Dimmer for leds

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wife has very good hearing and can hear most of the cheap dimmers we have in the house. We are redecorating and switching 2 rooms to dimmable leds.

Now TLC have what they say are silent dimmer modules (trailing edge) but would any led lamp work of these or are the lamps choosy about dimmer type?
 
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Some lamps are choosy. Decent lamp makers often publish a list of compatible dimmers. Your LED lamp must, of course, be dimmerable!
In my experience, the Varilight V-Pro dimmers are silent and work properly, providing the instructions are followed when you install them.
 
Big question is have you got a neutral at the switch. I have used Electronic switches and as @Taylortwocities says there are list of bulbs which they claim will work, however flashing when switched off and a shimmer when switched on is a common complaint when using any electronic switch with LED lights.

With my 8 bulb chandelier using a dimmer switch is really only option, to use smart bulbs looking at around £56, but if not many bulbs in the room likely a smart bulb is a better option as no compatibility issues.

Wife in her bedroom has a remote control to dim the lights, using zigbee hub, the remote, 3 smart bulbs, and a three bulb bar came from Lidi, but the remote is being used with different bulbs. It means her wall light and table lamp dim using same remote.
 
No neutral at switch but I could add one if necessary.

It is the Varilight dimmers I was looking at. The V-pro is listed as silent and is TE, the V-com is LE but not listed as silent which implies noisy . . .

Any recommendations on lamps, I presume those using triac dimming are not suitable for the V-Pro
 
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Have just fitted a v-pro dimmer and that has sorted flickering with (5) cheap led lights, brighter too.

Blup
 
Not necessary, no standard lightswitch dimmers require a neutral and never have.
upload_2022-2-10_10-21-16.png
Wonder what the 'N' stands for? I would agree British made dimming switches did not need neutrals, but not all switches don't required them.

To be frank I don't like the concept of forcing the installer to use one line supply, I know my 4 gang switch has two independent circuits, so the line feeds can't be combined it would cause a borrowed neutral. But the Moes switches are cheap, so are fitted by many DIY'er.

Pre the quartz light/CFL age I was into the whole idea of dimming switches, however they seemed to fail on a regular basis, mainly due to ionisation and poor quality bulbs not having the required built in fuse. As quartz came in we could no longer dim the bulb without it causing the envelope to go black causing premature failure, and CFL would not work with dimmer, so all mine removed, the continental method was a 1/3 and 2/3 split so three light levels, in places like Turkey where it gets rather warm they moved to CFL before us, so this was best option.

But as we moved to the LED age the ambiance created with the reddish light from the tungsten bulb when dimmed has been lost when using a dimmer switch, so the use of 'Smart' bulbs means the colour temperature can also be adjusted when the light is dimmed, in fact with some whole colour can be changed.

I went to 'Smart' switches as did not want to draw in more cables to get two way lamps, yes lazy, but having a remote control at the side of the bed worked well. However of the five I bought and fitted, today only two left in use, and the hassle of having to turn off power and swap a switch is not what I want.

So I have moved to 'Smart' bulbs in the main, this means if they go wrong, easy to correct by simply swapping a bulb. OK where a chandelier is used with many bulbs this gets costly, so still a place for the electronic switch, but fitting load capacitors to stop the lights flashing when switched off, and swapping bulbs around as shimmer is avoided by using 'Smart' bulbs.
 
As mentioned Varilight V pro.
The best domestic dimmers on the market.
But you also need good quality dimmable lamps
 
Varilight V Pro from TLC and some dimmable 7W G9 LEDs ordered, when the lamps arrived they had nothing on the packaging about being dimmable and when fitted didn't dim, supplier now providing return details.

Some 6W Dicuno replacements ordered and with dimmer in standard mode (2?) they dimmed to about 50%. Had a play with the dimmer (Wife wondered what I was doing pushing the button repeatedly and turning it left and right - thought I was stupid) and found mode 3 (?) where they dim to about 10% so she is happy.
 
Not necessary, no standard lightswitch dimmers require a neutral and never have.

The design of a dimmer switch circuit that operates without a Neutral supply will always be a compromise. The better design will have a built in battery supply to the electronics, a battery that will be recharged when the lamp is OFF and a pseudo Neutral ( via the lamp ) is available. The poorer designs will not provide smooth dimming from 5% to 100% brightness.
 
The problem is a tungsten lamp would not light with the very small amount of current needed to work a dimmer switch, some times the coiled coil filament could cause a reaction and some times the lights would flicker and one would need to try a different make of bulb, compact fluorescent lamps would not dim, so in my house one by one all the dimming switches were removed, and it was not until the LED lamp that we could again use dimming switches, and now we have a globule market as we have harmonised with Europe so bulbs and dimming switches are imported from all over the world.

So no longer are they designed not to need a neutral, unless aimed at the British market, and also the bulbs are not always designed to allow current through them to power the dimmer, bulbs need to state if not dimmable, but not if dimmable using a neutral less dimming switch, in fact any electronic switch, so we have as I found to my cost bulbs which simply don't pass through enough current to work the electronics in the switch. Little one G9-comp.jpg would not work without a shimmer or flashing the large one would, but technically the large one is not permitted in the UK as not marked as to watts or lumen output. Except for really small bulbs like G9 and when controlling many bulbs the best option seems to be the smart bulb, that way you also get some ambiance as the colour can also change.

I do not understand exactly why some bulb/switch combinations work or don't work, 4 of the little bulb shown and one quartz tungsten and the electronic switch worked OK, but even with the load capacitor to stop flashing when switched off, using 5 of the small LED bulbs caused the combination of electronic switch and bulb to shimmer when switched on, even swap one of the small LED's for one large LED and shimmer stopped.

So hard to blame the problem on either switch or bulb, it is the combination that causes the problem. But the suck it and see method of selecting is clearly a problem.
 

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