diy led wiring question and buckpack problem

here goes, ive built up a 3x3w luxeon led cycle light. the buckpack was attached to the battery in the bottle holder and then a wire ran to a socket in the lighthead. to turn on/off i just unplugged the wire. i was told buckpack should be near the leds and battery should have a switch on. so i moved buckpack to the lighthead unit and put a switch into the bottle unit so it now runs battey to switch to buckpack to led. but now it doesnt work
it burns bright for a few seconds then dims , i put it back how it was and it does the same , could i have bust my buckpack if so how?? also when i rebuild shall i put buckpack in battery pack 2foot from the leds (and very cool area) or put buckpack in the lighthead unit where it will be right next to leds but get hot any tips / ideas many thanks

Hello again,

I don't know much about the 'Buckpuck', but if it is anything like most of the other drive circuits around, it won't take too kindly to having power applied to it without a load.
This is effectively what you've been doing to it when you have been unplugging the power to the LED's whilst the battery is still connected to the driver.
Could be


As far as the location of your driver is concerned....It shouldn't matter too much.
You'll get a little bit of efficiency loss with the extra resistance in your 2ft of wiring from driver to emitters but I doubt you'd notice the difference.


Tim.

tim many thanks for both replys tim. ive got a new buck pack and now it works ive added a switch between battery and buckpack to protect it. ive just gone for a on or off switch to save messing about.

the battery then switch and then buckpack are in a waterbottle and then run up to the light socket.
its very impressive in preformance im pleased
again thanks for the replies
mcik

add in a dimmer trimpot and get many more hours runtime when you don't nee full power (if you have the buckpuck with the 'c' and 'r' points.. just put a 5K audio taper pot (those are hard to find.. but a 10k audio taper pot from radio shack and a 10k regular 1/4W resistor in parallel is the same ckt).. that particular pot also has a switch built right in.. it's what i used on all my puck-puck mods... light works like an old radio.. click for on and brightness keeps getting brighter as i turn.

-awr

Oh no, he's here too! (actually, you're likely to get much more useful answers than at STW)