[StirCrazy]

Originally Posted by sphelps

The major advantage of using a separate power supply is having the ability to adjust the supply voltage to match the number and type of LEDs which results in higher efficiency. In addition it's cheaper up front and long term if you ever have any failures. With an all in one drivers you're paying for multiple power supplies in each driver as appose to using one single power supply for all your LEDs. If a single part fails in one an AIO driver you're pretty much forced to replace the whole thing which can be expensive if you're paying $100+ a driver. Using a separate power supply will allow you to easily replace individual inexpensive drivers for a fraction of the cost and if your power supply failed they are not too expensive and can even be purchased locally so you won't have any down time.

As for a cleaner look I guess it depends on your design, but I think the AIOs are bulky and having a large number of them makes things the opposite of clean. Using a separate power supply means one power supply that can be installed virtually anywhere like under the stand or in an electrical compartment and the drivers are very low profile and can be as small as a couple square inches making them very east to build into your heat sink.

I've also noticed a lot of the stand alone drivers offer both 0-10V and PWM control so if you're not sure which one you want to use the option will always be there without having to change out drivers down the road.

The AIO have the advantage of simplicity and perhaps better suited for smaller builds only requiring one or two drivers. But for larger lighting systems which use many drivers for more levels of control I think the stand alone approach is the way to go.

I am not sure where your getting your drivers for your fixture but 15 bucks for 6 or 7 LEDs is a good deal, then you have to buy a power supply on top of that.. so price wise not realy to much difference but sure maybe some.

the problem I have found with the stand alones are that they are all based on a 10V for PWN amd volatage, while this isn't a real problem it does involve building a new circut if you use any ardruno based setup, as they are only a 5V PWM signal, and if you want to build 0-10V you need to have a seperate wall wart and circut to supply the referance voltage.

as for the cleaner look, if you use meanwells which are so 2010 ya you will need one unit for every 13 LEDs so on a large build you will need more of them, which is the beauty of the newer TR drivers as you can get them in different sizes up to ones that will do between 25 (min) and 82(max) LEDs in series with one constant current driver so a very large build can have two drivers measuring 2" x 10" each which don't have to be in the fixture, but rather behind the stand or what ever. you have to remember for each little driver you put in the fixture you have to figure there heat output into the capability of the heat sink. take "steve's" drivers.. they are the cheepest I have found at 15 bucks each on sale that are a nice Driver ( will take ardruno input from the box and also 10V control) but they have to be mounted to a heat sink of some kind and disapate 6 watts for a single channel driver so on a large build that will add substantualy to the requirments of the heat sink. oh and they will only handle 6 or 7 LEDs per channel.

Steve