How to Choose Led Lighting Driver Accurately (Part 1)

Because of its advantages of green, environmental protection, energy saving, and long life, LED lighting has been sought after and widely used by lighting people all over the world. Looking at the major lighting applications, LED traces can be seen almost everywhere, such as LED downlights, spotlights, ceiling lights, panel lights, bulb lights, candle lights, tri-proof lights, bracket lights, strip lights, street lights, industrial and mining lights , Tunnel lights, … etc.

Unlike other lighting technologies, LED lighting requires almost all LED lighting applications to be equipped with LED lighting drivers due to its DC characteristics. Because of its importance in supporting applications, LED lighting drivers are also widely regarded as LED lighting by the industry At the heart of how to choose the right driver for various LED lighting applications, it becomes very important.

01

Constant current? Constant pressure? Or constant power?

This refers to the output characteristics of the LED lighting driver, that is, whether the output DC power of the drive is a constant current mode with constant current (CC Mode), or a constant voltage mode with constant output DC voltage (CV Mode), Or is it a constant power mode with constant output DC power (CP Mode for short)?

The reason for the need to clarify the output characteristics of the driver is mainly because LED lighting is essentially semiconductor lighting, which itself has the volt-ampere characteristics of semiconductor diodes, as shown in the following figure, when the forward voltage applied to the LED is less than its forward voltage, The LED’s on-current does not change much with the voltage, but when the voltage is greater than the forward voltage, the LED’s voltage will be clamped near the LED’s forward voltage, and the on-current will increase rapidly, even to the whole LED Break down or burn down. It can be easily seen from the volt-ampere characteristic curve that the LED voltage changes slightly around its forward voltage drop, which may cause the LED’s on-current to change sharply. Therefore, it is not advisable to directly use a voltage-type driver to power LED lighting.

Therefore, in LED lighting applications, it is most appropriate to select a driver with an output characteristic of constant current mode.

Constant Voltage Led Driver

So why are there LED drivers in constant voltage mode and constant power mode?

First of all, the LED driver in constant voltage mode generally does not directly drive the LED load, but according to need, one or several constant current mode LED drivers are connected behind the constant voltage LED driver, and then these constant voltage LED drivers led directly drives LED, which is widely used in landscape lighting, lighting and other fields. In recent years, with the rise of plant lighting, constant voltage mode LED drivers have also been gradually adopted more.

Secondly, the constant power LED driver, in the final analysis, is still a constant current driver. However, in order to be compatible with the needs of more models, the driver has made some redundant designs in terms of power design, that is, the low voltage and high current of the same power within a certain range, and the high voltage The low-current model is compatible with a product, and customers can choose to output low-voltage high-current or high-voltage low-current according to their needs. Two points are specifically explained here:

1) Considering the cost and practical application requirements, the so-called constant power here is just a constant power with a small range and a small proportion;

2) Regardless of whether it is a low-voltage large current or a high-voltage small current, its output current is constant, that is, constant current mode.

All kinds of LED drivers provided by 30w LED driver supplier are basically constant current mode drivers for various application fields, and corresponding constant voltage or constant power drivers will be recommended according to different needs of customers. Specific details , You can contact us at any time.