Flickering 8 button dimmer switch

[jgorm]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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