Led wiring

[rcpalmer1]

I bought a set of 180watt dimmable led lights off ebay. The dimmer uses a remote control. I have the lights on a timer. When the power is turned off and back on they loss their settings and come on full strength. The lights have two channels. 30 led wired on each. I have tried wiring a potentiometer. But they are 1 watt and burn up. Does anyone have any idea of how to replace the drivers or what to put in to keep the dim settings?

 

[thunderdood]

Look into rheostats that can handle more than 180W if you are looking to manually control the dimming. Potentiometers in my experiences are not ideal for driving a lot of current. Do you have specs of the circuit or devices in the fixture?

 

[rcpalmer1]

Just generic no name lights.

 

[rcpalmer1]

Look into rheostats that can handle more than 180W if you are looking to manually control the dimming. Potentiometers in my experiences are not ideal for driving a lot of current. Do you have specs of the circuit or devices in the fixture?

Each set of wires coming out of the drivers power 30 - 3watt leds. So 90 watts a channel. Full power is around 85dcv and dimmed about 45dcv. Let me know what other info will help.

 

[thunderdood]

If my calculations are correct, on full power you should see about 1A going through a channel if you can measure the current to verify. If you adjust the dimmer down, the amps should drop accordingly with a low around 500mA. From there you can see what current you want to drive the LEDs at. There are fixed/adjustable drivers that put out a range of current to drive LEDs. I'm just speculating on your setup since I don't know what other components/variables might make up the circuit as I'm going off of my own experience with DIY LED fixtures.

Several options I can think of as work arounds to fix what you're experiencing are:
1. LED driver
2. Rheostat that can handle the specs the power rating
3. Relay switch where you can keep the remote control dimmer on the whole time and use the timer to engage/disengage the relay switch to control your lights circuit

I may very well be over complicating this issue due to my electrical background too.