Jestersix

Meanwell driver

Hey Guys,
Has anyone who bought the meanwell driver put it to run yet?
I have the "P" version and I'm getting a flash everytime the power is cutoff.
Did anyone experience this behavior?
I really didn't like it much to tell you the truth.
I compared my own driver to meanwell and I get no flash, i get to have full 100% dimming for true dawn and dusk....
I'm trying to troubleshoot this issue with meanwell tech support, but no luck yet.
Any help would be welcome.

Thanks,
Roberto.
 
The flash is likely a capacitive discharge. I get it too but it happens when I'm asleep so it doesn't bother me.

As for the 100% dimming, I agree. I wish it would go lower than 10-15% current.

Not sure if there is a workaround on either of these. If I get ambitious, I'll talk with someone at work.
 
Hey Gomer,

Thanks for the reply.
In my case it's more like 20-25% on the P version.
I use a controller, so I can set exactly what % of PWM I want.
Well, it was good to see at least how they work and now I'm more confident actually to go ahead and produce my own driver.
Are you gonna be in the meeting?
I'll try to make it and I'll show you the circuit. It's so tiny.

Roberto
 
Hello Everyone,

I just spent the afternoon with Brian at Meanwell USA tech support.
He was kind enough to let me go there and take my stuff to be analyzed. I guess I'm lucky 'cause I work a block away from their office.
Well, the result wasn't what I expected.
We found out that the flashing I was refering, happens on all ELN-XX-48 versions of drivers. It doesn't matter if it is 30W or 60W and even version "D" or "P". It's part of the driver design. There is a zener diode that was added only on the 48V version, which causes this issue.
The only solution is going with a different voltage of driver. For example, you could go with the 24V version and have no issues with flashing. You would still be able to drive 12 LEDs at 1000mA, but you would have to rearrange your string to be 2 string of 6 LEDs in series and connect them in parallel. In this case, you would want to go with the ELN-60-24. Just make sure your wire can handle 2A now.
The other thing I found out is that the arduino PWM by itself, cannot be used to control the dimming of the driver. You would have to add a new circuitry to up the output pin voltage to 10VDC. So, even though it is PWM dimming, it still requires 10VDC as the amplitude of the PWM.
I guess not many people knew about this one, huh?
I only found out, because I happended to be measuring the amperage of my string and I was getting only 600mA. When I took my stuff to his lab, he was too measuring only 600mA.
We ended up scoping it and he said that in the specs, even the PWM is 10VDC. I guess I misinterpreted when I read the specs. It is kinda misleading though: "1~10VDC(D type) or PWM controlled(P type)"
Anyway, just FYI for those planning on building PWM controllers with Arduino.
Ahhh....
Almost forgot....
The "D" version has a much lower dimming cutoff. I beleive he said it is about 0.5VDC, which is 5%. Much better than the 20-25% I'm getting with the "P" version. The spec says 1VDC, but he said in reality it is 0.5VDC.
I hope this can help you guys in the future and avoid lots of disapointments, headaches and lost hours trying to figure this out...

Thanks,
RI
 
newhobby said:
We ended up scoping it and he said that in the specs, even the PWM is 10VDC. I guess I misinterpreted when I read the specs. It is kinda misleading though: "1~10VDC(D type) or PWM controlled(P type)"
Thanks,
RI


I didn't find the 10V part misleading. I personally thought the attached image was clear. PWM is explicitly 0V off, 10V on

That said, I can understand your frustration.




As for the min on voltage of 0.5V, I don't get that at all. My lights only turn on at 1V or greater. (10% of the 10V available on Apex). I'll double check this tonight with the DMM.


Still good information. On the parallel string option, instead of 2A (-X%) using 2 strings of 6, you can also run 3 strings of 6 at full 2.5A giving each LED 833 mA and still get gobs of light out and more efficiently, but it costs 50% more on the LED side.

Attached files /attachments/sites/default/files/Picture 6.png
 
Gomer said:
I didn't find the 10V part misleading. I personally thought the attached image was clear. PWM is explicitly 0V off, 10V on

WOW
I guess i never saw that graph.
I just read the spec summary. :(

RI
 
so 2 questions i hope someone can answer for me.

the first one is that when I wired up the eln-60-48P driver to test for amperage, the multimeter read a constant 350mA. I tried turning svr2 to no avail. Turning svr1 and checking voltage also gave me a steady 19V. Neither of the knobs did anything at all.

the second question: I wired the meanwell to a string of 6 xr-e and the output was extremely dim. Checking the two SVR again gave no changes. I didn't have a dimming circuit at all.

Does anyone know what might be causing the problems? Perhaps a grounding issue? I used metal 440 socket head screws but they were not touching the pads. I could get a complete circuit when touching them however. I also tested by taking the screws out and still got a complete circuit from touching the threads.
 
How exactly are you controlling the dim circuit right now? Have you tried with a 100% (always on) duty cycle 10VDC signal to the dimming leads?
 
supernip said:
i didnt attach anything to the dimmers. should i try attaching a walwart at about 7.5-9v to see if it will do the trick?

Picture%206.png

The bottom two charts are important. If you have a P model, you need to supply a 10v (more than 10.6 will damage the unit, so use regulated) signal to use the driver. 100% duty cycle = 0n. With nothing applied, you at 0% on. Not sure how you got current with nothing on the dim lines.

Applying a 7.5-9V may work, but make sure that it doesnt exceed 10.6V under load. Walwarts are unregulated.
 
I don't think those dim lines have any pull down. So if left open with high impeadance, you could get a frequency that would be similar to pwm and light up the LEDs. I think... lol
 
I just read this. I just went to radio shack and spent a bunch on supplies to build the dimmer circuit until we get our controllers (can't wait RI). I just read the "D" vs "P" controversy believe it or not. I'm assuming the "D" uses the PWM to dim the lights as well. Would it be more efficient to just switch out my two Ps for Ds and then be able to keep the lights as moon lights (I'm assuming the lights dim that much on the D variety)? Am I fine with the P, or is it making life more complicated? Basically whats the motivation for the switch over?
 
The P version will work just as well with just a potentiometer. Much like D, the P also dims with 0-10VDC.
The good thing of P is that you also can do PWM. So, you get to choose which one you want.
 
heyitsomid said:
So i don't need to make the PWM circuit?

hmm....interesting. before you go off of this, take a 6-8volt wall wart and a 100 ohm pot, and see if you can dim with just that (not ideal, but safe)
 
Yes Tony.
That is the reason I can only achieve 600mA on mine.
The PWM 0-10VDC is not only limited by the PWM, but the amplitude too.
This is my quote from previous post: "I only found out, because I happended to be measuring the amperage of my string and I was getting only 600mA. When I took my stuff to his lab, he was too measuring only 600mA."
I'm doing 5VDC amplitude on my PWM and get only half of amperage, thus half the dimming.
So, assuming you do 100% PWM duty cycle, which is what the potentiometer would give, you can dim it from 0-10VDC just as well as the D version.

Roberto.
 
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