Hello, I am working on a lighting project for my garage. I currently have 4x, 2 bulb (T-12) Shop Lights rated 34W and 2325lm per Bulb. The ballast went out of one of the fixtures and cost more to replace then the fixture so I thought I would give LED's a try. I purchased a 5M roll of 5630 Cold White LED Strip. When it arrived I cut it into strips of 23 segemts (3 series LEDs each) and stuck them to the metal case of the old fixture, wired them up to a 12V power brick and powered it up, and it was not as bright as I expected (hoping for on par with or a little brighter than current florescent fixtures or about 5000lm which the 5630 at a min of 29lm per the datasheet *276 LEDs > 8000lm should be able to achieve). I measured the current draw and it was less then 3.5A at 12V. The datasheet I have for a 5630 LED is Lumichip (found with a google search), and the "optimal" forward current listed is 120mA which would equate to a little over 11A for all 92 sets of LEDS (23 *4). I decided to dig a little deeper and cut 1 section of 3 LEDs out of the remaining strip, and measured a forward current of 48.9mA (ok so maybe they were worried about heat and limited the current accordingly) but then I measured the forward voltage of the LEDs to be 3.34V, According to the data sheet the forward Voltage at 50mA should be closer to 2.9-3.0V. Is there this much difference between manufactures of LEDs with the 5630 number, or did the manufacture of this strip falsely label the LEDs hoping nobody would know? I de-soldered one LED and I see no identification markings, Is there any way to tell? I would like to go to LED's because in the winter the florescent lights protest being turned on (it hit -20F last winter thats -29C) and I also intend to build a PWM circuit so I could dim the LED lights when I didn't need full intensity.
Thanks
-Brad
Home
Help
Search
Login
Register
