Just Bought Some Rspec's... How to Decipher a Mean Well Spec Sheet?

Yes, you are right and I do apologise. I was looking at the Report sheet (which was tested at 230V) - and obviously we're on 230V here - so I should have asked. I was looking at these for myself and I just didn't stop to think you might be on 115V. Did you buy the ELG? You may still get more than 180W out of it if you did.

No I didn't. I literally was hovering over submit and just for the hell of it googled the difference between HLG and ELG drivers before clicking. Got a hit here and on LEDGardener talking about the 75% so assumed it was real. So two questions for you and I appreciate your help so far. I have all the pieces I need with the exception of the power cords, drivers, and multimeters. I'll just buy the power cords with the drivers and pick up a couple of meters off of Amazon.

So it looks like a HLG-240H-48a would just about get me there but fall a little short. So that has me looking at the HLG-320H-48a instead. Am I correct in that the 320 should be able to comfortably push all 4 at 1400 mA and still have the voltage to be able to max out current at about 1675 mA per board if I wanted to crank it up?

If the 320 is the way to go, I absolutely want to be able to dial them in and balance them. I have a bunch of Wago's with the levers but the largest is a 5 port. That would work great if I didn't want to plug in a meter. Can I chain 2 Wago's together without an adverse affect? I imagine I go from the driver to Wago #1 and then out of Wago #1 to Wago #2. That leaves 3 open ports on Wago #1 and I take measurements from there and all the boards connect to Wago #2. Is that the best way to do it? I will most likely get 2 meters and set one for A and one for V and use both when dialing in.

Good to hear. And again I'm sorry for the oversight. We tend to forget sometimes that we're talking to people half-way around the world who's circumstances are different.

I've got three 240H-48A and one 320H-48A drivers. The 240s are good drivers that go way above their rated power. Two of mine put out over 300W at the boards, and the other puts out 290W. I've heard of some that go as high as 330W (in the US, on 115V). At just over 50V, mine are suppyling 5.9A - so that would get you about 1.475A per board over four boards. But it depends on the driver - some are better than others, but the 240 series all seem to be good.

My 320 driver puts out 6.9A at about 50V, which is about 345W - so not as good "bang for buck". I might have a pretty average 320 driver, though, so I'm not sure if you would end up with a better one. They all generate more than their rated (advertised) power, but not all Mean Wells are created equally.

The HLG drivers are NOT derated at 115V - that is 100% - so you won't have any issues with them.

For me, the 240 drivers represent good value. You'd also have the option of buying a second 240 driver in the future and running two boards off each at 2.8A - as long as you had heatsinks and adequate cooling.

You can chain Wagos together. You can also put more than one wire in each hole. That's what I've done with one of my strip builds. I used a 3-way connector and had two wires in two of the holes (four strips) and main power in the other hole. I use 18AWG solid wire for all my builds.

Prawn Connery said:

You can chain Wagos together. You can also put more than one wire in each hole. That's what I've done with one of my strip builds. I used a 3-way connector and had two wires in two of the holes (four strips) and main power in the other hole. I use 18AWG solid wire for all my builds.

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That never even occurred to me! I have solid 18AGW NTE wire ( what HLG links to on the guide page ) and didn't realize I can do multiples in a single hole. That works perfectly for a 5 port. Boards doubled up in 2 ports, 1 from the driver and the other two free to use two multi meters.

Thank you for all your help in this thread. I didn't have much of a grasp on drivers or series vs parallel and I appreciate you having taken the time to educate me.

I like the 240's for the aspect of them being cranked all the way gives me what I want. I like the 320 for the headroom and knowing I don't have to depend on them being an exceptional vs average build. Looks like the 320's are around $20-$25 more depending on the site. For only $40-$50 more, I'm probably going to feel more comfortable with the headroom of a 320 for an extra few bucks. Gotta work for a bit and going to mull it over while working and pull the trigger when I get back home this evening.

Ordered the 320's yesterday and picking up a couple of DROK's that was suggested from another thread. Assuming everything will get here in a couple of days, I hope to be up and running this weekend.