Flickering LED lights

[shawjr83]

Hi all,

We moved into our house about 6 years ago. The house has down lights on the outside wall at the front which are controlled by a timer switch inside the house. In total there are 10 led bulbs.

At the front of the house there is also a junction box which runs from the same circuit and has a further outdoor stake light that goes in a border which had a standard halogen bulb in it.

Whenever the halogen bulb would go this caused the LED lights to flicker when off until replaced.

Recently, we have done our driveway ourselves and added around 12 led lights in sleepers around the border. These all run off the aforementioned junction box outside the house so some on at the same time as the house lights on the timer.

This morning around half the driveway lights were flickering (not the ones on the house) and the halogen bulb had gone again.

I know that LEDS require less voltage to turn on and that there must be some voltage running through the cabling even when off which causes the flicking but I don’t understand why the halogen bulb stops this as all the lights are not in a loop with that at the start - I also understand that halogens require full voltage to turn on.

Ideally I want to get rid of the halogen light but it prevents the above issue and wondering if there is an alternative option?

 

[binky]

Sounds like the timer switch isn't compatible with the LEDs, do you have the make/ model of timer.

 

[Geoff1946]

Is there a dimmer in the circuit? Dimmer to lamp compatibility issues are a common nightmare.
Are they mains led lamps, or are there driver units? Swapping a driver for a different make may help.
It's an awful lot of lamps on one circuit, so splitting it may help.
If not a device known as a snubber, actually a capacitor, wired across the circuit may help.

 

[Murdoch]

Sounds like the timer switch isn't compatible with the LEDs, do you have the make/ model of timer.

Agree with every word of this.

 

[shawjr83]

Sounds like the timer switch isn't compatible with the LEDs, do you have the make/ model of timer.

 

[shawjr83]

Is there a dimmer in the circuit? Dimmer to lamp compatibility issues are a common nightmare.
Are they mains led lamps, or are there driver units? Swapping a driver for a different make may help.
It's an awful lot of lamps on one circuit, so splitting it may help.
If not a device known as a snubber, actually a capacitor, wired across the circuit may help.

No dimmer on the circuit.

The LEDs on the house are gu10 bulbs. The ones in the sleeper are an enclosed led unit. All run off the mains.

 

[shawjr83]

Agree with every word of this.

To be fair, when we moved in all the down lights on the house were halogen gu10 which I swapped for LEDs

 

[SPECIAL LOCATION]

Try it with just a manual switch instead of the timer for a while see if the problem persists..

 

[Murdoch]

To be fair, when we moved in all the down lights on the house were halogen gu10 which I swapped for LEDs

IIRC those have a minimum load which needs to be exceeded to work properly

 

[shawjr83]

Try it with just a manual switch instead of the timer for a while see if the problem persists..

I have. Remember, they only flicker when the one halogen gu10 fails that’s on the circuit but not in a loop.

If the halogen fails they flicker when the lights should be off but stop as soon as I replace the halogen bulb with a new one.

 

[shawjr83]

IIRC those have a minimum load which needs to be exceeded to work properly

Halogens do have a minimum load, leds also do but it’s a lot lower.

 

[binky]

Halogens do have a minimum load, leds also do but it’s a lot lower.

The timer may have a minimum load that isn't being met by the LEDs, which having one halogen can meet.

When flickering, is it full brightness ior very dim? The other thing about LEDs is that they can be illuminated just by induced voltages in the cabling, but usually just glow when they do that.

 

[binky]

tarcked that down as a BG unit, data sheet says 40-400W tungsten filament lamps, so even if your LEDS are over 40W they may work, but I suspect not, hence the halogen lamp.

 

[shawjr83]

tarcked that down as a BG unit, data sheet says 40-400W tungsten filament lamps, so even if your LEDS are over 40W they may work, but I suspect not, hence the halogen lamp.

So, looks like a new timer unit for led bulbs is needed

 

[binky]

So, looks like a new timer unit for led bulbs is needed

Yep. As said above, if you have a normal light switch hanging around, you could try the lights without any timer, or even just use a bit of connector block to power up the lights without the timer - turn off circuit first of course.

 

[michael8554]

Back in post #10 the OP said they still flickered with the timer is replaced by a switch ?