DIY led troubles

Hello to all.

Im putting all my fishy stuff together to start all over again.

Now the troubles comes with my LED setup.

I have a led setup running in sets of 10leds in series +- +- +- +-
it was working fine before i put the leds closer to each other now nr 9 is giving me troubles.
The led is still working if i connect it in parralel it is flickering and if I put it in series its dead but all the other leds is on.
I tried a new led still the same problem.

If there is more question plz ask or pm me.

hope someone can help me to get all 10 running in series again

thanx

 

Why would you want to run them in series?

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What watt are your LED's and how many amps is your power supply?

Seems to me your power supply is under wattage, LED's will flash if not sufficient current(Amps) is available.

 

@5p1nn3k0p - i cant remember exactly why i put them as series but they work(ed) perfectly like that
@Blade - why the question if everything worked nicely according to that and i still have 30 leds running in 3 serries each with their own led driver

 

Why ask for help if you don't want the guys to help?

 

Apologies if i have offended someone...

its just m*er$e frustrating it worked nice and then all of the sudden something went bad

if the driver was under powered then it would have done this since the 1st time i have connected the leds.

ive got 3 replicas of the same setup and they are still working without problems

 

Electronic components degrade over time. Your driver put out 3amps new but may now just put out 2.8amp.

 

It still does not make any sense to my why one would want to connect them led's in series...

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Led's are connected in series as each led only needs a relatively small voltage (well you get different types). So if your individual led is designed for around 3V you can't not connect it to a higher voltage.
So if your power supply is providing 12V, you got to connect 4 leds in series, you can't connect them in parallel onto 12V (well you can for about 1ms).

@silverj87 you have not supplied any technical data for the drivers and the Leds, and while I accept that it worked before and that you have 3 other identical setups which are functioning fine, this ommission makes things a bit more tricky to assist.
What do you mean with you put the led closer to each other.
And how do you connect led No10 in parallel, if you have 9 other leds in a series connection?
Parallel to what?

 

silver my hubby is a Radio technician and often work with LEDs, he also did all my LEDs on my fish tanks.

He says there is possibly a short on the LEDs. If you have a Fluke meter you can use it to find the short.

 

Thanx for everyone's input..
I will better have to find a fluke meter so then i can possible test the amps and see if there is a short somewhere.
Thnx @JCL for answering him i really could not remeber exactly why I did it in series.

See the picture is the driver and all the LED are 3w leds in different colours if more technical info is needed please ask.
I just reduced the spacing between the leds to fit the tank because im losing some light power due to the glass support bar i have in the middle of my tank
NR10 is still in original place untouched its nr9 thats giving me problems: if i connect the nr9 led in series its dead but the rest is working fine if I connect nr9 in parralel + to + all the leds are working but they are flickering

 

That looks like a constant current supply ... sound to me like you have some bad soldering - dry joint on number 9 or dodge wire, short to heat sink etc . Post some pics so that we can see what the issue in on number 9.

the flickering I assume is the protection the driver is doing when you try and draw more than the .65A

Later Ferdie

 

or just any old multi-meter ;-) better not go and spend more on the the test gear than what the entire tank cost you

 

Yeah it is a constant current p-supply.. i will post some pics of the nr9 once i have some time that will be around wednesday..thnx hey

 

@f-fish is correct in saying you need a multimeter. I had to borrow my dad's fancy one and managed to fix mine after weeks of issues. Then I found out my soldering iron needed to be replaced as it was not staying hot long enough so I ended up buying a new soldering iron and a roll of solder wire from my hardware store. It was only then, I was able to fix the bad joints and resolder every single point - that was what fixed my problem. I even had right down to the flickering, even though my leds are supplied by a 4x1 led driver.

A multimeter will definitely tell you where there is a problem and where it is good. Believe me, I am speaking from experience - now every time I work with electronics, I borrow my dad's multimeter...

 

Indeed a constant current power supply, ...a lot of people just use any normal old (PC) power supply in their DIY build, ...but a constant current power supply is actually better.
But you still have not given us any data on the LED themselves, should probably be 3.4V I guess (what about the wattage?).
Not sure whether a picture of your soldering will show us if/where the dry joint is.
However if you could explain the No 9 in parallel connection (I asked in my previous post how you connected it in parallel (parallel to what?) we might get 1 step closer to problem solving.
If you connect No 9 parallel to all the rest you will definitely overload your PS, and like f-fish stated, the flickering may be the way the PS shows it is overloaded.

 

Normallly 3 LED's(Single 3.4v units) in series will give you the required 12V input and from there on they run in parrallel, or what we call daisy chain connection. basics of electronics is V= I x R, so if your pushing 12V and your 3 x 3w LED's in Series draws 0.75 Amps. Your driver output is 18V to 35V, so one would have to work out LED's in Parrallel and Series, but your Amps is very low to drive a large amount of LED's.