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THE LOBBY A gathering place. Introductions, sports, showin' off your ride, birthday-anniversary-milestone, achievements, family oriented humor. |
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#1
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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I just assumed it was the dimmers being outdated & not LED compatible.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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68 GTO 4-spd Convertible 78 S/E Trans am L78, WS6 Auto 78 S/E Trans am W72, WS6 Auto 79 10th aniv W72 Trans am 80 Indy pace car Trans am 89 Trans am GTA |
#2
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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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#3
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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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#4
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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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'70 TA / 505 cid / same engine but revised ( previous best 10.63 at 127.05 ) Old information here: http://www.hotrod.com/articles/0712p...tiac-trans-am/ Sponsor of the world's fastest Pontiac powered Ford Fairmont (engine) 5.14 at 140 mph (1/8 mile) , true 10.5 tire, stock type suspension https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qDoJnIP3HgE |
#5
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Quote:
Quote:
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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68 GTO 4-spd Convertible 78 S/E Trans am L78, WS6 Auto 78 S/E Trans am W72, WS6 Auto 79 10th aniv W72 Trans am 80 Indy pace car Trans am 89 Trans am GTA |
#6
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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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#7
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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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68 GTO 4-spd Convertible 78 S/E Trans am L78, WS6 Auto 78 S/E Trans am W72, WS6 Auto 79 10th aniv W72 Trans am 80 Indy pace car Trans am 89 Trans am GTA |
#8
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Quote:
I will report back
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68 GTO 4-spd Convertible 78 S/E Trans am L78, WS6 Auto 78 S/E Trans am W72, WS6 Auto 79 10th aniv W72 Trans am 80 Indy pace car Trans am 89 Trans am GTA |
#9
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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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Jimmy M 68 GTO |
#10
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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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68 GTO 4-spd Convertible 78 S/E Trans am L78, WS6 Auto 78 S/E Trans am W72, WS6 Auto 79 10th aniv W72 Trans am 80 Indy pace car Trans am 89 Trans am GTA Last edited by 68ragtop; 03-29-2020 at 01:54 PM. |
#11
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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. |
#12
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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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************************************* 1968 Lemans. 37,000 original miles. GTO clone. 462ci/KRE 290 heads. UltraDyne 280/288 Solid/850 Qjet by Cliff/Performer RPM/TSP 9.5" in TH400/8.5" 3.42 gears/3950# Race weight/12.58@106 at Bandimere speedway high altitude |
#13
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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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Buzzards gotta eat... same as worms. |
#14
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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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So long, farewell. |
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