New LED bulbs causing lights to switch off

[Milleniumaire]

10 years ago in 2014, as part of a kitchen extension an electrician installed 33 downlights into a large kitchen/sitting/dining area, configured as follows:

kitchen area: 15 downlights with an on/off switch and a separate dimmer switch (2 way)
sitting area: 12 downlights with dimmer switch
dining area: 6 downlights with dimmer switch.

The three dimmer switches are all housed in a single 2 gang sized switched plate.

Installed in all these downlight fittings were Megaman 6W LED GU10 bulbs, code 141435, LR1206dDGv2-WFL. I believe this is an example here.

The installed dimmer modules were:
- 250w/400w 2 way silent traling edge & LED dimmer module
- 250w/400w 2 way silent traling edge & LED dimmer module
- Varilight V-Proc 250W dimmer module (Z0JP250-P)

Without opening up the switch to check, I'm fairly sure the first two listed dimmer modules are used for the kitchen and sitting area and the last module is used for the dining area.

This setup has worked perfectly for 10 years and while the dimming feature isn't often used, when the lights are dimmed there are no issues such as flickering etc and the dimmer modules don't buzz.

A couple of the LED bulbs have now failed, so knowing these bulbs are no longer available, I contacted Megaman support to confirm what replacement would be compatible with the older 141435 and was told the 140506E was the bulb I should use. I therefore ordered 3 from The LED Specialist.

What I actually received was 3 different bulbs and I'm currently waiting for an explanation of why they haven't sent me what was listed on their website and what I ordered. I didn't realise they were not the 140506E model until after I had tried to use them and they appear to be causing problems.

The bulbs received were Megaman 140502/MM10158 5W. I installed one of these bulbs in the kitchen area and tested and all 15 kitchen downlights came on without issue. I then installed a 2nd bulb, but this time when I turned the lights on, they flashed on, then went off. This happens every time I turn them on, until I remove one of these new bulbs, leaving only one in place.

While these are not the bulbs I wanted, and I'm hoping The LED Specialist will agree to replace them with what I actually ordered, I'm wondering why this is happening and is it possible the 140506E version would also cause the same issue.

I have tried to contact Megaman support about this issue but haven't received a response.

Does anyone have any thoughts about why the new 5W LED bulbs might be causing this issue?

 

[Murdochcat]

Those dimmers aren’t really suitable for LEDs

 

[Milleniumaire]

Those dimmers aren’t really suitable for LEDs

Prior to the extension, we had 50W halogen bulbs, which were on a dimmer switch. When the electrician replaced all the fittings with LED he also had to replace the dimmers, so they would be compatible with the LED downlights. I have to assume he knew what he was doing and as we haven't had an issue with the dimmers for 10 years they appear to have been compatible.

Why are you saying the dimmers aren't suitable for LED's?

 

[Murdochcat]

Look at the minimum load on the dimmers

 

[ericmark]

Google shows this, minimum wattage 5 watt, maximum wattage 250 watt LED and 400 watt halogen so they should work with 2 or more LED bulbs as linked to.

I think the bulbs are very expensive considering I have just been to Pound Land and got 4 smart LED bulbs colour changing and dimming for £5 each, only £1 more than the bog standard bulb is costing.

As to why it should fail not a clue. The modern LED bulb can be simple but also rather complex, and until one is opened one has no idea what is inside them.

 

[Milleniumaire]

Look at the minimum load on the dimmers

If 250W is the minimum load, I have no idea why they have worked so well all these years!

They were purchased from TLC Direct and I even have the model number, but after 10 years I can't find that particular product, which is not surprising.

I see the range of dimmer modules on TLC Direct tend to have very low starting values, even 0W.

 

[Milleniumaire]

View attachment 365449Google shows this, minimum wattage 5 watt, maximum wattage 250 watt LED and 400 watt halogen so they should work with 2 or more LED bulbs as linked to.

I think the bulbs are very expensive considering I have just been to Pound Land and got 4 smart LED bulbs colour changing and dimming for £5 each, only £1 more than the bog standard bulb is costing.

As to why it should fail not a clue. The modern LED bulb can be simple but also rather complex, and until one is opened one has no idea what is inside them.

Thanks for the info.

I'll wait until I get the bulbs I actually ordered, the ones that Megaman say are a direct replacement for the 10 year old bulbs and see if they cause the same issue. If so, I'll either replace the dimmer modules or even get rid of them.

