Help, please! LED lamps & dimmer tripping

Hi all

Really hoping you can help me here (Cape Town, South Africa). Just did a new install and powered up a Cbus network for first time and have had some problems with lamps I'm hoping someone can help with. I'm a noob, so would appreciate as much plain English for dummies as possible.

Outline of system:

7 Clipsal NEO switches (5058NL)
1 Clipsal Cbus 4 channel relay (no power supply - was not being used at time of problem described below but was on network)
1 Clipsal Cbus 12 channel relay (with power supply)
1 Clipsal Cbus 8 channel dimmer L5508D1AP (no power supply)
1 Clipsal Cbus PC interface
8 Hager 2amp breakers for 8 channels on dimmer
6 10amp breakers for 12 channel relay (2 channels per breaker)
10amp breakers for the relays and dimmer (each has own breaker)

See attached pic for pic of board & dimmer.

Using the system with the following lamps - dimmable Earth Power Black Max LED lights (50w halogen replacement) - http://capetown.olx.co.za/pictures/earth-power-energy-solutions-iid-620808271 (3rd row, 2nd from left ? GU10-5W). It?s a 220v system, have 220v lamp holders. I believe the Black Max lamps are dimmable and leading edge (that's what I was told). I have probably close to 45 on the Cbus system.

Problem:

We connected everything up. Started turning on channels on dimmer and some lights came on, carried on turning on more channels and then a pop in the dimmer unit and lights off, breaker down. Reset breaker, tried again, got through a couple of channels and pop in the unit and lights off, breaker down. Noticed some lamps had blown.

Example - there was a channel on the dimmer with 4 of these LED lamps on it. After a couple times the Clipsal dimmer had popped, noticed 1 of the lamps had blown. A couple more times of trying to determine / fix the problem, another 2 went (i.e. 1 lamp on the circuit / channel still working).

Example 2 - problem also happened on a bigger circuits - 1 blew on a circuit on a channel on the dimmer which had 10 LED lamps on it and 2 blew on a circuit on a channel on the dimmer which had 5 LED lamps on it.

To keep some light in the house the circuits were taken off the dimmer and a few of them have been run through the spare 4 channel relay that I have. Apart from the blown lamps, these appear to be working fine.

Help, please!

I have been told that it is probably the LED lamps which don't work with the Clipsal dimmer, but how is that if they are both supposed to be leading edge and the Clipsal dimmer is a sophisticaed and expensive piece of hardware? Please help, is there anything I can do / buy to fix this?

I'd prefer to not replace the lamps if possible because they give off a great light and were precisely what I was looking for (ito colour, spread, cost, aesthetics) but I can't have a house without dimming functionality. I also unfortunately don?t have much money left in the budget as the house also needs to be finished so I can?t go off and blow a whole bunch of cash?

Thanks so much!

 

I would be looking at the capacitance rating of the LED lamps you are using.. There is a little bit more to dimming than a fitting simply saying dimmable by leading edge and whacking it on a leading edge dimmer..

Another possibility is some of the LED fittings may be defective and causing a direct short when powered on, thus tripping the breaker..

It could also be a wiring issue..

And finally it could also be a faulty CBUS dimmer..

PS you should probably add another CBUS power supply as with all your current devices you would be border line..

 

Thanks so much for the reply mate!

I'm hoping its not the wiring itself, given that it's new wiring. I think I might run some tests though - might try loading up a couple more circuits onto one channel and check if its something like too little W's draw.

But I have a feeling its linked to the capacitance rating of the lamps. How do I go about checking that and what is required ito the dimmer I have?

Sorry to be a pest, but how do I check if its a faulty dimmer? Not sure how I would test that...

Have spoken to the sparky store I bought them from and may have to go get some Osrams, Aurora's or Verbatims apparently

 

Those LED's seem very generic and may not be proven on CBUS. In any case I personally avoid 5W like the plague. The only ones I installed are 12-15W which then gives you enough light to make it worth dimming.

However, you may want to consider using a Universal Dimmer rather than the stock standard model.

 

Hi all, thanks for the help, it's truly appreciated!

Update: problem solved - using Osram Parathoms and I can dim and all is right in the world

Next steps:

1. figuring out if I want drivers to dim 12V LED strip lights (and if so, what to get)
2. Learning to program all the Neo switches. And scenes. Oh heavens...