How many LED drivers do I need?

When planning and installing LED lighting it is important to always carefully calculate how many LED drivers you will require to power your lights. This is very easy to do, simply consider the following:

• Are the lights you are installing in one area or are they separated by a space? For example, there is a gap in a run of wall cabinets due to the inclusion of a cooker hood, this needs to be treated as two separate lighting areas and will need at least 2 drivers. This is because the gap between the cabinets will expose the cables running between the lights and the driver.
• What is the overall wattage of the lights you are powering? You must never overload the maximum wattage of your driver or the lights will not work. Simply multiply the wattage of the product by the quantity you are installing. This will tell you your overall wattage, then simply select a driver with a higher maximum wattage.
• How many ports are there on the driver distribution block? Different drivers have different numbers of ports available to install lights into. Make sure you check how many are on your selected driver, 1 port can power 1 light fitting. Certain light fittings have a very low power consumption and therefore the overall wattage of the lights would never exceed the driver’s capacity, but the distribution block will limit the input to a specific number of lights.
• How long are the cables on your light fittings? It may be possible to add multiple areas of lighting into one driver, even when they are located far apart. However, you must consider whether the power cable on the light fitting will reach the driver. If not, you will need to add another driver into your plan

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Want to find out more about drivers? Read our blog on how to work out which driver you need for LED lighting.