jgorm Posted November 18, 2013 Posted November 18, 2013 I have a 8 button dimmer switch running 6 LED lights on my patio. When I dimmed them to about 50% they worked fine, but every few minutes they would flicker and go to full bright or off for a second. All the lights did this so it was not a bad bulb. Any ideas? do I need to return this switch?
oberkc Posted November 18, 2013 Posted November 18, 2013 The only time that I have experienced behaviour anything like you describe I attributed to one of those fancy lutron or levitron switches. Since taking them out, the behaviour is gone. Right now, I have a cooper light switch which inludes a nightlight and motion sensor. I continue to find this light off at night and on the next morning. I wonder if one of my insteon programs (perhaps the 3am query) is somehow triggering this. The point I raise is to consider the possibility that some non-insteon system may be triggering some funny behaviour. Do you have any other systems that communicate via powerline?
jgorm Posted November 18, 2013 Author Posted November 18, 2013 no, everything is insteon. I dont normally mess with the dimmer, but there were a bunch of us sitting outside and it was too bright. Normal full on operation seems to work fine. I tried 2 different dimming setting, roughly 20% and 80% and had issues at both points. In a 5 minute period it would flicker 1-2 times.
andrew77 Posted November 19, 2013 Posted November 19, 2013 I too had these issues. viewtopic.php?f=28&t=12273 I'm by no means a pro at this stuff but I found that I need a bigger power draw. Yars ago I put a lamplinc on my led Christmas lights. They wouldn't shut off completely. I read somewhere in the forum to put more of a demand on the device (lamplinc in this instance) So I plugged in a phone charger as well. Worked great. I had the same issues and more with my LED lights. (The link above) I couldn't find a solution so I switched bulbs. The LEDs are now in non insteon switches in the barns and in ther places until the issue gets sorted out. I've tried many brands. (I'm a little gunshy to go buy more for experimentation but I haven't purchased Cree brand yet) Sorry for the odd phrasing (bigger power draw, more of a demand on the device). I'm trying to not say the device needs a bigger load for obvious reasons. I would love to use all LEDs but they don't dim well yet with our insteon stuff. With a regular dimmer from Home Depot yes but if you set your device at 30% it's okay, at 29% it flickers. (Just an example I had an issue with) Drew
jgorm Posted November 19, 2013 Author Posted November 19, 2013 I dont think that's it, but it could be. I have at least 30 of these same LED bulbs. http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00CP7 ... UTF8&psc=1 The switch with issues has 5 or 6 of them on it. I have other insteon dimmers with single bulbs and double bulbs and there are no issues dimming these, except that they turn off if I go below 15%.
andrew77 Posted November 19, 2013 Posted November 19, 2013 I found the Philips bulbs to dim well without flickering but they did cut out at about 15%. That drove me a little crazy. 1) I like the smooth ramp rate to be constant. 2) I have a lab that's afraid of lightning, camera flashes, etc… (insert personal argh!) I noticed the FEIT bulbs would fade smoothly from 100 - 0 but they had the issue that I mentioned before. (if I had just those bulbs in the fixture they wouldnt really fade well at all, yes they're dimmable) They would almost wait until 40% it seemed and then pop on, flicker inconsistently, etc… Given the issues I had and the lack of resolution, I chalked it up to the fact that LED bulbs are still new and they have a bit of refining to do. Its a give up but it was either that or endlessly slam my face into the desk. (It's not that pretty to begin with so I can't lose any ground in that department.) Drew
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