What are these like practicality wise ?
Check out these drivers from this Russian eBay store. Look like they are built well, can easily handle a few XHP LEDs per driver, cheap, and they have a PWM board to drive them with a dimmer switch which they can configure for you before they ship it. I will be using these or TaskLED drivers for my DIY LED light bar, which I will be using 6 top binned XHP50s, which honestly will be tons of light.
For example:
5–100;
50–100;
1–100;
1–70–100%;
3–40–70–100;
5–25–50–70–85–100.
Your idea of 10 XHP70’s is quite simply ridiculous, first that is too much light, second, too much power to deal with, third, there aren’t any good optics for them for automotive use, IMO… fourth, but not last is the shear amount of heat you will have to pull off that many large LEDs, you need a large enough heatsink that will keep them cool enough for reliability, you don’t want to dump a bunch of money into that many expensive LEDs and them have them burn out because they are over driven or over heat (both).
I think it’s crazy and cool, not ridiculous, but I think maybe someone is underestimating the amount of light just one of these would put out. I’m using just 3 xhp50 s with elliptical tir and I think it’s maybe overkill for my purpose. Just one of those puts out more light than 55 watt halogen I think.
One XHP-50 emits as much light as both a cars headlights combined, when properly collimated/reflected. That is, a top binned XHP-50, as they vary between 680 Lumens to 1120 Lumens @ binning conditions (700mA @ 12v setup), that is a 65% brighter.
yep, you could really light something up with 10 70’s . Take that light bar out in the hills and people would be talking about UFO landings. lol
I’d say. It would have more raw lumens than Baja Designs 50 Inch Onx6 light bar (30 XM-L2 = 32,000 Lumen)
Just wanted to point out they could only handle multiple XHP’s in parallel, cutting down your amperage.
If I ever get the SUV/Truck I want to, I plan on doing a light bar with 4+ XP-L HI’s and 4+ XHP70’s. I would keep it under 200w for sure, maybe 150w. I want to use an existing lightbar shell to start with, but I haven’t found one I like yet.
As far as drivers, with an XHP you have the option of 6v or 12v configuration. I think 12v is out because automotive voltage can vary from 11-14v if I believe, so you would need a combo boost/buck driver for that. With 6v you could use a buck driver, but I think it might be better to use three 6v in series, then use a boost driver to power them.
The automotive system will vary between 12.5+ to 14.4 Volts… no need to worry about even over head. Those drivers I linked would work with 2 6 volt XHP LEDs in series, or 2 12v’s in parallel. No need for a boost driver. However, when the engine is not running, there would likely not be enough overhead voltage to get max power, if that is what you are concerned about. In that case you would run 1 driver per 6 volt XHP LED. But at $5/each, big deal.
I found cheapo light bars don’t have enough room for any optics/LED combo I would like to use, in fact you couldn’t use XHP 50’s or 70’s with the little room there is.
Cheers.
Ok, if it wouldn’t normally go below 12.5v then a buck would be perfect. Good to know.
Yeah that’s the problem I’m seeing. All of these light bars look very tight on space. I found one that I think would be a decent design, but the only place that had them had a MOQ of 10.
Here is my design:
3 XHP-50’s driving 3 67mm Gaggione LLC56N optics which is a 9 Degree FWHM and 17.5 Degree FWTM… this is for your distance spot for high speed driving
3 XHP-50’s driving 3 30mm Carclo Optics Elliptical TIR lenses which have a 43 degree wide by 19 degree tall beam, these are for near field flood
I should be able to fit this into a 10 Inch by 3.5 Inch bar.
I’m going to have to look into those optics, I didn’t know they existed. Carclo elliptical tirs give nice driving pattern but would be good to combine with tighter beam for distance
Exactly, combining the optics gives you a seamless blend of light for both near field and distance spot. I just hope 9 Degrees is tight enough for at least ~250 meters clearly light on the highway. However, it would be approx. 270,000 Lux for spot so it should be.
Not to resurrect an old post…
But, I was wanting to use 2 - XHP70’s for side lighting on my truck.
Ive thumbed through this thread 3 or 4 times, but can’t exactly wrap my head around choosing a driver for them.
Id like to use the 12V ones, but I have no idea how to choose a driver.
Any help is appreciated!
http://www.ebay.com/itm/111910063231
For standar 3A, maybe you can use this one
one mode only
and looks like easy to modify/bump the current