4.5 Volts and a Micropuck

Has anyone ever experimented to see what would happen if a micropuck was driven with 4.5 volts?

yes,
the MP will drive the lux harder.
actually, i use MP with one lithium ion cell at 3.6~4.2V to drive a 5W lux. Dunno the current to the lux but it is pretty bright.
if you use it to drive 1W lux, you may drive the lux at 800 mA or 1 amp

The MicroPuck draws about 460 mA @ 3V when driving a Q bin LED in my test setup. When I push the voltage up to 4.5/5 V the current consumed by the MicroPuck edges up to 600/700mA. Since the LED is intalled in a BBB McLux head with AA I don't have a way to measure the actual drive to it. I did not leave the voltage this high for any length of time.

If I get a spare Q bin maybe I'll test it to destruction with the MicroPuck. It'd be interesting to see which dies first.

The Specs for the MicroPuck say it can be driven at higher voltages than 3.0 V but not in the default configuration.

Does this mean that a well heat sinked Lux 3 would be OK with the 4.5 volt and micropuck configuration?

I can't answer that categorically....so far. It looks like it would work.

http://www.leddynamics.com/LuxDrive/Page_Micro_App.html

Maybe someone who has played with mods much longer than I can chime in?

The MicroPuck is a ZLT boost converter. If you drive it with higher voltage than the Vf of your Luxeon, you goes into DD mode. If you have good enough heat sink, there is nothing wrong with this setup.

Better to run two of these in series?

Bill

Not in series. Run them in parallel. The currents will add up in parallel. Have a look at this page.

http://www.leddynamics.com/LuxDrive/Page_Micro_App.html

There are configurations to run your micropuck in buck mode and in buck/boost mode, thus permitting use of 4.5V and even 6V.

Anyone tried out EL's Hypercircuit yet? If so, hows running that on a 3W off of 4.5 volts compared to a micropuck?

would a 3W be bright if you ran it off of two batteries with 2 micropucks in parallel?

Yes, it would effectively double the output of a single MicroPuck, driving the Lux3 at or near spec.

Jon