Can someone ELI5 why often lights set up with a dimmer also flicker? (mander.xyz)

submitted 1 month ago by Mothra@mander.xyz to c/asklemmy@lemmy.ml

31 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Seen this in many houses, people upgrade their lighting setup and install a dimmer. Which works. But usually it also makes the lights flicker unintentionally, which is super annoying IMO.

Now, my understanding of electrical engineering is pretty rudimentary so I'd appreciate more something that explains the concept in a way that Cavewoman Mothra can understand rather than something technically accurate.

Thanks

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[-] wewbull@feddit.uk 1 points 1 month ago

No LED bulbs will work properly with triac based dimmers. "Dimmable LEDs" are horrible hacks that just about cling on for dear life, and many just won't work at all. Those dimmers are for incandescent bulbs.

The right way to dim an LED is pulse width modulation of the DC power, not chopping up the AC wave. That's what smart bulbs do because they have the dimming logic after the power supply is convertered from AC to DC in the bulb enclosure.

[-] JoMiran@lemmy.ml 1 points 1 month ago

Well, this is anecdotal, but I bought an older home (circa 1990's) with dimmers already built in. We went through a number of LED bulbs and most flickered and some did not.

[-] wewbull@feddit.uk 2 points 1 month ago

Those that worked worked more by luck than by design though. That's what I'm trying to say. Different dimmer, and you'll probably get different ones working.

[-] JoMiran@lemmy.ml 1 points 1 month ago

Can you give me a few examples (links)/to what I should look for if I decide to go through the effort of swapping the old ones out?

this post was submitted on 17 Aug 2024

79 points (98.8% liked)

Asklemmy

43395 readers

1680 users here now

A loosely moderated place to ask open-ended questions

Search asklemmy 🔍

If your post meets the following criteria, it's welcome here!

Open-ended question
Not offensive: at this point, we do not have the bandwidth to moderate overtly political discussions. Assume best intent and be excellent to each other.
Not regarding using or support for Lemmy: context, see the list of support communities and tools for finding communities below
Not ad nauseam inducing: please make sure it is a question that would be new to most members
An actual topic of discussion

Looking for support?

Looking for a community?

Lemmyverse: community search
sub.rehab: maps old subreddits to fediverse options, marks official as such
!lemmy411@lemmy.ca: a community for finding communities

~Icon~ ~by~ ~@Double_A@discuss.tchncs.de~

founded 5 years ago

MODERATORS