Utilizing dimmer switches with LED bulbs is extra complicated than with incandescent bulbs. LED bulbs have extra subtle circuitry and require particular switches in addition to bulbs particularly designed for dimmers.
Should you’ve outfitted dimmable ceiling lights in your house with LED bulbs solely to have the bulbs heave erratically or burn out, there’s possible a quite simple purpose with a quite simple answer.
You Purchased Non-Dimmable Bulbs
Conventional incandescent bulbs had no “dimmable” or “non-dimmable” choices to fret about. No matter the kind of bulb or wattage, the dimmer swap may simply dim the bulb just by lowering the facility delivered to the bulb.
Full energy gave you full brightness, and something much less led to the incandescent filament within the bulb glowing much less brightly till it was dimmed all the way down to barely a candle’s price of sunshine.
With LED bulbs, nonetheless, the bulb doesn’t include a filament however a light-emitting diode—a kind of specialty circuit. That is additionally why LED bulbs don’t burn out the identical method as conventional bulbs. Adjusting the brightness of an LED is a extra complicated operation than merely cranking the uncooked energy up or down.
Due to that, you want an LED bulb designed particularly for a dimmable circuit. The {hardware} contained in the dimmable LED bulb can deal with the modifications launched by the dimmer swap. Should you put a non-dimmable LED bulb in a dimmable circuit, you possibly can count on unfavorable outcomes, together with flickering, failure to dim, and untimely bulb failure.
If you end up in a scenario the place the non-dimmable bulbs you bought kinda-sorta work in your dimmable fixtures (resembling they activate for those who flip the dimmer up all the way in which however in any other case don’t dim), we suggest swapping them out and placing the bulbs in non-dimmable fixtures. Although the bulbs work whenever you alter the brightness of the dimmer to 100%, at the whole lot under 100%, you’re stress-testing the bulb’s inner circuits.
Dimmer switches work by pulsing the electrical energy despatched to the bulb, and if the LED bulb shouldn’t be designed for that, it’s such as you’re forcing the bulb to expertise tens of hundreds of mini “brownouts.” It’s no surprise non-dimmable bulbs fail shortly when used with a dimmer swap.
You Have Older Dimmer Switches
Usually you don’t have to get into the weeds of dimmer swap design, however within the case of LED bulbs, the sort of dimmer swap you’ve gotten issues.
We’ll skip the deep dive into electrical concept, however there are just a few key particulars you’ll want to know to know why your dimmer switches appear to maintain consuming your LED bulbs.
First, the electrical energy delivered to your house is alternating present (AC) and derives its identify from the truth that the electrical present reverses route and magnitude constantly in a sample that may be represented by a sine wave. For our dialogue right here, all you really want to know is that the wave has a peak and a valley, and people peaks and valleys roll by a number of occasions a second.
Second, there are several types of dimmer switches. The older dimmer switches (frequent in properties constructed all through the twentieth century and even into the early twenty first century) are referred to as modern dimmers. They’re referred to as such as a result of they lower the facility on the forefront of {the electrical} “wave.”
Newer dimmers are referred to as trailing-edge dimmers as a result of they lower the facility on the other aspect of the wave. The one purpose this issues in any respect is that LED producers construct their dimmable LEDs with the premise that you can be utilizing fashionable trailing-edge dimmers. (As an apart, some producers embrace a guide toggle swap on the physique of the dimmer so you possibly can choose which sort of dimming perform you need, main or trailing.)
Utilizing an older dimmer swap with dimmable LED bulbs can work effective, however it may well additionally result in points with flickering and improper dimming. We suggest utilizing a high-quality choice like the Lutron Diva dimmer. It’s not price utilizing an affordable dimmer swap to save lots of $5-10 whenever you’ll possible eat up these financial savings the primary time you need to change bulbs prematurely.
Not solely that, however whenever you go along with a good and established firm like Lutron, you’ll additionally get pleasure from further help, like the corporate’s intensive and detailed LED bulb compatibility database. Right here’s the list for the Lutron Diva dimmer.
There’s one other subject with older dimmer switches to think about. As a result of older dimmer switches have been designed for incandescent bulbs, the switches assume there’s a comparatively excessive load on the circuit.
In case you have 10 40W bulbs in an array of recessed ceiling lights, you’ve gotten a 400W most load and a 40W load when dimmed again to 10% brightness. Equal LED bulbs, nonetheless, solely use round 6W every. So beneath 100% load, the circuit solely makes use of 60W. Beneath 10% load, it solely makes use of round 6W. If the older dimmer (designed for incandescent lights) expects the next minimal load, there could also be erratic outcomes like flickering,
Lastly, there’s yet another subject to think about for those who’re experiencing frequent LED bulb failure in your ceiling fixtures. This doesn’t must do with the dimmer swap, however for those who’re right here looking for an answer we wish to cowl the bases.
LED bulbs packed into recessed can lighting fixtures typically “burn out” prematurely due to extra warmth. Should you suspect that is perhaps your downside, we’ve some tips to help you avoid LED failures in recessed lights.
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