Lighting Help!!!!! My COBs are barely lit!!!!

[Dr.Bubbles]

Emergency!!! Anyone of you DIY light guys....My 4 cobs are barely lit. Note I said barely, so there is a complete circuit. I have faith in my wiring as everything has been running great and nothing happened. I take a peek, lights are at like <1% and not even lighting all the junctions. Running Citizen 1818s off a Mean Well HLG-1050H-C1050B for 4 cobs in series. I have it wired to a 100k pot for dimming and that is my first suspect. After that, its the whole driver itself. Anyone??!? Thanks guys!!

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[Dr.Bubbles]

Emergency!!! Anyone of you DIY light guys....My 4 cobs are barely lit. Note I said barely, so there is a complete circuit. I have faith in my wiring as everything has been running great and nothing happened. I take a peek, lights are at like <1% and not even lighting all the junctions. Running Citizen 1818s off a Mean Well HLG-1050H-C1050B for 4 cobs in series. I have it wired to a 100k pot for dimming and that is my first suspect. After that, its the whole driver itself. Anyone??!? Thanks guys!!

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I am pretty good at troubleshooting, just new to the whole DIY LED thing. If anyone can give me an idea before I have to start going one by one through my wiring, which is clean, but all Red, cause that's what I had. Its been running great. Just out my new driver in a week ago today....Brand new Meanie. Criss your fingers guys, my 11 day old AvT and LnC Mephistos aren't very happy and neither am I!!! @BigSm0 any thing like this ever happen to you?

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[BigSm0]

I'd bet just about anything it's not the cobs or the driver of that helps. 99.9% of issues is in the wiring or at a connection. It bypass the dimmer first

 

[Dr.Bubbles]

I'd bet just about anything it's not the cobs or the driver of that helps. 99.9% of issues is in the wiring or at a connection. It bypass the dimmer first

K....I will take your word for it. I bypassed the dimmer and everything was the same. All four are lit, so there is some power peaking through. I'm gonna give em some sunshine in a couple hours and do some serious troubleshooting. My driver does get "warm" to the touch. But compared to other solid state electronics I have dealt with its minimally hot at best. Maybe 110° or so at most. I'm gonna try em one at a time. So I can test one 1818 at a time on a HLG-240-C1050B right? I disconnected the trim pot. I think my wiring is good. I hope its something that easy, but my gut is saying driver issue. Would one bad connection on a BJB make them all VERY dim? We shall soon see hopefully. I will keep ya posted later this afternoon. Fingers crossed for me. Thanks for the insight....Your word is gold with all things cob. Just when things were going so well....Lol.

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[BigSm0]

The bjb would be the next probable cause. If you have a smooth, non grooved pair of needle nose pliers try grabbing the wire the horizontally across the heatsink and pushing it in again. I made my own by sanding and bending them so it grabbed an inch of wire and not the whole thing. Tough to explain. 1" of the needle part I bent perfectly paralell when grabbing a wire instead of just pinching a small part of it. Not necessary here but you kinda get the idea in why I did this once you do it.


I know this sucks for you and we have all been through it. I haven't had a bad cob or driver yet but have had a bad holder and potentiometer. Take your time and don't get to overwhelmed. Rushing the repair will lead to mistakes. I know you can't as you need the light but a break always helps too.

This driver is a constant current which in series wiring divides the voltage and not the amperage so it is perfectly fine to run 1 cob at a time here.

In paralell you divide the amperage of the driver and that's usually a lot more than a cob can handle. For future reference. This is why paralell is not the best option but it's usually the cheapest. 1 cob on a 4800ma driver in paralell would give 1 cob 4800ma, 2 cobs 2400ma, 4 cobs 1200ma. Thermal runaway is when a cob blows and adds the amperage to the remaining cobs blowing them like falling dominos. Please feel free to ask if you have any more questions

 

[Penrey]

I am having an issue finding that driver. What model is it? 1050h?

 

[Tommy McCain]

I am having an issue finding that driver. What model is it? 1050h?

I believe the OP made a mistake on the model in the first post. If you look at a later post he is using a HLG-240-C1050B.

Remember that if the plant is only 11 days old it is still in veg and does not require as much watts/sq foot. You may want to get a few store bought LED bulbs if it becomes a major issue that takes days to repair. I still veg under a old t-5 if things get to packed in my veg cabinet and sometimes I feel like the plants like it more. Like @BigSm0 said, sometimes a break from such a powerful light in veg is good.

 

[Dr.Bubbles]

Yes I did.....Irs a 240H-C1050B. It was REAL late when I wrote that. I'm about to dig in a few mins. The babies are sitting on the hot tub in the 80° sunshine loving life. I've got a pair of 3500K 1818s and a Meanie 120-48A on the way for a light, so panic mode is over. My bad for not responding, Tapatalk didn't notify me of any activity other then Big @ 3:00 am. Thanks guys, and will let u know within a couple hours what the fuck happened.

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[Dr.Bubbles]

PS....I also have a badass T5 rig that I didn't even think about. D'oh!!! Its great for veg. That other pair of 1818s should be here within an hour and I can keep them till I get this sorted out. Thanks for helping and racking your brains. I hate troubleshooting, but I am pretty good at it, and I believe I will have the answer within 20 mins of getting in there. I'm convinced now that its 99% either the BJB on my pinfin sink, on the gooseneck, OR the driver, which Big has WAY more experience with...And if he hasn't had a failed driver selling Autocobs, then I seriously doubt my first ever little CC Meanie is broken a week after turning it on. It doesn't smell...Lol. Which is real good for solid state. Bad news!!! I broke the PCB on my $4 pot trying to get my super clean shrink-wrapped soldered wire off. After that, I clipped the wire, which would make the driver run at 100% with infinite ohms on the disconnected pot wire. I actually wired my pot back words, so I will fix that after I get this sorted out. I wired it like a volume pot, where wide open is zero ohms...And its backwards!!!! It was working fine though, just wide open was fully CCW at about 7:00. So that will be fixed correctly now. All right. I'm done....Thanks for the support, and I will be back in a bit with an official update and prognosis!!! Happy Friday

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[Penrey]

Ah yeah. I see it now.
.