I tested the current on a single strip, with both the voltage and current turned up, I'm reading .37ma. This just keeps seeming weirder and weirder. Yes, 16 strips on each lead, 32 total.
When I said "the first wago" I meant the first, up top on the photo. They would actually be the last wagos since I'm started in the middle and going out to the edges. For the last 4 strips I just need one port from the 12AWG wire coming from the 2nd last wago, then the other 4 ports are for the last 4 wires, since there are no more wago/strips. This is only for the 4 last strips on each side, every other one is how you described it, with the 3 wires going to the 3 nearest strips and the 2 on either end of those connecting wago to wago if that makes sense. Is this correct?
Bridgelux strips not working
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WhiteRecluse
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This is what you should have with double the strips.
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Cheers!
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WhiteRecluse
- LED Enthusiast
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- Posts: 84
- Joined: Thu Feb 14, 2019 11:08 am
I'm at a bit of a loss. It's hard to fathom a wago smoking when it will only have positive or negative leads. Are you absolutely sure that the positive leads are connected to only positive terminals? If one we're backward it would split the voltage but I'm not sure that half the voltage would turn on the lights.
Cheers!
Yeah, I've re-checked them at least twice everytime I've made a post here and as I've been tending to my plants. I'm 100% sure its all positive to positive and negative to negative. I think the smoke was due to the strayed wire being frayed from being pushed into the wago while not being twisted properly, I'm not even sure if that's possible. It wasn't a large amount of smoke or anything, it just let off a little trail of smoke from the one wago port for a second or two until I noticed it, switched it off, and fixed the wire. There hasn't been any issues asides from the current since and it's been on 18 hours for the last 3 days, so I have no clue.
I wish I didn't start my plants after assuming everything is fine since the lights started working, and I could just send the driver back. It's looking like i have no choice but buying a new driver, or buying more strips to make up for the power loss. The latter will be the cheaper option, it will just be hard fitting more strips in my build and I'm also not sure if the driver potentiometer is broken or the driver is faulty and if so if that would be likely to be a fire hazard. Thank you again for all your help.
I wish I didn't start my plants after assuming everything is fine since the lights started working, and I could just send the driver back. It's looking like i have no choice but buying a new driver, or buying more strips to make up for the power loss. The latter will be the cheaper option, it will just be hard fitting more strips in my build and I'm also not sure if the driver potentiometer is broken or the driver is faulty and if so if that would be likely to be a fire hazard. Thank you again for all your help.
Also another thing that might be a dumb question, in the diagram you uploaded, from the top to bottom it goes the line of positives, then the negatives, then positive, then negative. In mine I have it with positive being at the top, then negative, then negative again, then positive again on the bottom. Would this make a difference?
That’s bizarre. I would be very wary of this thing though given that it’s behaving oddly and you’ve seen smoke. That driver can do about 30A of current so you’d have to be careful where in the chain you measure your current or you could blow the 10A fuse in your meter. If you’ve split the strips up so there are 16 per pair of outputs from the drivers, you’d have ~15A of current on each side which is a lot.
There’s no reason why you should see smoke coming from a wago unless there’s so much current flowing through it that it’s melting it or something. I think Wagos are rated for something like 30A though... which wago smoked? Was it the first one in the chain?
Something seems wrong and I can tell you if I saw smoke, I wouldn’t run this thing until I knew exactly what was going on.
There’s no reason why you should see smoke coming from a wago unless there’s so much current flowing through it that it’s melting it or something. I think Wagos are rated for something like 30A though... which wago smoked? Was it the first one in the chain?
Something seems wrong and I can tell you if I saw smoke, I wouldn’t run this thing until I knew exactly what was going on.
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Yeah I’m gonna have to get another multimeter, fingers crossed that’s the issue, I’ll update here when that happens.
Yeah I don’t think it smoked due to too much current or anything. Granted I don’t know very much about this stuff, The potentiometers were turned right down when it smoked a bit from the 2nd last positive wago, that’s why I originally made this post, until I noticed the wire was really frayed, fixed it, tested the light again for 5 minutes or so and everything seemed fine. So I turned the potentiometers up and assumed the problem was fixed when I didn’t notice any smoke. After a few days of being very cautious and watching it while it was on, it seemed everything was fine so I started running them for 18 hours. The only issue at the moment that I can tell is the driver not putting out full power/multimeter being off.
Is it possible a frayed wire or some dust or something caught in the wago smoked a bit when the light was first turned on? Or do you think it is definitely a driver issue? Sorry if this is a weird question, it just didn’t smoke like an electrical issue, and there was no damage or marks, it was more like a small trail of smoke from singeing some hair or something.
If you think the driver is unsafe, then I’ll have to think about saving up and replacing it asap, that would be the 3rd 600-h I’ve brought trying to get this build working haha. I’m not having much luck.
Yeah I don’t think it smoked due to too much current or anything. Granted I don’t know very much about this stuff, The potentiometers were turned right down when it smoked a bit from the 2nd last positive wago, that’s why I originally made this post, until I noticed the wire was really frayed, fixed it, tested the light again for 5 minutes or so and everything seemed fine. So I turned the potentiometers up and assumed the problem was fixed when I didn’t notice any smoke. After a few days of being very cautious and watching it while it was on, it seemed everything was fine so I started running them for 18 hours. The only issue at the moment that I can tell is the driver not putting out full power/multimeter being off.
Is it possible a frayed wire or some dust or something caught in the wago smoked a bit when the light was first turned on? Or do you think it is definitely a driver issue? Sorry if this is a weird question, it just didn’t smoke like an electrical issue, and there was no damage or marks, it was more like a small trail of smoke from singeing some hair or something.
If you think the driver is unsafe, then I’ll have to think about saving up and replacing it asap, that would be the 3rd 600-h I’ve brought trying to get this build working haha. I’m not having much luck.
