magnetar68
02/18/2012, 08:16 AM
Anyone have any experience with the Thomson Research Product LEDs? Any downsides?
I bought 9 Meanwell ELN-60-48D's last year for my DIY LED build. I built the first fixture, but not the other two. I am just getting around to finishing it. I had heard of the Power Factor issues with the inrush voltage but most people did not seem to have issues if they staggered power ons; but I was not aware these would be around 60% efficient (at least I read that in this thread (http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1921614&highlight=eln+inrush) here). Although, my kill-a-watt meter shows 93W at full intensity versus a calculated power usage of 73W, so that seems like I am getting ~78% efficiency, but maybe that math is not that simple? I assume the best I will do is ~90%, but I pay $0.33 per Kwh (gotta love CA's marginal increasing usage fees), so even a 10W difference 12 hours per day for 365 days year is $15/year. [For my 180W total, 10% better efficiency means 18Watts per day: ~$26 per year.]
Since the whole reason I am moving to LEDs is my electric bill, seems I should think about doing better that 60% efficiency on the LED driver.
Here is that I am thinking. My build has three heatsinks each with 9 groups of 3 LEDs for a total of 27 XP-Gs, 27 XP-E RBs, and 27 XP-E B.
If I did my math correctly, here is what I would have with serial strings:
XP-Gs @ 1050mA = 3.589W, 3.418V --> 27x = 97W, 93V
XP-Es @ 700mA = 2.380W, 3.400V --> 27x = 65W, 92V
Since the 97W is pretty close to 100W, I might drop the other two fixtures
down to 8 LEDs per type. This would mean 9+8+8=25 LEDs per string. That
puts me at:
XP-Gs @ 1050mA = 3.589W, 3.418V --> 25x = 90W, 85V
XP-Es @ 700mA = 2.380W, 3.400V --> 25x = 60W, 85V
For the XP-Gs, I could use a LED100W-95-C1050-RD ($85 at Digikey):
31- 95 VDC, 1050 mA +/-3%, 100.0W max, 91% efficiency
For the XP-Es I could use a LED75W-108-C0700-M-D:
65-108 VDC, 700mA +/- 3%, 75.6W max, 91% efficiency
(although not sure I can find the latter as Digikey does not seem
to stock that model).
Anything I should know before heading down this route if I decide to do so?
Here are some pics of what I built:
http://i788.photobucket.com/albums/yy163/rletulle/AquaIlliminationCopy9LEDs-1.jpg
http://i788.photobucket.com/albums/yy163/rletulle/2011-07-14_17-53-38_602-1.jpg
I bought 9 Meanwell ELN-60-48D's last year for my DIY LED build. I built the first fixture, but not the other two. I am just getting around to finishing it. I had heard of the Power Factor issues with the inrush voltage but most people did not seem to have issues if they staggered power ons; but I was not aware these would be around 60% efficient (at least I read that in this thread (http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1921614&highlight=eln+inrush) here). Although, my kill-a-watt meter shows 93W at full intensity versus a calculated power usage of 73W, so that seems like I am getting ~78% efficiency, but maybe that math is not that simple? I assume the best I will do is ~90%, but I pay $0.33 per Kwh (gotta love CA's marginal increasing usage fees), so even a 10W difference 12 hours per day for 365 days year is $15/year. [For my 180W total, 10% better efficiency means 18Watts per day: ~$26 per year.]
Since the whole reason I am moving to LEDs is my electric bill, seems I should think about doing better that 60% efficiency on the LED driver.
Here is that I am thinking. My build has three heatsinks each with 9 groups of 3 LEDs for a total of 27 XP-Gs, 27 XP-E RBs, and 27 XP-E B.
If I did my math correctly, here is what I would have with serial strings:
XP-Gs @ 1050mA = 3.589W, 3.418V --> 27x = 97W, 93V
XP-Es @ 700mA = 2.380W, 3.400V --> 27x = 65W, 92V
Since the 97W is pretty close to 100W, I might drop the other two fixtures
down to 8 LEDs per type. This would mean 9+8+8=25 LEDs per string. That
puts me at:
XP-Gs @ 1050mA = 3.589W, 3.418V --> 25x = 90W, 85V
XP-Es @ 700mA = 2.380W, 3.400V --> 25x = 60W, 85V
For the XP-Gs, I could use a LED100W-95-C1050-RD ($85 at Digikey):
31- 95 VDC, 1050 mA +/-3%, 100.0W max, 91% efficiency
For the XP-Es I could use a LED75W-108-C0700-M-D:
65-108 VDC, 700mA +/- 3%, 75.6W max, 91% efficiency
(although not sure I can find the latter as Digikey does not seem
to stock that model).
Anything I should know before heading down this route if I decide to do so?
Here are some pics of what I built:
http://i788.photobucket.com/albums/yy163/rletulle/AquaIlliminationCopy9LEDs-1.jpg
http://i788.photobucket.com/albums/yy163/rletulle/2011-07-14_17-53-38_602-1.jpg