5x P7/MC-E in series, cheapo lights question!

[King Kasper]

Hey guys, ill probably get shot for this, not very classy, but i had a couple of these torch drop ins lying around....

http://www.dealextreme.com/details.dx/sku.36030
http://www.dealextreme.com/details.dx/sku.21037


so i made a housing, soldered them in series and put a clicky switch in as well.....

i have a battery pack with 5 18650's in series

alas, something is not right. i have a feeling im not soldering them in series right, my battery is working, my switch is working, and all the lights are working too when i just run them individually with a battery.

can these crappy drivers be mounted in series? or am i making a terrible mistake?


cheers guys

 

[King Kasper]

p.s - can anyone draw a diagram or something to give m an idea?

cheers guys

 

[pe2er]

I Have no personal experience, but someone told me (in another thread on this forum) that you can not put LED drivers in series. Something to do with the chopping nature of the current flowing through the individual drivers. All FETs inside the drivers must be ON at the same time in order to allow current to flow through the string of lights - and normally, they are not.

It may give better results if you place a large capacitor in parallel to each driver as a buffer, but I am not sure how big and how effective it will be.

I Think the subject came up in this thread: Adding 2nd R2 drop-in?

 

[King Kasper]

Pulled out the drivers, seems they were to blame. cheers for the advice

now which driver should i use for driving all 5 at 2000mAh?

 

[bstrickler]

Pulled out the drivers, seems they were to blame. cheers for the advice

now which driver should i use for driving all 5 at 2000mAh?

I'm in the process of designing a Buck driver (up to 40v input) that will drive @ 1.5 amp. After that will be a boost driver (up to 40v output) @ 1.5amp (designed for the XP-G X-up boards)

I had recently found some stuff for a buck or boost 2.5 amp output, but the driver would end up being massive (possibly too big for a Mag, even, unless it's done as a dual-board setup). It *could* be done, but how much are you willing to spend, and who are you going to have make it?

~Brian