With the advent of LED lighting, the relationship between legacy dimming technology and LED lamps has become an uneasy one.  Here MEGAMAN® shows how to overcome such difficulties.

New for old?

One of the big areas for dimming problems comes when home owners decide to switch out all of their traditional lamps for LEDs, but don’t change the dimmers at the same time.  This is largely down to the lack of public knowledge about the fact that trying to combine old and new technologies can lead to all kinds of issues.

The problems that can occur when new and old are combined include: lamp flicker, flashing, an inability to dim as low as required and failures with the LED and/or dimmer.  Even if the LED lamps seem to initially respond well to dimming, over time, the use of LED light sources on a legacy dimmer can have longer-term implications that lead to call-backs, weeks or months after installation.

The root of the problem

Almost all legacy dimmers designed for incandescent light sources are leading edge or trailing edge dimmers that commonly use a TRIAC/transistor as the key control device.  This chops out parts of the voltage and reduces power to the light source in order to achieve the dimming performance.  Though these work with incandescent lamps, LED lamps have an internal filtering circuit that distorts the supply signal and can result in system oscillations that are observed as flickering or flashing.

As well as encountering flickering and variable dimming performance, in extreme cases incompatible dimmer switches cannot be turned on, or suddenly shut off, can burn out, or permanently damage the LED lamps.  In addition, traditional dimmers have a minimum load requirement of 40W or 60W, something that causes problems when replacing them with low wattage LED equivalents.

GU10’s – the LED opportunity

With halogen directional reflector lamps being phased out across Europe from September 2016*, there will be an increased push from homeowners for LED replacements.  With the advances in LED lighting technology, there are now a wide range of exceptional alternatives to halogen lamps.

However, dimmable LED GU10 lamps are complex pieces of engineering, as they have to house a transformer, as well as dimmable driver components.  There are at present a lot of dubious dimmable LED replacement lamps on the market.  As with most things, you get what you pay for.  So avoid the lower end of the market and choose a trusted LED manufacturer.

MEGAMAN has just launched its new selection of GU10 lamps (that incorporate the company’s new Hybrid Reflector and U-DIM™ technology – see products here).  Available in both the popular Economy range and Professional range, these lamps are compatible with the widest possible range of existing dimmers, whether they are leading-edge or trailing-edge.

Overcoming LEDs and Dimming Problems:

Solution One: When keeping the traditional dimmer

For those installers faced with a homeowner who wants to keep their dimmers, wants LEDs and yet doesn’t know what type of dimmer has been installed, a solution is now at hand.  MEGAMAN has developed its new U-DIM™ technology, which takes the headache out of switching to dimmable LEDs.

MEGAMAN U-DIM dimmable LEDs are compatible with the widest range of existing dimmers, whether they are leading-edge or trailing-edge dimmers.  With the mains voltage halogen reflector lamps being phased out in Europe from 1st September 2016, home owners will need new lamps to operate perfectly with their existing dimmers and this dimming solution is a giant step in that direction.  U-DIM LEDs are easy to use and it is possible to ‘plug-and-play’ to upgrade a lighting scheme.

MEGAMAN U-DIM technology is offered as a standard feature on MEGAMAN Dimming LEDs and they offer superior performance and flicker-free dimming from 100% right down to just 5%.

Solution Two: When replacing with new LED dimmers

Dedicated LED dimmers are a good way to overcome many of the traditional dimmer/LEDs issues.  This is because they use micro control units to monitor and eliminate waveform noise and distortion, generating a digital signal to the control component that creates a stable and clean chopped waveform.  If these dimmers are combined with LED lamps that have been tested and approved for compatibility (this is usually found on the dimming and/or LED lamp manufacturer’s website) – see the MEGAMAN one here as an example, then smooth LED dimming is guaranteed from day one of installation.

Dimming LEDs Checklist:

• Buy dimmable LEDs from a brand you trust

They will have tested a wide variety of dimmers with their lamps and have more comprehensive dimming compatibility lists

• Trailing edge dimmers work best with LEDs

However, if the client doesn’t want to replace their leading edge dimmers, then use LEDs that have been proven to dim well with this technology, such as MEGAMAN U-DIM LEDs

• If in doubt, contact the LED manufacturer

Unsure of whether the dimmer and LEDs are compatible?  Check with the manufacturer’s online compatibility list, or contact their team for more advice

*For more information on the halogen ban – visit www.planfortheban.eu

Visit Novel Energy Lighting to buy your Megaman U-DIM GU10 lamps today

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Luxmagazine.co.uk recently reported that, a leading provider of student housing, plans to upgrade all of its 120 residences with LED lighting in a £21 million, 2-year retrofit across 23 towns and cities.

The company, Unite Students, says that the more efficient LEDs will cut energy consumption by 10-to-15 percent per year, while also sparing the annual CO2 emissions equivalent of about 400 typical British households, or 2,000 tonnes per year.

Unite is working with lighting giant Philips to install about 300,000 fixtures plus 85,000 sensors and dimmers that will, among other things, adjust lighting levels accordingly when they detect that students have left or entered a room or common area.

It is placing the lights in corridors, kitchens, lounges, reception areas and outdoors. New bedroom lighting will include dimmers as well as lamps that can change colours at the push of a control (Philips ‘LivingColors’ brand), which will ‘allow students to personalize their lighting to suit study, relaxation or socialsing,’ Unite says in a press release. Something for everyone among the 41,000 students, from budding Einsteins to Casanovas (those without lava lamps, anyway).

Unite says the project should also help it save maintenance costs because LED bulbs last longer than the lighting it is supplanting.

Unite is contributing £9.6 million of the funds. The remainder comes from Unite’s “co-investment partners,” the release states. The scheme is the second in recent weeks that should help upgrade lighting at UK universities.

The 10-to-15 percent energy saving is modest next to typical vendor claims that LED bulbs reduce energy needs by around 80 percent. Unite did not say what type of lighting it would typically replace, or whether it would offset some of the energy reduction by installing more lighting than what currently exists.

Novel Energy Lighting understands all your energy and lighting requirements, and provides you with quality LED products like bulbs, tubes, lamps, sensors, etc. from some of the most reputed brands in the lighting industry such as Megaman, Heathfield, Osram, Toshiba, and of course, Philips. One of our LED lamps, the Megaman LED GU10, stands out from the rest as it uses energy efficiently and has a long lifetime. It delivers 500lm from just 7W, enabling it to produce light for a staggering 50,000 hours.

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