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Old 03-29-2020, 10:15 AM
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Lightbulb Can you Dim your household LED lights?

Just curious with everyone converting to LED lighting throughout their houses over recent years, has anyone found a combination of lights & dimmers that work well together? When we built 15 years ago, I installed more can lighting than we needed & used dimmers to dial it back. But today, we have just about every 65watt incandescent flood light changed out to its LED equivalent. While all of the replacement bulbs say they are "dimmable" My existing Leviton dimmers would only dim maybe 10%

I just assumed it was the dimmers being outdated & not LED compatible. However I recently installed a few of the new P&S LED rated dimmers & its exactly the same. I miss being able to dim things down to maybe 25% like the old incandescents.

Anybody here find an LED bulb or retro fit kit that can actually Dim, or maybe a dimmer control that works better than typical off the shelf Leviton or P&S?

What are you using?

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Old 03-29-2020, 11:43 AM
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You do have to change the dimmer. LED's consume such a low amount of energy that basically your current dimmer doesn't go that low. Dimmers are available at Home Depot for LED's.

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Old 03-29-2020, 11:46 AM
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Change the dimmer unit to a more modern one and verify that your LED bulbs support dimming (not all do and the cheaper ones respond to it poorly). I did this in my house and it was extremely straightforward and other than the lack of heat, you can't tell a difference between them and the older incandescent light bulbs except for when the bill comes and it is 1/3 of what it used to be.

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Old 03-29-2020, 11:47 AM
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Related. While working on a project to light a oil painting hung on the wall with a ceiling-mounted accent light I searched and found a LED spot that was not only dimmable, protected it from ultraviolet (UV) light, and had the proper color range, or Kelvin scale, I desired. Not something at my local hardware store and it was pricey. However like you have found, and pointed out, I needed a special dimmer switch for this LED bulb. Like the bulb the one I needed was not found at the local hardware store.

.

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Old 03-29-2020, 01:10 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Ben M. View Post
Change the dimmer unit to a more modern one and verify that your LED bulbs support dimming (not all do and the cheaper ones respond to it poorly). I did this in my house and it was extremely straightforward and other than the lack of heat, you can't tell a difference between them and the older incandescent light bulbs except for when the bill comes and it is 1/3 of what it used to be.
Quote:
Originally Posted by necdb3 View Post
You do have to change the dimmer. LED's consume such a low amount of energy that basically your current dimmer doesn't go that low. Dimmers are available at Home Depot for LED's.
You guys sped read through my post.

I did install new LED rated dimmers. Same result as the ones I had installed before.
This is what actually prompt my post. I thought the new dimmers would be the cure.

Bulbs are all listed as "dimmable" as I mentioned as well, however they are just the semi generic flood light replacements, not the complete retro fit inserts.
I will post some links.

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Old 03-29-2020, 01:21 PM
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I have switched to LED floods in the cans over the counters in our kitchen and they dim fine. At really low light, they tend to flicker with voltage transients (like when the oven or heater kicks on/off). The dimmer switch predates the LED craze but is still a electronic touch pad type. It's NOT a sliding resistor type. Works fine.

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Old 03-29-2020, 01:23 PM
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Here are the dimmers I recently purchased. https://www.legrand.us/radiant/produ...rhcl453pw.aspx

Now I see there is a trim pot behind the front bezel. Have not touched that & did not read through the instructions.
Would be awesome if thats all it is.

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Old 03-29-2020, 01:24 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by 455HOGT37 View Post
I have switched to LED floods in the cans over the counters in our kitchen and they dim fine. At really low light, they tend to flicker with voltage transients (like when the oven or heater kicks on/off). The dimmer switch predates the LED craze but is still a electronic touch pad type. It's NOT a sliding resistor type. Works fine.
Then manual for the dimmer above says the trim pot can be for eliminating flicker.
I will report back

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  #9  
Old 03-29-2020, 01:39 PM
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I have changed a lot of my bulbs to LED, and have found in my family room, I have can lighting, and after trying many brands, I couldn't get rid of pulsing/flicker. I finally went to a duracell bulb, and with a good dimmer, the flicker is gone! These bulbs also have a 5 yr warranty, and the local store honors it.
https://www.batteriesplus.com/light-...-shape-(a)/e26

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Old 03-29-2020, 01:40 PM
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OK, the trim pot did make a difference. I can now dim them to about 50% much better! But, still nowhere near as low as I could dim the incandescents.

Heres where it gets kind of funny, I take a closer look at the existing 15 year old Levitons & sure enough they have a trim pot. And surprisingly they have a way bigger adjustment range than the new ones. I can trim them down to just about off & then I see the flicker mentioned above. Interesting.....

Now I like my originals better than the ones I just bought. Glad I only changed a few. I probably have 10 of them in the house.

Never even knew these trim pots existed.

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Last edited by 68ragtop; 03-29-2020 at 01:54 PM.
  #11  
Old 03-30-2020, 10:02 AM
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I think it's still a bit hit and miss. I just installed new LED lighting fixtures in the kitchen two days ago with a new dimmer. Didn't know my old dimmer probably had a trim. Anyway ... it still seems to be a bit mix and match between dimmers and bulb manufacturers. Mine go down to about 10% so that will work for me. Old dimmer would only take the LED down to about 40%.

Only sure fire way to make them perfect seems to be to get the matched sets, or bulbs recommend by the dimmer company, or dimmer recommended by the bulb company. They now make dimmers and bulbs that "talk" to each other.

New dimmer was $29 .... wouldn't want to have to buy many of those.

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Old 03-30-2020, 10:19 AM
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I have LED's in different size can/flood lights in my house. Never changed the dimmers. They work fine.

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  #13  
Old 03-30-2020, 10:32 AM
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We had an array of irradesent floodlight lights in the living room of our house in town & I never could get the dimmer to work with the LED floods I installed. Thus went back to irradescent, thanks for your responses I need to address that dimmer switch issue.

Our current home, it has Cree LED can lightIng in the kitchen & through the entry/foyer area, the latter is an area I wouldn't mind installing a dimmer switch to tone it down some when we have company in the evenings.

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Old 03-30-2020, 06:43 PM
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Make sure the dimmer is compatible with the bulbs. Phillips has tested and posted their results with their bulbs.
https://www.usa.lighting.philips.com...s/dimmable-led

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