Need help troubleshooting cob build

Hey all, so I just finished building my third cob for a 2x4 tent using 8x citi 1212's, but for the life of me I can't quite figure out whats going wrong here. As it is right now, the build is two HLG-185H-1400B drivers each powering two clusters of four cobs, each wired identically. One side is working perfectly fine, dimming properly, etc. However, the other side is not powering on at all. I am getting power from the output side of the driver by itself (~143/4v), but nothing once wired in series with the four cobs.

I have ensured the holders are making good contact with the cobs, weren't grounding anywhere, and have tried going one by one on each holder (bjb) and jumping without cobs to see if I can find a faulty cob but this has proven unsuccessful. It could be that I just need to look at it again tomorrow after getting some sleep, but as of now I'm a little stumped so any ideas would be greatly appreciated.

Cheers

Sureshot2 said:

Hey all, so I just finished building my third cob for a 2x4 tent using 8x citi 1212's, but for the life of me I can't quite figure out whats going wrong here. As it is right now, the build is two HLG-185H-1400B drivers each powering two clusters of four cobs, each wired identically. One side is working perfectly fine, dimming properly, etc. However, the other side is not powering on at all. I am getting power from the output side of the driver by itself (~143/4v), but nothing once wired in series with the four cobs.

I have ensured the holders are making good contact with the cobs, weren't grounding anywhere, and have tried going one by one on each holder (bjb) and jumping without cobs to see if I can find a faulty cob but this has proven unsuccessful. It could be that I just need to look at it again tomorrow after getting some sleep, but as of now I'm a little stumped so any ideas would be greatly appreciated.

Cheers

Click to expand...

hey mate have you got one dimmer for both clusters? disconnect your dimmer and see if its working as it should be. i remember when i built mine i wired my dimmer wrongly somehow and only half my cobs were working

redeyeled said:

hey mate have you got one dimmer for both clusters? disconnect your dimmer and see if its working as it should be. i remember when i built mine i wired my dimmer wrongly somehow and only half my cobs were working

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Yeah I'm using one dimmer between the two drivers. Will they still light without anything connected to the dimming wires?

Have you tried connecting 2 cobs in series? That should satisfy the minimum voltage and allow you to pull a couple cobs out of the circuit. If they light add another one in. If they don't try the other two.

Sureshot2 said:

Yeah I'm using one dimmer between the two drivers. Will they still light without anything connected to the dimming wires?

Click to expand...

yea should still work with dimmer disconnected, did you get them going?

How do you wire the two strings in parallel? With Wago clamps or soldered together?
Maybe try another Wago or re-solder the connection.
I've seen some defective/non good working Wago's over the time...

And what resistance has the dimmer poti? You know, you need a 50k poti to dimm two drivers at once..?

Randomblame said:

How do you wire the two strings in parallel? With Wago clamps or soldered together?
Maybe try another Wago or re-solder the connection.
I've seen some defective/non good working Wago's over the time...

And what resistance has the dimmer poti? You know, you need a 50k poti to dimm two drivers at once..?

Click to expand...

No i got a 6 prongs dimmer they work fine and you don't have to solder for wires to prongs at just works better do trust me I wouldn't do it that way look at the pics your dude that's how you why you're up Cobbs and parallel to strings

Sureshot2 said:

Hey all, so I just finished building my third cob for a 2x4 tent using 8x citi 1212's, but for the life of me I can't quite figure out whats going wrong here. As it is right now, the build is two HLG-185H-1400B drivers each powering two clusters of four cobs, each wired identically. One side is working perfectly fine, dimming properly, etc. However, the other side is not powering on at all. I am getting power from the output side of the driver by itself (~143/4v), but nothing once wired in series with the four cobs.

I have ensured the holders are making good contact with the cobs, weren't grounding anywhere, and have tried going one by one on each holder (bjb) and jumping without cobs to see if I can find a faulty cob but this has proven unsuccessful. It could be that I just need to look at it again tomorrow after getting some sleep, but as of now I'm a little stumped so any ideas would be greatly appreciated.

