Welcome to Smart Home Forum by FIBARO
Dear Guest,
as you can notice parts of Smart Home Forum by FIBARO is not available for you. You have to register in order to view all content and post in our community. Don't worry! Registration is a simple free process that requires minimal information for you to sign up. Become a part of of Smart Home Forum by FIBARO by creating an account.
As a member you can:
- Start new topics and reply to others
- Follow topics and users to get email updates
- Get your own profile page and make new friends
- Send personal messages
- ... and learn a lot about our system!
Regards,
Smart Home Forum by FIBARO Team
Question
mi38k 4
Hello all,
it has been almost a year since I started dealing with Walli Dimmers and make them work flawlessly. First thing that surprised me was that when bulb is dimmed (I have tried LED and incandescent bulbs), I can see some very very slight fluctuation in light intensity, but in the end (after some research and also information from users here) it seems, that it may be caused by voltage fluctuation in power grid, which is something this kind of dimmer cannot avoid.
But the main issue I am trying to deal with now is that LED bulbs connected to Walli Dimmer in trailing edge mode (recognized by calibration) do flash (go to 100% brightness and back in fraction of second) from time to time when dimmed. It is not any kind of flickering, strobing or so, it is just one quick flash and every time all bulbs connected to the same dimmer do it at the same time. I have several dimmers with various LED bulb brands (including OSRAM which I consider one of the best), some with Bypass 2 and some without, but all behave similarly - they flash when dimmed. But frequency of flashes is different for each dimmer, so in other words, all bulbs connected to a single dimmer flash at the same time, but flashes occur at different times for each dimmer (just to rule out some power grid disturbances like ripple control or so). It is also not dependent on time of the day - they just do it like once per few seconds to 10 minutes (so not entirely regularly).
But when I force the dimmers to work in leading edge mode (of course the ones without Bypass 2), the bulbs work well without flashing. I had them set like so for more then half year without any issue. I just noticed that the dimmer is a little warm to touch when dimmed - not hot by any means, but just warmer than when turned off or at 100% brightness, but after some research I found out that it is normal for dimmers to get warm. The problem is that I recently got overheat warning after having the dimmer like 3 hours in the dimmed state (not the longest time I ever had, but this time it just overheated). I have discovered that one of 6 LED bulbs connected to the dimmer (about 55 W in total) is flickering when looked at via phones camera). So theoretically it could cause some weird current spikes and heat the dimmer more, but I cannot know this for sure. Also the leading edge as such (based on what I have researched) is causing current spikes when connected to LED bulbs just from its nature, so it is causing more stress to bulbs and dimmer and can cause more heat.
So, basically I would like to if anyone have similar experience with flashing or (over)heating, or if anyone have any remarks or theories what could cause what and what to try. I would by very thankful just for anything :).
Link to comment
Share on other sites
4 answers to this question
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.