Pairing drivers to cobs and understanding parallel and series for DIY

MJCanada

Well-Known Member
Just want to make sure I'm understanding.

An LED needs a certain forward voltage and current to actually light up.

You can connect an LED to others, in series, or parallel.

Series is a single path, LED voltage is added, current is static

Parallel has multiple paths, LED voltage is static, and current is split across all paths.

You can combine each type with each other, and CoBs are an example of this(some cobs are a group of parallel LED strips(in series)....

When you chose a driver, you need to do the appropriate additions on current and voltage for your LED layout. If the voltage and current fit within the ranges of the driver, that driver is a good fit.

Efficiency is the target for LEDs, which means you want to find a driver that will drive the LED based off the efficiency graph on the data sheet.


Does that make sense?


Example:
If I have 100 COBs, each has 10 forward voltage, and 20 amp current (hypothetical) for it's 90% efficiency...

I could

parallel 10 series of 10, and the driver would need to be able to support 100 foward voltage, and 200 amp current

10(LED in series) * 10(voltage each) = 100 forward voltage
and
20(amp current per string of series)* 10(parallel paths) = 200 amp current.

And this math holds true as you combine parallel in series in parallel etc etc.

so ...

(10 in parallel(5 in series(2 in parallel))) = 100 cobs.

driver would need:

50 forward V and 400 A

Am I understanding this correctly?
 
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