LED Downlights

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I have just finished swapping over 15 halogen downlights for dimmable led alternatives, they are in a living room, the 15 lights have been separated into three circuits, each with five downights on, and each controlled by a dimmer switch, one of the circuits works fine, but the other two stay on for around two or three seconds, then trip the breaker, one even took out the dimmer switch, Thinking it was the dimmer, I then swapped this for a varilight led compatible dimmer, think it was 400w more than capable of running 5 led's, again this switch did the same, the lights stay on for three seconds, then breaker trips, could of sworn I heard a buzzing from one of the led's before it tripped, all wiring was swapped over exactly as is was when the halogens were in, anybody come across this before or likely causes.

Cheers

Gaz
 
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Did you just replace the lamps or the whole fitting? And were they in three circuits before the changeover, or was that part of the changeover?

pj
 
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Cant explain the tripping problem, but 5 leds may not be enough to exceed the MINIMUM load of a 400 watt dimmer, which is sometimes 40watt
 
I changed the whole fitting, new ones have a blue quick release clip on them. The circuit was in three parts before - left it the same, basically just swapped over fittings, lights and switches.
As for the min load, it is 10 watt, bulbs are 5 each, 5 on each circuit so should be okay there, it strange because one the circuits works fine.

Gaz
 
Your lights are all on the same circuit, but you have 3 banks of 5 controlled by 3 switches?

Those switches are dimmers. If each lamp is 5w, then you need a dimmer for each that works to a load of 25w

When you mention blue clips I take it this is the connector between light fitting and the wiring for the light circuit.

Since the fuse trips and you have issue with the dimmers not being suitably rated, you have two separate issues.

You need to drop every fitting and make absolutely sure each is wired correctly. I'd suspect an earth is in the wrong place.
 
15 lights in a living room?

Is it a room which Roman Abramovich would consider spacious, or is there a problem with the lights not being much cop at actually lighting the room up, hence the need to have a large number of them?
 
Average size living room, lights were already installed when the guy brought the house, a slight over kill for the room size, he just wanted LED replacements.
Going to test with halogen bulbs back in and a normal switch and see what happens as a process of elimination.

Gaz
 
... lights were already installed when the guy brought the house ... he just wanted LED replacements.
Are you doing this trial-and error stuff, with breakers tripping and you swapping things in and out in a series of blind guesswork attempts to fix the problems you created, for a paying customer?
 
Chri5 - The varilight dimmer that I used work to a min of 10w, one of the circuits on the double switch works fine, same bulbs same switch, the other side comes on and then trips, surely if the dimmer was not suitably rated the other working circuit would have a problem ? this one works and dims fine, the wiring was swapped like for like when running halogen bulbs on an older dimmer switch, these worked fine.
The blue clips are between the light fitment and the circuit, yes.
I dropped all the fitments and checked the wiring which looks fine.

Ban All Sheds - No payment, trying to help a mate & his Mrs is good looking.
 
That may be part of the problem, I may have dribbled too much and shorted the wiring.
 

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