Quote:
Originally Posted by zachts
I believe the reason you don't want more than 4ish drivers on a circut is that when they first turn on they draw somthing like 60-70 amps each for a split second to charge up the capacitors in the driver. if you have a lot of them on the same breaker it will trip every time they start up. It doesn't have anything to do with the forward voltage of the leds.
runnning parralel strings on bigger drivers or having them turn on at different times as nemo suggests is the typical work around. Course you could just put in a dedicated breaker for you lighting too........
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Aka inrush current.
A negative temperature coefficient thermistor can be placed in series with the circuit whose inrush current you wish to limit in order to reduce the current spike.
However, all decent drivers SHOULD incorporate some type of inrush limiting circuit to begin with. Without schematics or experimentation (or someone willing to open up their drivers), it's best to play it safe.