Cheers

Click to expand...

Got pics

Did you actually understood what you're saying? You should try Google translator or something similar ...
It is really hard to see the meaning in what you said.

Please try to use correct english terms and not these gypsy gibberish...!
I am also not an american and english is not my mother tongue, but when I old fart can manage it you should be able too... trust me, Lol!

A "6 prong dimmer" ..?
What is this supposed to be?
Did you mean a stereo potentiometer or what?

So quick update, still no luck. Tried disconnecting the dimmer as suggested but that didn't work, I'm pretty sure the dimmer was wired properly as well since the other half of lights that are working dim properly from the pot, and both sets of dimming wires are wired identical. I also tried going through pairs of cobs testing each one to look for a bad cob while also satisfying the minimum driver voltage and still no luck, nothing will light. I ordered four new holders for the cobs and am going to remount them all when they arrive. I can try testing the cobs outside of the holders by soldering wires to the pads but I would prefer not to that if possible. Posted pics at the bottom.

Randomblame said:

How do you wire the two strings in parallel? With Wago clamps or soldered together?
Maybe try another Wago or re-solder the connection.
I've seen some defective/non good working Wago's over the time...

And what resistance has the dimmer poti? You know, you need a 50k poti to dimm two drivers at once..?

Click to expand...

They are not wired in parallel, they are wired in series with a constant current driver, all the connections are direct from holder to holder except for the leads running to the driver wires, which I have tried swapping wago connectors on and soldering to be sure. The pot is a 50k pot.

Have you tried swapping the drivers to see if you have a bad driver?

Perhaps you could use the working array to test each chip on the non-functional unit. Just remove a chip from the good light and replace 28th each chip from the bad light. That will eliminate the chip as the problem if they all light.

Sureshot2 said:

So quick update, still no luck. Tried disconnecting the dimmer as suggested but that didn't work, I'm pretty sure the dimmer was wired properly as well since the other half of lights that are working dim properly from the pot, and both sets of dimming wires are wired identical. I also tried going through pairs of cobs testing each one to look for a bad cob while also satisfying the minimum driver voltage and still no luck, nothing will light. I ordered four new holders for the cobs and am going to remount them all when they arrive. I can try testing the cobs outside of the holders by soldering wires to the pads but I would prefer not to that if possible. Posted pics at the bottom.



They are not wired in parallel, they are wired in series with a constant current driver, all the connections are direct from holder to holder except for the leads running to the driver wires, which I have tried swapping wago connectors on and soldering to be sure. The pot is a 50k pot.

View attachment 3991174 View attachment 3991175

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U need help

Sureshot2 said:

So quick update, still no luck. Tried disconnecting the dimmer as suggested but that didn't work, I'm pretty sure the dimmer was wired properly as well since the other half of lights that are working dim properly from the pot, and both sets of dimming wires are wired identical. I also tried going through pairs of cobs testing each one to look for a bad cob while also satisfying the minimum driver voltage and still no luck, nothing will light. I ordered four new holders for the cobs and am going to remount them all when they arrive. I can try testing the cobs outside of the holders by soldering wires to the pads but I would prefer not to that if possible. Posted pics at the bottom.



They are not wired in parallel, they are wired in series with a constant current driver, all the connections are direct from holder to holder except for the leads running to the driver wires, which I have tried swapping wago connectors on and soldering to be sure. The pot is a 50k pot.

View attachment 3991174 View attachment 3991175

Click to expand...

I need see frunt shit happin to me u no how i fix it. I lololo i wierd up one at time an power wired up the first one by itself been wired up the second one made sure it worked and that's so forth and so one and you know what it was first driver always using that enough vote to power the chips second time I wired it up with the new driver had a bad chip didn't want to fucking turn on that first


But I can tell you now without seeing the front of the driver and not knowing if it has enough voltage the power them chips or not I'm pretty sure that you have a positive and negative mixed up on one of the cops that's the only reason it wouldn't power on thurs protection on the driver with the mean Wells so do me a favor take a picture with the adapters off of The Cobbs so I can see if they're wired up correctly

Randomblame said:

Did you actually understood what you're saying? You should try Google translator or something similar ...
It is really hard to see the meaning in what you said.

