I’m working on converting my home to CFL and LED lighting. I’m a total NOOB when it comes to the Vera, but I’m working on it. Anyway, I have a lot of manual dimmers in my house and I’ve noticed a big difference in dimming LED and CFLs versus regular incandescent lighting. I’ve just replaced my first lamp bulb with a dimmable CFL. If it matters, the bulb is a Sylvania 14W (60W replacement) 2700K. Looks like the model is CF14EL/TWIST/DIM. I’m using an Intermatic HA03 Lamp Module to control it. Regular bulbs work fine, but with the CFL bulb, there is no noticeable dimming until I get below 50% on the slider. Even at 5%, the light is still very bright. I was wondering if there are some parameters or variables I can change in the Vera which would change this behavior. Any insights will be appreciated.
So far all plug-in dimmer modules I have seen are designed for resistive loads - incandescent, halogen, or tungsten bulbs. Using a CFL on that type of dimmer could damage the dimmer, CFL, or both.
Unfortunately I haven’t seen any Z-Wave dimmers compatible with CFL yet. The most likely would be Leviton since they have non-automated LED/CFL dimmers available already.
Here’s some references:
http://communities.leviton.com/thread/1965
http://communities.leviton.com/message/2619#2619