So, I just went through the horror of realizing our great government doesn’t want to me to have 75 watt and higher incandescent lamps anymore (forget the actual problems facing our nation).
Instead of paying the ridiculous prices for the halogen equivalent, I’m looking for the brightest dimmable LED that will work in Leviton VRI06 dimmers. I’d like to be able to dim it all the way down.
Obviously, the lamp has to still supply power to the VRI06 when turned off, and I’m in the US (120 volt).
Any real world experience is appreciated. I am also concerned about harming $2500+ worth of dimmers over time (due to higher inrush currents, etc), so please only reply if you have actually used LED lamps with a Leviton 600 watt Vizia RF dimmer (VRI06) for longer than a year and the dimmer is not adversely affected.
Here’s a paper talking about incandescent inrush current versus LED for various triac dimmers:
[url=http://www.lrc.rpi.edu/programs/solidstate/assist/pdf/assist-TechNote-Dimming-InrushCurrent.pdf]http://www.lrc.rpi.edu/programs/solidstate/assist/pdf/assist-TechNote-Dimming-InrushCurrent.pdf[/url]
You can see from the graph there is a wide variation of inrush current, and I’m worried that this may affect the dimmer over time as it was designed for a much lower inrush current.
That paper is pretty scary. :o If you have the wrong lamp and dimmer combination you could be looking at very short lifetimes of either or both. You could also get some interesting EMI from circuits with multiple lamps. I think you are wise to be concerned for the well-being of your costly collection of dimmers.
I am [glow=red,2,300]so[/glow] glad I decided to use WiFi-controlled, self-dimming MiLight/Easybulb/LimitlessLED lamps with regular relay switches. I have not measured their peak current but they are Pulse Width Modulated rather than Phase-Angle switched so I would expect them to be much better behaved.
I’ve run this config in two different 4x bulb configs for 2yrs now, using VRI-06’s:
http://forum.micasaverde.com/index.php/topic,6074.msg41244.html#msg41244
They’ll dim down to 10% (per SQRemote) with consistent light levels in all bulbs. The initially pulse a little (approx every 15 seconds) for a short time and the they stop pulsing.
At 5% they pulse in a similar manner, but the 4x bulbs each show different intensities.
Not a problem for me, since I have never used them at even 10%… More like 40% or above.
As a separate deployment, I have another VRI-06 running 4x spotlight bulbs (don’t recall brand right now, but they’re 90W equiv or brighter). These would not work with all 5x bulbs as LED, so I run 4x of them and one conventional BR30 (75W) in the circuit. These bulbs are crazy bright, and also 3000K, so a bit white, and take a while to get used to (like the Utilitech’s above)
I have a couple of Leviton VRE-06 switches, which have a neutral, that I’ve been meaning to try out… But only just restored Primary, and have a major stability problem to sort out first. In theory, the VRE switches would handle LEDs better than the VRI models… But I only have two of these switches (they’re also crazy expensive… But do have instant feedback for when they’re switched locally)
Thanks for the recommendations guessed!
I’m going to buy a sample of LED lamps from the manufacturer you recommend, along with whichever lights I can tryout and then return to home depot, lowes and walmart.
I think the only safe way to pick an LED lamp is to first ensure it has a well designed power supply that doesn’t have a high inrush current. The stability problems you mention are interesting.
I plan to buy a digital oscilloscope and build a test jig as I can’t risk ruining all of my expensive dimmers. Once I find one I like, I’ll run tests with multiple lamps. I was going to get a digital scope anyways. The old analog scope I have can’t plot transients.
Unfortunately, I have almost 40 VRI06’s as I bought them prior to passing of the light bulb ban. At least I got them wholesale, so I can get most of my money back on ebay. If only George Bush would have lived up to the conservative hype about individual rights. I don’t know who’s worse him or Obama? At least Obama is smart…