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DIY LED lighting help !

You need to look at total wattage and the total voltage of LEDs
12x 5 = 60 watts
Looks like the voltage is 2.85v x 12 =34.2 (that's if the voltage is 2.85)

So you need a driver that will do over 60 watts really .
Looks like the PLN 100 48 meanwell would do it check this list here and drop down to the PLN series list 🙂
MEAN WELL LED Power Supply
Hope this helps
 
The PLN 60 48 ( i currently have thos driver running with 37watts of leds) would just do it but that's running the driver at its max capacity (output wattage) so it's always best to go a bit bigger with drivers 🙂
Or you could get 2 smaller drivers and split the load 🙂
Hope this helps
 
Samjpikey said:
The PLN 60 48 ( i currently have thos driver running with 37watts of leds) would just do it but that's running the driver at its max capacity (output wattage) so it's always best to go a bit bigger with drivers 🙂
Or you could get 2 smaller drivers and split the load 🙂
Hope this helps
Click to expand...

Would this be suitable? Mean Well ELN-60-48D dimmable LED power supply driver - NEW | eBay

or is there anything a bit cheaper that would do? would prefer dimmable in case leds are too bright, does the dimming function work as is or do I need anything else for it to work?

And am I right in thinking these have built in PSU?

Sorry for all the questions but led's are new to me

Nige 😕
 
Yes this is the psu 🙂
I have that one but non dimmable . I personally haven't used a dimmable driver but as far as I am aware you can dim via a trimmer , the same kind of trimmer for adjusting voltage and current. Easy and straight foward to adjust 🙂
As that is 60 w and your LEDs total 60 w it will be running the driver at its maximum and will probably get very hot , I would personally go bigger but that is up to you , you can buy other cheaper drivers from eBay , I did find one before which was 100 w but I decided to go with mean well as they have very good reviews . I have an exact clear easy to read plan of the whole circuit which I followed and used for my set up , i will upload it as it may help 🙂
Cheers
 
Samjpikey said:
You may know exactly how to do it but I like to help so if it helps then.... 🙂🙂
Click to expand...
You will find (and unlucky) without any form of current balancing one string of LED's will hog the current. Normally you never run LED's in parallel as one string will have slightly different characteristics and take say 1.2A (out of 2A) and other the remaining 0.8A. If you LED's are rated 1A this is bad news.

Here is a picture of 3 parallel strings of LEDs, running top to bottom. The string on the right is current hogging at expense (and reliability) of other two. In fact so much has been taken one of the LED's is not lit.
failedled.png

However in your defence you may be lucky, especially if strings are longer (than my 3 above), so that variations balance out. Quite a few people have done your circuit above, however some have had issues especially if mixing red, white and blue LED's in the strings.

All LED's fixtures I have designed (for work) have has only one LED driver per string of LED's, thus LED characteristics and current hogging is not an issue.

The way the "big boys" ie Cree, Osram achieve current balancing in their multiple chip solutions (other than electronics) is having clever temperature (& current) dependent resistors in each string, thus if one string starts to current hog its resistance increases limiting the current. All the current limiting resistors are in thermal contact with each other thus end up balancing out the current.
 
I have no experience in electrical circuits what so ever well apart from making this led light 😛 ,
This was the circuit I was given by the chap who supplied me with the LEDs and psu ,
He suggested this was the circuit I needed to do and what is generally used with these kind of leds , i guess the psu does all the work , my LEDs run at 350 ma , so the psu should be set at no more then 700ma I've actually set it at 610ma so I currently have 305ma running down through each string , I've put the multi meter in line on both strings and the reading is the same , the psu adjusts to suit 🙂 I know that if one LED was to fail then I would have to much current running down one string and the LEDs could fry within seconds , I have thought about fusing it so I could avoid this but until it happens then I will carry on as it is 🙂 it wasn't expensive to make so I'm happy 🙂
 
Samjpikey said:
Yes this is the psu 🙂
I have that one but non dimmable . I personally haven't used a dimmable driver but as far as I am aware you can dim via a trimmer , the same kind of trimmer for adjusting voltage and current. Easy and straight foward to adjust 🙂
As that is 60 w and your LEDs total 60 w it will be running the driver at its maximum and will probably get very hot , I would personally go bigger but that is up to you , you can buy other cheaper drivers from eBay , I did find one before which was 100 w but I decided to go with mean well as they have very good reviews . I have an exact clear easy to read plan of the whole circuit which I followed and used for my set up , i will upload it as it may help 🙂
Cheers
Click to expand...

Many thanks for your help. 🙂

I think I will go with a LPC-60-1050 for 10 cool white XT-E and an APC-16-700 for 4 warm white XT-E

Hopefully this will give me plenty of light and a pleasing colour.
 
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