 

[Milleniumaire]

10 years on and it would appear the "qualified" electricians choice of dimmer modules is costing me more!

 

[ericmark]

To be frank, 10 years ago LED's were only just hitting the market place, I seem to remember changing from compact fluorescent lamps (CFL) to LED about that time, and the GU10 before the LED would not dim, and was longer than the old quartz version and stuck out like a sore thumb.

I had by this time removed all my dimming switches as they would not work with CFL's, and we were looking at following how it was done in warmer climbs, and splitting the lighting into groups, a 1/3 and 2/3 split allowed three levels of lighting without dimming.

So in 2014 LED were cutting edge, I think about then I got my first LED bulbs from Lidi, seem to remember 1.8 watt each. Before that they were far too expensive.

The idea of fitting smart bulbs at that point was just a pipe dream, the LED bulb has come on in leaps and bounds, the cheapest colour changing LED bulb I could find for my landing light, in 2020 was £15, now don't even need to send off for them, in pound land at £5 each.

 

[Milleniumaire]

I'm on a crusade to replace all halogen bulbs in the house at the moment and after I spent a couple of hours cleaning light shades and light fittings and replacing 16 halogen candle bulbs, my 24 year old son joked that I led an "Interesting life"! Fare enough, but I explained that I would rather have 88W of lights left on, rather than 448W, since nobody in the house seems to turn lights off (except me obviously)! I then made the statement "you'll see when you buy your own house and have to pay the electric bills", to which he suggested that there would probably be an even more efficient light fitting when that happens.

It got me thinking a) how long does he actually think he will be living at home - hopefully not more than a couple more years at the most! and b) what is likely to replace LED bulbs, if anything?

What I notice is the wattage of the bulbs is slowly reducing over the years. but I'm not aware of any other technology that is likely to replace LED bulbs.

 

[ericmark]

I am sure I am wasting loads of energy using smart devices, however since some are powered by batteries which seem to last around a year, I would hope not using too much power to run them in the off state.

I am at the moment using 4.37 kW, of which 368 watt is going into the house, and 3.814 kW recharging my batteries. Furthermore, I think 368 watt is a bit on the high side, it seems to be front of house sockets in the main, yesterday at 18:22 I run out of battery power, so to work out what is running would be good.

But to move from tungsten to LED in the living room, at the time we could not find a BA22d bulb in LED which can replace the 150 watt tungsten and shine most of the light at the ceiling so it is spread through the room, so it was replaced with a chandelier, so bulbs now do face up, and I can have 48 watt of LED lighting, however the chandelier was over £100 so to save 100 watt for say 6 hours a day, at 31.31p per kWh will take a couple of years, and if I consider the cabinet lights and uplighter we are actually using more today on living room lights to what was used when we moved in 5 years ago.

When we moved in, it seemed the house was lit by tocH candles.

I am not convinced that tungsten bulbs wasted energy in the home, clearly in summer they used more than LED, and heat was wasted, but lights are used more in winter, and the inferred heat from the tungsten bulbs means we can feel comfortable with a lower air temperature, so use of tungsten in winter likely reduces energy used, not money as gas and oil cheaper than electric, but they would save energy in winter.

But as far as energy for lighting alone is concerned, what matters is how the light is reflected around the room, if the light is bounced off a light ceiling or walls, it will light the room better than being aimed at the dark floor, so the fluorescent tube did a rather good job spreading the light.

I changed the 58 watt fluorescent tube for a 24 watt LED tube, in the kitchen of last house, clearly less light, around 5200 lumens down to 2200 lumens, but it was enough we did not need so much light, when the house was sold to my son, he swapped the LED tube for around 20 silly GU10 lamps, no brighter than the LED tube, but now around 7000 lumens but does not seem any brighter, and actually more watts to what the fluorescent tube used.

Yes it looks better, but if we are looking at energy saving, then GU10 spots aimed at the floor are about the worst was to light a room. May as well arrange them like the great bear. But have to admit may be a waste of energy, but they look good.

I can with a voice command switch on 1 to 6 lights in my kitchen, hey google turn on sink is plenty of light to see what I am doing, there are GU10 pods so reflect off the walls and ceiling, but wife will say hey google turn on kitchen lights what ever she is doing, and all 6 blazing away.