SST-50 power

I wired up a couple of Kaidomain P7 drivers to power an SST-50 but it's getting (at the end of the 6" 18ga. wire) about 2.8v and 7.8A. It seems like a low voltage and too high amperage. Is this OK for the LED?

Does anyone have any input on this before I cook my SST-50?

First:

2.8V and 7.8A do not really fit. There is no way that the LED has a Vf that low.

Second:

7.8A would be totally fine for an SST-90, but for a -50, this should be extremely borderline (i.e. it might survive, but i wouldnt bet on it)

Use thinner wires in the drivers.

It might actually be okay though, as there ARE a few important factors to consider.

The springs would be a big one, as I read a current of 5 amps, but fried my McClicky switch anyways when I turned the light on. My switch had a wire-spring mod, which probably gave it less resistance than the 18 gauge 12-inch test leads I was using.

If your spring is long enough and thin enough, the actual current in the light could be less than that.

But I would still have to recommend thinner wires.

I got a while ago a SST-50 P60 drop-in from Nailbender with a similar issue.

With a 6P hosts and IMR 18650 it was giving me 5.68A at the tail. Yes, while testing for OTF lumens a mere 301~302 OTF at 1 minute was not good enought.

Nailbender put a 2.5A driver in it for me and I got 486 turn-on with over 400 OTF at 4 mintues:twothumbs


I am not sure if the heat will kill your SST-50 right away, but the lumens will suffer. If your tint turns a bit blue, then for sure its loosing major lumens.

Clint, How are you measuring current? Are you putting a clamp meter around one of the wires going from the driver combo to the LED, or did you insert your DMM leads in-line between the LED and one of the wires from the driver combo? Those are the only two proper methods for measuring current sent to the LED.

Also, 7.2A is waaaaay too much for an SST-50. They are actually their brightest ~4.2A. Almost all current in excess of that is spent generating heat instead of light.