Why 240 watt dimmable driver will put out over 300 watts

Im new to led lights and drivers and was wondering why my 240 watt meanwell driver when i just had it hooked to a wattmeter would put out over 300 watts? can i run it at that wattage? @dbrn32

You can but the efficiency of the light goes down and the driver will run much warmer. I believe the best efficiency (lumens per watt) is around 260w

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Thank you @BobbyDigital. Do you mean i will get less bud if i crank it up or do u mean less energy efficent? Either way im gona turn it up a bit i brought it down to 230 not knowing wtf im doin.

You’ll probably be shortening the life of your equipment and pulling more wattage with not much more light output than you’d get from running it at 260w

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I could only fine tune it to 264 will that be ok? @Bobbydigital. Oh and one other thing is there a period of time i should wait after unplugging before i plug it back in?

That’s definitely close enough. No, there’s no cool down period for LEDs

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Perfect thank you for all your help @BobbyDigital

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I got it tuned to 262.2 thanks again

Hlg-240 is actually rated as a 250+ watt driver. That is nominal output power rating anyway. Most of them will actually have slightly higher current than nameplate, and it doesn’t include efficiency losses of changing ac wall power to dc led power.

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I know i asked about this before as well. I just wasnt getting it. Ive been running my 240s at 240 even thought theyll go past 260. Maybe time to raise them back up to 24" and give more juice? Or lower heigth stay at 240

So can i crank it to 300? I asked one of my customers at a electrical supply store and he told me as long as the voltage matched on lights and driver then running higher wattage would be ok. @dbrn32 can you also explain the “efficiency losses” you mentioned? I have no idea what that means. There is allot i dont understand about these lights and electricity in general. Im trying to lol.

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@Jackie_Daytona up until I learned about wattmeter I was running my lights as bright as I could get them [probably around 300 i dunno] at a height of 11 to 12 in. and girls flourished. If they are the same boards I have you can drop them down to less than a foot. Footprint shrinks allot tho.

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Probably. I don’t remember exactly what light you have, or which driver. But if it was properly matched from whoever you got from the light should be able to run at full power.

The driver is really nothing more than a power supply with circuit protections that are specific to led use. It is a means to change standard wall power into proper voltage and current for leds in the circuit. In that process there are power losses, shown as heat. It’s like this in every power supply, transformer, or anything of the sort. Some are better than others, but none are exactly 100% efficient.

Since the drivers are sized by their output power, the actual power consumed is that of the load plus the efficiency losses. If you download data sheet and product report for your driver the specs for all of this and actual output current should be listed.

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