well, I got the answer to why the power supply blew, email from ledsupply:
Dear John,
I was able to get a hold of one of the engineers at LEDdynamics, and
ask him some questions. The BoostPucks should be able to run 10-11
junctions on anything over 12V, so the 15.8V that you are using is fine.
The two pots in parallel will sort of work, but one 2-3K pot would
work better. What caused the units to fail was when you connected all
of the references together. The one unit that failed was most likely
the driver powering 10 units(it was). The unit that has the lowest output will
start pulling current through that reference and blow the 5V reference,
causing the unit not to dim. So it sounds like that's what happened.
If you would still be kind enough to send that back, the engineers
wanted to take a look at it. As I noted on the phone your order will
ship out tomorrow. If you have any further questions feel free to
contact me.
Best Regards,
--
Zachary Treamer
General Manager
LED Supply
www.LEDSupply.com
(802) 728-6031 Office
(802) 728-5380 Fax
zach@LEDSupply.com
glad to know why, & to know that it won't happen again, if all three had 11 led's this wouldn't have happened...... I connected the three different 5v references to geather to even them out....... shouldn't have done that without all three having an even load.... Oh well, live & learn.... I'll keep the references seperate fron now on