Please try to use correct english terms and not these gypsy gibberish...!
I am also not an american and english is not my mother tongue, but when I old fart can manage it you should be able too... trust me, Lol!

A "6 prong dimmer" ..?
What is this supposed to be?
Did you mean a stereo potentiometer or what?

Click to expand...

Omg how cud u not understand what I was saying fuck did you see or get the pic i sant lolo u cant see the pic i sand u a pic of the 6 pong potentiometer I need to know how to wire up carbs in parallel dude I sent you the fucking diagram dude how much harder could it be to look at it diagram that's how you wire up in parallel two strings

nc208 said:

Have you tried swapping the drivers to see if you have a bad driver?

Click to expand...

GBAUTO said:

Perhaps you could use the working array to test each chip on the non-functional unit. Just remove a chip from the good light and replace 28th each chip from the bad light. That will eliminate the chip as the problem if they all light.

Click to expand...

Going to try both of these ideas right now, not sure why I haven't done this yet... lol.

Growcob5 said:

I need see frunt shit happin to me u no how i fix it. I lololo i wierd up one at time an power wired up the first one by itself been wired up the second one made sure it worked and that's so forth and so one and you know what it was first driver always using that enough vote to power the chips second time I wired it up with the new driver had a bad chip didn't want to fucking turn on that first


But I can tell you now without seeing the front of the driver and not knowing if it has enough voltage the power them chips or not I'm pretty sure that you have a positive and negative mixed up on one of the cops that's the only reason it wouldn't power on thurs protection on the driver with the mean Wells so do me a favor take a picture with the adapters off of The Cobbs so I can see if they're wired up correctly

Click to expand...

...what?

Alright so I swapped the drivers over and both drivers lit the working string of lights so the drivers are fine. I went ahead and disconnected the fourth light from the working string and starting subbing lights from the other string one at a time and found that only 1 of 4 lit. Thinking this was odd, I removed all the cobs from the holder and took the 3 that didn't light and put them in a holder from one that worked... aaaand .... they all lit. So as I suspected there's some bad connections between the tabs in the holder and the cobs for some reason(tried moving the wires around to make sure it wasn't a loose wire going into the holder).

I did notice that the small metal tabs seemed to be slightly pushed to the side, but I don't think this was caused by me as I attached them all the same, and have had no problems in the past building other cob fixtures. Not sure if maybe they got bounced around in the mail and bent and I didn't notice or what, but that seems to be the issue. I haven't tried using the ideal holders over the bjb ones but now I'm wondering if maybe those ones have a better build quality/QC ?

On a side note, while testing all the cobs I noticed that one of them had 3 or 4 rows on one side not working. To be honest I have never really checked all my other cobs for this since they are so damn bright, but is it relatively common to have dead rows?

Dude sir made in China man ever one or ever other is a little odd in different so don't feel bad. If you got a couple destructive ones to you live gotten so many defective chips its not funny

See what i meen i get fuck up chips not funny

Growcob5 said:

Omg how cud u not understand what I was saying fuck did you see or get the pic i sant lolo u cant see the pic i sand u a pic of the 6 pong potentiometer I need to know how to wire up carbs in parallel dude I sent you the fucking diagram dude how much harder could it be to look at it diagram that's how you wire up in parallel two strings

Click to expand...

OMG, how could one understand what you mean !?
I'm not your dude and do not try to make me look stupid. That goes wrong!

"Cud"," sant", "lolo", " pong" and so on" sounds like baby's language, so you are a teletabby?!
Or could also come from "Bibo" from the "Sesame Street"!
Name things by their name, damned!
Nobody wants to puzzling 15min. about your meaning!
It is a "two channel potentiometer" or "stereo poti", not a "6 prong dimmer"! Such a thing don't exsists!

And now I'll give up to tell you anything ..
It seems you are not willing to change something in your expression!
So, sorry...!