Led drivers blowing breaker

[Stephen Kane]

Hi, I’m hoping for some help here, I have installed some 12v led strip lighting under racking in my garage and it’s running from 3 led drivers:

Driver 1, is a 360watt driver and the led lights it’s running totals 290 watts

Driver 2, is a 360 watt driver and the led lights it’s running totals 240watts

driver 3, is a 400 watt driver and the led lights it’s running totals 118 watts

I can go out to the garage and have the lights on for hours, turn them off and then say in 10 mins I turn them back on and they will blow the 5amp breaker, this doesn’t happen every time it’s every now and then, might run ok for a few days at a time but then trip the breaker.

What could be causing this issue? I don’t understand why it doesn’t trip every time and I have checked all the wiring and everything seems ok.

any ideas of what would cause this issue would great be appreciated.

thanks

 

[AdrianUK]

It's almost certainly the inrush current when those LED drivers are first powered up thats taking the 5A breaker into its instantaneous trip region.

In more detail.... the front end of those drivers will probably be a rectifier followed by a reservoir capacitor. When the driver has been switched off for more than a few minutes, the capacitors will be depleted of charge. When the power is switched on, a large current will flow, for a short period, to 'fill' those capacitors. This is what is tripping the breaker. The magnitude of this current also depends on were in the cycle you flip the switch - something you cant control. This explains why it only trips sometimes.

There is no fault, just something that you were perhaps not aware of in how those drivers work. For a 300W driver, this charge current could easily be 50, 60 or more amps, but it will only last for a few mains cycles (a fraction of a second).

Are you able to power these drivers from a 13A plug? You'll probably find this will be fine.

Incidentally, 640W is a heck of a lot of LED lighting power! The same as around 5 of the old 8' florry tubes. Are you floodlighting the street?

 

[333rocky333]

5 amp suggests an old BS3871 mcb does it have a type on it Ie TYPE 2

 

[RandomGrinch]

Incidentally, 640W is a heck of a lot of LED lighting power! The same as around 5 of the old 8' florry tubes. Are you floodlighting the street?

...or what's he growing in there?

Edit to OP:

And remember, your drivers are going to be around 80% efficient.
So if your LED load is about 650W, your total load will be closer to 800W.
Still not enough to trip a 5A breaker by itself, but with inrush current, definitely getting closer

...there are also inrush current limiters available, such as:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Current-Limiter-MeanWell-ICL-16L-180-264V/dp/B08Q37DFDX/ref=mp_s_a_1_3

Although I'm not sure how suitable this would be for your situation and they have a limited lifespan!

 

[Stephen Kane]

Cheers for the replies , lol don’t worry nothing is being grown, I’ve simply installed a few aisles of new racking and thought having led strip light above per shelf would help / provider more light when it came to looking for stuff …. But now it’s just turned out to be a pain in the arse.

i will have a look into the inrush current limiter , I assume another way round this could be to split the 3 drivers onto say a seperate breaker and switch therefore if not being powered on at the exact same time then I less chance of tripping?

 

[RandomGrinch]

Separate switches, perfect!

 

[ericmark]

Yes three gang switch even if you think you are switching all at same time, unlikely it really is.

A driver is normally matched to the LED's, normally marked in mA for example 350 mA with a variable voltage like 25 to 42 volt, a power supply on other hand fixed voltage and variable current. However I have seen power supplies for lights called drivers.

So when I opened a G9 bulb, in side there was a full wave rectifier, a smoothing capacitor, a current limiting capacitor, a leak resistor and the LED's. That smoothing capacitor will cause an inrush. It also stops any flicker, when using strip lighting some have a very good lumen per watt, and some very poor, the latter often really just for decoration.

The versions I got from Ikea very low output, the version from Lidi very high, at nearly 700 watt you should need sun glasses to work in the garage, the 22 watt Lidi has to be turned down, never mind 118 watt. Standard bulb LED is around 12 watt, may be so no shadow you may need 4 in a garage, but that is still less than 50 watt.

Some thing seems wrong!

 

[Stephen Kane]

Sorry, I should have mentioned the 118w for example was based on a led strip/tape lighting. I think from memory when I bought it, it was 12w per meter, so I have a run that totals 9.8 meters which I done 12w X 9.8m = 118w or there about (5060 led strip lighting) Is this the correct way to measure the watts being used by the power supply?