parallel circuit gen7 vero13s.

[surgeon1]

another question regarding my new supplement lights. the back bars (5) will be running 3 gen 7 vero13 4ks at 500mA each. I am powering my lights using meanwell ldds. I want to avoid running 15 500 mA drivers just to power 16 watt white leds. I have extra 1500mA ldds so I was planning on running the 3 vero 13s on a parallel circuit. I have ordered 600 mA fuses and inline holders for the fuses to protect the emitters from running on too high a current. does this sound doable? thanks, steve

 

[theatrus]

another question regarding my new supplement lights. the back bars (5) will be running 3 gen 7 vero13 4ks at 500mA each. I am powering my lights using meanwell ldds. I want to avoid running 15 500 mA drivers just to power 16 watt white leds. I have extra 1500mA ldds so I was planning on running the 3 vero 13s on a parallel circuit. I have ordered 600 mA fuses and inline holders for the fuses to protect the emitters from running on too high a current. does this sound doable? thanks, steve

I strongly don't recommend paralleling any LED (just use more volts on the driver input). If you must, try to use balancing resistors to linearize any differences between the three COBs.

 

[surgeon1]

was worried you would say that. the problem is that the fv on the cobs is 36 I think so I don't know what driver has that kind of voltage. at least I now know that I have plenty of control channels.

 

[bblumberg]

Depends on whether you are comfortable having high DC voltage around your tank. You can easily get high voltage DC power supplies from Meanwell and others, e.g., the HLG-320H series can do in excess of 400V at 500 mA. However, I am not convinced that this is an inherently safe setup around our tanks.

I had the bright idea some years ago to get the so-called DreamChip COB LEDS (3 in series) and power each channel with a single HLG dimmable driver (HLG-80H-C700B). It worked briefly, but the chips were not the best quality (some dead channels) or colors and I had a lot of trouble getting dimming to work properly. I wasted a lot of time and money playing with this, in contrast with how easy my first LED build was (using single LEDs and LDD-H drivers).

After a lot of frustration with this setup, I was persuaded by O2surplus to get rid of the high voltage around my tank and replaced the LEDs with BlueAcro COB LEDs, running 3 on each channel of Meanwell LDD driver boards and controlled by a Bluefish Mini. All powered by a single Meanwell HEP-600-54. An expensive lesson, but this has been working well for almost 2 years.

In your case, I'd probably go with the Meanwell LDD solution, with each chip on its own LDD at whatever current you prefer (those chips can handle a lot more than 500 mA). You can get LDDs a lot cheaper from Mouser and other electronics suppliers than from the usual LED vendors.

 

[Kampo]

why not run one bigger vero instead of 3 in parrell? or BETTER look into luxeon "fresh fish" cob. very even spectrum I use one over my fresh tank and its the best White cob i've ever used.