Driver designed for leds in paralel forced to leds in series ?

borg · Nov 28, 2013

By mistake I connected the trustfire TR-3T6 driver to 3*XML wired in series. Battery configuration : 3×18650 in series.

This is a 4,8A driver and was designed to run 3 leds wired in parallel at a maximum of 1,6A for every led.

Luckily I quickly realized the mistake and powered off the flashlight after ~10 seconds or so.

The question is what voltage and the amperage was the driver forced to deliver? Did I compromise the leds or the driver itself ?
Thank you.

poguy · Nov 30, 2013

The driver is a constant current regulator and would have tried to put 4.8 amps through the LED's. No way to tell what actual current was; it may be more than what the batteries could provide.

Is it OK now? Wire it up correctly and find out... You could use a benchtop supply to run it to save you 18650's and a dummy load resistor to avoid damaging LED's.

borg · Nov 30, 2013

I eventually made a quick tailcap measurement and the current draw was 2,8 A. Also tried with 2 18650`s and the leds barely lit up.

With leds in parallel the driver was delivering 1,6 A and worked fine even with 2 batteries.

The leds are on cooper, mounted on a large pill and there is no way they had been damaged at 2,8A each, but the driver was delivering almost double the stock amperage, I hope it survived.
I will test the driver later on a 2*XML in parallel, I hope It is OK and I will get a 2,4 A reading.

Good idea with the benchtop supply and the dummy load resistor but I do not have them, yet

Some pictures with the driver :

Driver designed for leds in paralel forced to leds in series ?

borg

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poguy

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borg

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