Understanding LED Drivers: Essential Components for LED Lighting

LED drivers are very important components in LED lighting fixtures, and in the next section we'll take a closer look at the driver components of LED fixtures.

What is an LED driver? What does it do?

Since LEDs are low-voltage devices, LED drivers are needed to help convert the high AC power into the low-voltage DC power needed by the LEDs to ensure the stable and safe operation of the LED fixtures.

Types of LED Drivers

There are two main types of LED drivers, constant current and constant voltage:

Constant current driver: constant current driver can provide fixed current for LED lamps and lanterns, to avoid current fluctuations brought about by instability, to ensure the stable operation of LED lamps and lanterns. Mainly applicable to higher power LED lamps and lanterns.
Constant voltage driver: constant voltage driver can provide stable voltage for LED lamps, to avoid how much current or too small lead to some problems, more suitable for low power LED lamps and lanterns.

LED Drivers and Dimming

LED driver plays a key role in the dimming function, but it should be noted that not all LED drivers are compatible with dimming, can be compatible with dimming driver can have the following two dimming methods:

DC dimming: DC dimming by adjusting the current of the LED lights to adjust its brightness, through this dimming method can directly reduce the current to dim the lights, so it is not easy to affect the performance or service life of the lamps and lanterns, and relatively speaking, more accurate, there will be no flickering problem, more suitable for use in commercial or architectural applications such as the need for fine regulation of lighting.
AC dimming: AC dimming is by changing the voltage of the lamps to adjust the brightness of the LED lights, this dimming method is compatible with the current dimming open light and installation is more simple, so it is relatively more popular choice, although it may not be able to provide the same high dimming accuracy as DC dimming, but because of its easy enough to use and high integration, so it is more common, more used in many standard lighting applications, especially in residential and commercial environments.