Dimmer Load (insufficient) with LED's?

Hi all,

Finally got around to swapping out all the halogen down lights with the monaco LED units that have been discussed on this forum

https://www.voltexelectrical.com.au...-led-downlight-cct-tricolour-90mm-cutout.aspx

All was working great at first no problems whatsoever and I had no issues. However around 24 hours later a group of 6 lights that are on 4 channel dimmer DIMDU4 stopped working.

Troubleshooting

I pulled one light out of the ceiling and plugged it into wall outlet - no problems and working.
I plugged one of the old lights back into that outlet in the roof and the whole group came on.
When i swap the new light back in. The whole group works, can be dimmed and turned on and off for a limited amounts of time. However, when left off for a few min. They wont turn back on (without increasing the load by plugging an old light back into the circuit).

If i go to the dimmer and turn it on locally there, the dimmer starts giving an orange green flashing light. Note: if i plug one of the old lights back into the group there is no error.

The weird thing (at least to me) is that I also have a group of 4 of the new lights on the same dimmer (on another channel) which is even less load and that group is working just fine.

I also have single light groups that are working OK on some of my other dimmers.

Cry for help

Any thought's or suggestions to rectify?

 

Update - if i remove 1 light from the circuit it seems to work ok i.e. working with 5 lights. However as soon as I add a 6th, the fault comes back.

To see if this was a load thing, I went to another circuit on the same dimmer that has 4 lights on it and plugged a power board in so i could add extra lights. The same issue is present, ok with 5 lights but has an error with 6.

The dimmer has a 200mA built in power supply (here is a photo of it)




Am i right that 6 x 9w lights at 240v is 0.216A ? So that could be the issue ?

But then im so confused about how the old lights didnt overload it....they were much more power hungry than these new LED's?

Any thoughts on how to resolve this issue would be most appreciative.

I have a spare channel on the same dimmer, and a sparky coming on the 6th.

is there some way to run all 6 lights in the group or split them across 2 channels on the dimmer without having to split the wiring in the roof?

Or some other solution for this kind of issue?

 

I've personally seen this issue on universal dimmers with larger (>5) Monaco's. Discussed this with Voltex and it seems the best fix (believe it or not) is a Load Correction Device (LCD). The universal dimmer seems to incorrectly report things. Personally, I use the Diginet LCD's. Seem to work a bit better and priced better too.

 

Thanks Conformist, ill order one and get my sparky to fit next week and report back.

Just to confirm, do you mean these https://pierlite.com.au/products/controls/ledsmart-load-bypass-device/

If i cant find one of those, have you had much success with the Clipsal 31LCDA as an alternative?

 

Yep, that's the one

 

This worked a treat.

The load bypass device is wired in parallel on a light in the circuit and all is good in the world.

 

Hello again, unfortunately the fault has come back again after a couple of days. The lights will turn on from the dimmer but are playing up on the switch... wont turn on again

Is there some other location I could try wiring the bypass device that might be more effective than its current location?

At the moment i would guess it is on a light in the middle of the series. Is it better placed at the start or end? Does this make a difference?

Edit: i increased the dim level for "on" (was set to 25% and have increased it to 50% and that seems to have helped... it just doesnt like turning on with low dim levels?)

 

I'm sure it's been wired correctly, but check with your electrician that it is wired between the switchwire and the neutral (not between switchwire and active).

I've seen mixed behavior based on where LCD's are physically installed. If I'm trying to overcome 'off-state leakage' (that's where the light glows when the dimmer is off), I try to put as close to the actual load as possible. I'll always aim to put in the plug-base the light plugs into. In your situation, it's not an off-state leakage problem. So, a couple of things to try...

Firstly, try the LCD in the last plug-base (furthest from the dimmer). This should be easy for your electrician to identify as it will be the only one with only one cable.

If there's no success with this, have your electrician put the LCD in the plug-base closest (from a wiring perspective) to the dimmer. That is, the first one. It might not be obvious how they are wired.

As outlined previously, it must be wired between switchwire and neutral.

 

Thanks ill have them try these options

 

Fitted a second one at the start of the circuit (one at start one at end) and fingers crossed it has been working well since