FYI, you can ship stuff to a place in Point Roberts, WA, and just drive over there to pick it up and bring it back yourself. The US border guards there know that's what you go there for, so they just ask you straight up "what are you picking up?" Then when you come back, just be honest, and you may not get dinged. I ship stuff there all the time, and havent been dinged (knock on wood!).

This is one of the places I use:
http://www.thelettercarrier.com/

You basically register on their website, then mail stuff there under your own name, but use their address. When your package arrives, they'll either email you or give you a call, and you go pick it up (just bring photo ID). It costs $3-4US per package to use their service (price depending on the weight of each package).

From Burnaby to Point Roberts takes like 30minutes.

You save a LOT of money over 'international' shipping from the states. There's a place in Blaine, WA that does this too, but they just started charging a one time annual fee now in 2011.

And you wont have to deal with brokerage fees from UPS :P

Just another option for you to consider :)

<deleted post - may have contained inaccurate information - sorry!>

I understand your thoughts on Ohm's Law and it seems right. The issue seems to be between the theory and what really happens when a string fails. Others who have done parallel builds have found that without the fuse, the amperages accross the remaining strings increase and either shorten the life of your LED's or destroy them. Could this be based upon how the first string failed? Maybe the worry is if the LED fails open?

<deleted post - may have contained inaccurate information - sorry!>

I did a little more reading and perhaps my quick assessment of the behaviour of these circuits is in error. I figure that I better acknowledge my simple analysis before someone else points it out. As I said, I don't know anything about LEDs.

I'll do some more reading before posting again. Sorry if I derailed the thread. I think it's important to really understand what's going on here, but perhaps I'm not the guy to explain it.

My explaination is accurate if a diode were simply a resistor, but of course they are not. The electrical charecteristics are different and that is what I need to better understand.

- Sorry!

Milad,

Am I correct to assume that on the left side of the terminal blocks, they are all jumper together?

Thanks.

Not all jumped together, the ones for each driver are jumped together.

Ive also changed the design and im not using the meanwell 240s because they dont dim all the way. they only dim to 50%

hi milad,

gust checking what the progress is !!

any updates ?

Im going back and forth and back and forth of the heatsink design

the latest rendition is a linear design with two long skinny heatsinks. until I nail this down its not moving. Give me another month or so before you see pictures.

Malad, just curious on the progress?