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Switch 2x1,5kW stuck (welded) because of 20W LED driver


petergebruers

Question

Yesterday, one of my FGS221 Switch 2x1,5kW got stuck in the ON position. I immediately suspected the 20W LED floodlight connected to it. I had used this floodlight on my desk and I noticed at the time... that closing the contact to the supply of this light could give some really nice pyrotechnics. I think the driver does not have an inrush current limiter, or it uses a bad one. It is built and designed in a very big country, and I did not find specifications of this unit.

So, yesterday I had to remove my toggle switches, then gently knock five times on the Fibaro module behind it and it got unstuck... The switch seems to be OK, I left it in service.

But now... for a solution. The first thing I had in mind was a 10 - 60 ohms NTC in series of this driver. But I didn't have any at hand. So I thought... 20W is not a big deal... Why not put a 15 ohm resistor 1/2 Watt in series? Then I tried the floodlight on my desk: when closing the circuit the arcing was a lot less. I own 4 of these and I have now modified them all.

Please feel free to share you opinion on this!

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Can a Fibaro wallplug be used? (In my case I can easily add a plug at the the of my 36w led lamps)

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On 9/21/2018 at 10:07 AM, petergebruers said:

 

The official advice is ... FGD-212 for LED. It was posted somewhere by Fibaro on this forum. It is an electronic switch, one that is well protected so the FGD does not "degrade" by the startup of lamps. On the other hand, if I would attach the load I presented in post #1 of this topic, then it would simply report "overcurrent" and refuse to turn on. So you know it is the load's fault, but it still does not turn on. And, there is another possible issue with that as well. The "Dimmer 2" passes a small amount of current and makes some lights glow faintly or "blink". Then you have to add a "bypass".

FGS-223 + ESB1 is a possible combination too. I did not use this particular component, but it has been reported to work. The only possible downside: you really have to stay below 200 VA because there is a non-replaceable and it will blow...

 

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The single relay is bigger, so it has a bigger spring to pull apart the contacts, so it is less likely to stick (weld). Strictly speaking though, the manual says "resistive only"...

 

Replacing the lights may work, because some have less inrush current. Unfortunately this is rarely specified for lamps. It is on the datasheet of "power supplies" though. But then again, Fibaro did not specify a limit...

 

Adding a bigger relay after the FGS is another possibility, but then you get no power/energy monitoring.

 

If you want to know more about relays and reliability I can recommend this topic:

 

 

 

 

This is quite common in Belgium and France but not in Germany or the Netherlands. Just pick your own convention and stick with that. So N => L1 and L => L2 and the schematics will be OK.

 

Guess what.. I am starting to have stuck relays also ;D

 

I saw this 

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 and ordered a few. 

 

They arrived, pretty small but still not small enough to fit behind in some of the light switch boxes that i have.

 

Now i have a question and don't laugh pls :) 

 

I have the Relay in the wall box behind the light switch.  In some of them there is no room to install this 3x3 cm inrush current limiter.

 

My question is: can i install it before the relay?  (i know the instructions say between relay and consumer..)  It would be great if possible as it would protect both circuits of one relay. Granted both relays together have a combined load of less then 200 W.

 

Thank you

 

 

 

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  • 50 minutes ago, Momos said:

    They arrived, pretty small but still not small enough to fit behind in some of the light switch boxes that i have.

    Bummer!

     

    50 minutes ago, Momos said:

    My question is: can i install it before the relay?  (i know the instructions say between relay and consumer..)

     

    Theoretically that is not ideal. Putting it between "live" and "FGS" would mean that the power to the FGS drops (for a very short time, say < 1 ms) when you turn on the load. That said, it still might work, because the FGS internal supply can withstand short interruptions and it's got some filtering and protection. It is hard to say. So if you want to give it a try... only try one module and let it run for at least a month.

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    True but the FGS can definitely handle all those very short interruptions. I had many cases of split sec power cuts and nothing bad happened in years.  Good to know that there are no other limitations to install it before the FGS.  I installed 3 of those and i will report back after some time :) 

     

    Thanks Peter :-)

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    On 9/21/2018 at 11:04 PM, Sjekke said:

    Can a Fibaro wallplug be used? (In my case I can easily add a plug at the the of my 36w led lamps)

     

    No one?

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  • On 9/21/2018 at 11:04 PM, Sjekke said:

    Can a Fibaro wallplug be used? (In my case I can easily add a plug at the the of my 36w led lamps)

     

    The Wall Plugs have much bigger relays than the FGS double relay modules, and I have never seen anyone report welded contacts. I don't think that is good statistics though, because the FGS is likely to be used with LED loads. But I would say yes, they'll be OK.

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    On 1/31/2019 at 3:26 PM, petergebruers said:
    On 1/31/2019 at 2:27 PM, Momos said:

    My question is: can i install it before the relay?  (i know the instructions say between relay and consumer..)

     

    Theoretically that is not ideal. Putting it between "live" and "FGS" would mean that the power to the FGS drops (for a very short time, say < 1 ms) when you turn on the load. That said, it still might work, because the FGS internal supply can withstand short interruptions and it's got some filtering and protection. It is hard to say. So if you want to give it a try... only try one module and let it run for at least a month.

