LED downlight HEADACHE. Pleae help!

Hello all,

I have just built a new house and purchased over 130 downlight fittings from someone who was recommended on here (And of which I successfully trialled his product) by the name of Dave. His company is OzLedWorks or similar...

So I am the electrician who did the whole install and have come to the point of fault finding. I have many cbus lighting groups throughout the house with most of the groups on dimmers (3x cbus HUBs around the house for distribution). Here is my problem:

SOME of the groups flicker ONLY during the dimming cycle... Some of the flickering groups have 4x fittings, some have 8 fittings. But I also have groups that have 9 fittings and dim perfectly....


I have tried everything. Changing the groups over to a working module, changing channels, changing light fittings with ones that don't flicker, etc all to come back to being a field issue (ie an issue out on the light ends).

In this one particular group that I have been doing all the fault finding in, it has 6x9W downlghts. When I have all 5 fittings connected with the 6th one completely removed it dims as normal. As soon as I wire in that last fitting it flickers again. EVEN if I only connect the cable and leave it unwired at that 6th fitting, it STILL flickers. I know what your thinking... CABLE right? NOPE! wired in another cable length and low and behold, same issue.... Ive even taken off all of the **** terminal strips the lights come with and BP connected thinking that the ever so solid solder joins on the load side would be falling apart... Still nothing.

I am wondering whether this Is a capacitance issue now??? Anyone have any problems like this, and if so, HOW DO YOU FIX IT??? I don't want to have a halogen globe in one fitting either...

Im starting to develop migraines :S

Dave

 

Hi Daveymit,

Whilst there are several workaround solutions posted here on the forum requiring you to do some searching under 'fix LED flicker' etc, by far the easiest way to have a good chance of a quick fix is to go purchase some Clipsal 31LCDAs Load Correction devices . These are specifically designed to correct a lot of the capacitance, light loading and other issues that causes many LED systems to flicker.

That being said, I have found a lot of LED vendors saying their gear is C-Bus compatible when it clearly doesn't dim properly at all. If it doesn't dim without flicker in many/most of your circuits, perhaps there is some recourse on the supplier to return or rectify the situation if they stated that it was C-Bus dimming compatible. Often a more expensive later model LED driver is all that is required to make the LED head system and your chosen light fitting dim gracefully.

All the best,

Brad

 

Brad,

You may have just saved my life.... I will purchase one right away and see how it goes. Is it one per dimmer module? There isn't much in the way of connectivity details although from what I can make out this is the case...

Has anyone had any experience with these filters? Are they effective in fixing what I am describing here?

Thank you again ill be sure to post back how it goes

Dave

 

Hi Dave

I recently tried the 31LCDA.
http://updates.clipsal.com/ClipsalOnline/Files/Brochures/A0000268.pdf

A job with some Osram Luxpoint Mini G2 LED downlights had occasional spurts of flickering while turned on.
6 fittings on one Clipsal 30 series trailing edge dimmer mech.

The 31LCDA didn't seem to help so I would only buy one or two of them to test first.

You will need one for every dimmer channel which has problems.

You should state whether you have a leading edge or universal dimmer and as Brad mentioned contact the supplier and manufacturer to make demand for a solution.

 

Hi everyone,

So I have finally received the filter from Nous House, 'Clipsal Load Correction Device 31LCDA'. I have tested it on three of the circuits that had the flickering whilst ramping on and off and it works! VERY happy, although now my wallet might feel the punch :s. I will test it on every circuit before purchasing them all though.

One question, these load correction devices put a false 'load' on the channel so in normal operation, is this an additional load? Thus rendering the use of energy efficient LEDs useless?

I cannot find any technical information on this device... Is it basically a snubber circuit?

Thanks for the help
Dave

 

Thanks Ashleigh,

Yeh it would be good to know what is inside the black box . I was thinking it could be as simple as a free wheeling diode as it would stabilize the transient current during the off/on cycle. Although it claims to have a positive 'off' state when the channel is off so this would mean a bit more circuitry...

Anyway thanks for the insight

Cheers
Dave