Led Lights and X10

[jolly1]

Hi
Decided to change thee house lighting from halogens to led lamps. Not so much save the planet as cut the Electricity bill.

Had a combination of 12 MR16 volt halogens, 240 volt GU10 and G9.

First 12 volt MR16 changed out power up found noticable flicker. Had to change out the transformers to LED drivers. X10 din rail dimmer modules, on switch off the light would reduce and then go off, to promptly come back on. Figure the impedance was to high in the led. Changed modules din rail appliance module. All working OK. LED even with dimmable would not switch of via the X10 DIN dimmer module.

240 volt GU10 had ordered 3 different types
SMD that is the led are small yellow squares
3 high power leds
20 or so leds in a group

3 high power leds operated Ok via appliance module switching as did the one with 3 leds.

SMD type will switch on ok but will not switch of. Even tried putting an x10 filter in circuit after the din module. No joy would not switch off. Can ony assume this type generates a lot of noise, whch kills the x10 signal. Please note have an x10 amplifier connected to homevision.

12 volt with th led driver appear to be controlable immaterial of the LED type. 240 volt are a different story.

[toscal]

Need to know wattage of LED bulbs.
What I have done in the past is use one halogen in the circuit with GU10 LED bulbs. Using this setup it seems to work fine though you won't get below about a 15% dim on the leds.
Remember the X10 lighting modules all have a minimum load of 40W.
Transformer problems could be due to minimum loading as well. Often these days MR16 halogens come with their own transformer. So we have found connecting several LED bulbs to one transformer normally does the trick.
Did you buy dimmable versions of the bulbs. Or non dimmable. We have often seen huge amounts of flickering when people try and use non-dimmable on a dimmable circuit.

[jolly1]

Hi tried both dimmable and non dimmable. You are correct regarding the minimum watts (high impedance) most of the circuits had 3 x 50 watt halogens replaced with 3 x 4 watt leds. The strange part as I metioned is the SMD type kills the x10 signal. I took a 13 amp plug in filter stripped off the pins and fitted connectors and put this in line with one of 240 volts circuits. Eddison screw E27 and made no difference.

[jolly1]

In the one circuit of 12 volts which was still flickering, changeed one lamp back to 35 watt halogen and Les are now stable. It is still the orginal transformer.

[stilgar]

When you use one halogen with GU10 LED bulbs, can you dim the whole setup? (assuming the LEDs are dimmable).
Which module do you use to dim ?

[toscal]

I have been using a LW12 In-Wall Lamp Module. Also works with the din rail dimming module .
I have used/tested a similar set up using a normal rotary dimmer with 5 dimmable ES14 5W LED candle bulbs and one normal 35W incandescent bulb.
Strangely enough though when the incandescent bulb blew the LED lights didn't flicker. Maybe they where close enough to the min load.
A big problem is the quality of the driver circuit used in mains LED bulbs. While a 5 pound/euro LED bulb may look the same as a 15 euro/pound one they are most certainly not. Cheaper electronics will have most certainly been used for the 5 pound one. Also heat dissipation tend to be better in the more expensive one.
All LED bulbs we have tested only seem to go to a min of 10 to 15% dim even single colour strips are the same.

On a side note.
We have spent literately thousands of euros on testing LED bulbs, and some of the cheap stuff just isn't worth it. Yes they look just like their more expensive counterparts and produce an equal amount of light, the actual quality of the product isn't there. We have had cheap bulbs last anything from 1 month to 12months (only one lasted this long). The ones we now supply tend to last over three years in real world usage (have only had them in the house for just over three years, and they are still going) Then you have colour binning problems. Decent manufacturers and suppliers will use binning to select LEDs of a similar colour to use in each bulb. If you don't you get one bulb that is a nice warm white but another one that isn't quite the same. Not to bad if you are using one or two in a room but when you are using 10 its very noticeable. Its not as noticeable with cold white. And colour strips are also affected by this binning.

[jolly1]

When the complete circuit was changed to all leds. X10 dimmer modules would dim down the go back to full power. As Toscal metioned x10 I believe requires a minimum load of 40watt or so. I chaged the dimmer modules to appliance modules. So either on or off. As I metioned at the start SMD surface mounted diode. They look like small yellow squares kill the x10 signal when switchd on.

Toscal would you mind giving manufactuer / supplier of the ones which are of superior quality

[toscal]

sent you a PM. Where the SMD ones the G9 bulb type by any chance.

[jolly1]

No they were GU10, I am actually awaiting delivery of G9. My problem withe G9 is the diameter cannot be greater than 23 mm or the gass shade won't fit

12 volt systems did not cuase a problem with x10, transformer /driver is keeping the noise at bay. Noise is an assumption on my part, as do not have access to a scope.

I didn't go for dimmers. The orginal din rail mounted x10 dimmers would not swittch of I think these utilise triacs. Changed to appliance module either on or off useing a relay.

[shonen]

Hi, has anyone noticed interference causing timer drift with CM15pro and AHP when using LED bulbs? I bought some combined "Duled" LED and CFL bulbs made by Osram but they seemed to make my clock run fast when on (controller running without pc on). Shame as the LED mode was a good nightlight with the option of CFL for general use in the same socket. I have yet to try them in a lamp sheilded by a filter module to see if that works. Bought 5 on impulse before realising they were going to be a problem....

Is there anyway of shielding a CM15pro from 'noise' whilst still letting x10 signals through?

A Phillips "myambience" dimmable LED works fine with a lamp module so far.