     

    So far so good. The ESB1 works perfectly so far, installed between the "live" and FGS.  

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    On 1/31/2019 at 6:14 PM, petergebruers said:

     

    The Wall Plugs have much bigger relays than the FGS double relay modules, and I have never seen anyone report welded contacts. I don't think that is good statistics though, because the FGS is likely to be used with LED loads. But I would say yes, they'll be OK.


    I’ve now fallen into this “double switch sticking trap” after changing some traditional lighting with LED strips (72W in total).  After much reading over the past couple of days on a number of forums, I like the idea of using wall plugs as the simplest solution - for me at least. I understand the concepts discussed here but am excluding myself from anything more complex than standard wiring of the devices.

     

    Has there been any additional data gathered about the suitability of wall plugs for led lighting?  Has anyone used these without them sticking on?? Any thoughts appreciated as I plan to replace a fibaro double switch with a spare tkbhome on/off socket I have lying around (once I’ve put a three ping plug on the lighting cable)  Thanks.

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  • 14 minutes ago, MikeChet said:

    Has there been any additional data gathered about the suitability of wall plugs for led lighting?  Has anyone used these without them sticking on?

    Since I posted about this in 2019, no one has reported "stuck contacts"on Wall Plugs, in that time period some people must have tried it with "nasty loads" I guess. Reports of welded contacts on FGS-2x3 are also rare, they have firmware to reduce the sticking of contacts (zero crossing detect switching). What is the model number of your stuck module?

     

    17 minutes ago, MikeChet said:

    Any thoughts appreciated as I plan to replace a fibaro double switch with a spare tkbhome on/off socket I have lying around (once I’ve put a three ping plug on the lighting cable)  Thanks.

    I am not familiar with the TKB plug, but I guess it uses bigger relays than the FGS-222, it is mainly those older, tiny "micro gap relays" suffering from this condition...

     

    Have you considered buying the ESB1inrush current limiter? Seems like a possible solution to your problem...

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    Thanks for quick feedback.  The device in question is a FGS221 - it’s age may well be part of the problem.  I’ll explore a UK supplier for the esb1 - only found German options to date. Thanks again. Will report back.

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    Hello @petergebruers

    About this thing with the burning of the relay contacts on FGS-223 FGS-224 etc. I posted something in the homee forum.

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    Unfortunately, it is in German as a Belgian, you might be able to read it.
    It is true that Fibaro detects a zero crossing and also switches on.
    But that's not 100%, interference, phase shift, etc. prevent it from working properly.
    I have equipped all modules with a VDR and I am sure that it will work.
    So far, no module has failed either.

    Greetings from Germany to the neighboring country
    Frank

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    Hi.. can I know the exact full description of VDR? Sorry I fairly noob in this electrical modded stuff and I do want to prevent the next weld of the FGS which I just experienced a few hours ago.

     

    A few knock to get it unweld.

     

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  • 2 hours ago, dracolam said:

    can I know the exact full description of VDR?

    Sure, a general purpose device in a nice package is the ESB1 and it is available online from different sellers, for example:

     

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    Specs:

     

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    Please understand that this device, I quote from the specs,  "is protected against overload by an integrated fuse.". That's good as long as you don't overload it ;)

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    On 5/5/2021 at 5:35 PM, dracolam said:

    Thank you so much.

     

     

    267 / 5000
     

     

    Hello
    Sorry that I'm only now reporting. I have switched to ioBroker and I rarely stop by here. Connect the two components in series and then in series from the relay to the load. This limits the inrush current and the relays no longer burn.

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    /monthly_2021_09/image.png.3b1dc2b67e21b1caa3ca1cb07dbd5c5e.png" />

    1 x Fa. NTE Type NTE8167 (Temperatursicherung 170°C)
    Zu beziehen z.B Distrelec 110-36-453 ca. 2,-€
    1 x Fa. EPCOS Type B57364-S100-M
    Zu beziehen z.B Distrelec 160-29-015 ca. 2,10€

     

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    I've had the same issue on about 5 Fibaro relays now connected to various 24V LED drivers. I'm not sure why when we're paying this much for a module we're having to pay more to make it work robustly. I have the older double switch ones working OK for a long time, but the smart modules seem less reliable. I replaced one with a plugin in module which has worked fine - so is the issue really with the high quality LED drivers pulling maximum 15W or the Fibaro relays which seem to be really low quality. Has anyone had any success taking this up with Fibaro as this range seems to be going backwards in quality. My older modules have been working for 3+ years without a single failure but the newer ones have all lasted last than 6 months before getting stuck. 

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    My experience with the double switches (FGS-223) is also not great when paired with power supplies for LED strips. I have had issues with both 12 and 24 volt and with different manufacturers. Fact is, Mean Well PSUs seems to be less problematic, however they do suffer from sticking relays, as well. I am waiting for a bunch of VDRs that FBerges proposed to be delivered and will share the outcomes after some testing.

     

    It would be beneficial if @FBerges shares his current experience after two years of usage - if the VDRs improved the situation with sticking relays for LED lighting (both strips and panels/bulbs)?

    Also, is it fine to put one VDR before the double relay or should I put two separate VDRs - one on each string, between the relay and the consumer?

     

    Thanks!

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