ha.

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More so using cheap Chinese drivers I’ve found. This is the reason my meanwell hlg600 is mounted on the rack itself inside the tent. I’ve got a fan blowing directly on it to keep the temperatures down and the efficiency up. :v:

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126F seems like normal operating temperature for Mean Wells. I wouldn’t worry about it. The infrared temp guns don’t like reflective surfaces though, so your reading may be low as @Sativa_Steve mentioned. Try putting a square of black electrical tape on the driver and take your reading from it. I would consider up to 160F within operational spec.

Voltage drop is something to be consider in DC cable length, but SolStrip drivers are cabled for four feet of power cable with less than a 2% drop in voltage. Heavy 14 and 16 gauge cable helps a lot in minimizing losses.