Figured I would give this a post:

I have finished a tail light wall display with 15 tail lights from C1 to C6.
My problem is after trying 3 different new power supplies, something is feeding back and immediately shutting down the constant voltage 12V 450 watt, 38 amp supply.

Here is the setup:
One power supply as described above
15 Tail Lights all with the equivalent of 1156 bulbs..standard stuff.
5 flasher units

Wiring:
If you bring it down to its' simplest terms, I have the supply, 5 flasher units, and a ground terminal strip and a 12V power strip. From supply V+ .... it connects to the 12V power strip.
From supply V- ..... it connects to the ground strip.

Each flasher has 2 terminals: B and L. From the power strip 12V you connect to the B connection.
To the L terminal on each flasher, I have tied together three "+" leads from 3 different tail lights.
THere are 5 flashers with 3 lights apiece= 15 total lights.
All the grounds from the tail lights connect to the ground terminal strip.

So in operation, the 5 flasher circuits randomly flash 3 lights from each flasher.

When you plug in the supply, something is shorting and immediately causing the auto shutoff on the power supply to turn off.
EVEN when I try only 1 flasher circuit OR eliminate a flasher all together, the same thing happens.

The specs of the supply should have more than plenty of headroom given what an 1156 bulb puts out which is about 24 watts each. Even if all 15 bulbs went on at once, which they would not do, it is plenty of power.

Ideas? Questions?
This is the 3rd supply I tried. The others were less wattage and they just could not handle the load so I went to 450 watts. But I will mention that for some reason, my last supply (100 watts) was at least able to handle 3 flasher circuits but then shut off when you connected the 4th. So that makes no sense. Thanks in advance.

 

Not exactly the same set up but while I was doind my home theater in the basement, I had 12 recessed lights on the same circuit and the moment I put the breaker ''on'' it will pop off right away. It is a parralel circuit so I disconet the circuit half way (6 lights) and put the breaker on and it stayed ''on''. I knew I had only 6 other light to check. What I suggest is disconet half on them, connect a amp meter at your power supply and try it. If it doesn't shut down, rear your meter and start reconnet your light one by one until you find witch circuit in drawing to much. If it still shut down, continu disconnecting until you find out with one is gulty. Would you have a picture of the wirring? Part number of the flasher units? I Checked on the GE website and the 1156 takes abouit 27w so 15X27=405watts + your flasher units so might be a little border line. LED??? Good luck

 

Good minds think alike and that is what I did before posting, i.e. disconnecting all the circuits and even the flashers. The only way so far this supply is not shutting down is with no load whatsoever. This is happening with 3 supplies so I strongly believe it is not the fault of the supply. As mentioned, even when the flasher was completely out of the circuit and I only connected the power supply to one circuit (3 bulbs) it shuts it off...immediately.
I have done quite a bit of auto electrical work in completely wiring older cars front to rear but this one is weird. The supply is a Mean Well constant voltage (what they call) LED driver, with the specs I indicated. They sell them at superbrightleds.com which is a huge source for all this stuff. Not a cheap supply at $149.00. Model is SE-450-12.
The flashers are CF12anl-01 from them as well.
Wiring when it all works someday (!) is a jumpering five +12V connections on the power terminal strip and then 15 ground wires from the bulbs connecting to the ground terminal strip. Both are ultimately connected to V+ and V- at the supply.

What is even more perplexing is when I had a little 100 watt supply a few weeks ago, at least I was able to get 3 circuits (3 bulbs each on 3 flashers) to work just fine and bright. Connect the 4th circuit and shut down.
I don't know if tying three "+" leads from three bulbs together (I call that one circuit) is screwing things up but I don't know why it should.

thanks for the suggestions.

 

You have 15 identical bulbs all wired in parallel, so total resistance across +/- terminals at the power supply is 1/15th that of one bulb. I'm thinking the power supply is going into protection mode because it is sensing what it thinks is a dead short

Put a 6ohm 50w 'anti hyperflash' resistor in series at one of the power supply terminals and see if that works.

 

Put a 6ohm 50w 'anti hyperflash' resistor in series at one of the power supply terminals and see if that works.[/QUOTE]

I follow what you are saying. Never thought of it in terms of resistance. If I use the resistor should I wire it between the V+ lead coming out of the supply and the +12 terminal strip? Or between the terminal strip and one of the flashers. I guess it shouldn't matter as long as the PS sees some resistance.
Like this?:

 

Yes, that's exactly what I would recommend. Put it in series between V+ and the terminal strip.

 

Thanks. As a sanity check, here is a quick shot of that section showing the supply, the +12v term strip and the flashers. So supply to term strip, term strip to flasher, flasher to light positives. Then all grounds to the ground strip. (Note: +12v from supply to term strip is not connected in this photo, fyi. Ready for the resistor connection!)

 

Simple fix. Turns out b/c most things we buy unfortunately are not made in the US, the hidden switch on the supply was set to 230v vs. 115v. Everything works.

 

Good find

 

How about a picture of the lights?