Flickering / dimming lights help?

[MikeC84]

Recently replaced the light switch in our kitchen with an MK grid setup, two one way rocker switches and a dimmer. (Grid system seemed the only option to get this combo of switches).

I now have an issue of the lights slightly dimming and returning to brightness at varying intervals. This isn’t the flickering of non dimmable bulbs and I can confirm all bulbs are now led dimmable items.

This leads me to think the dimmer switch may be the issue. I was sold and advised that the mk k4501 would be suitable for my needs but it seems this does not support led bulbs and I should be using mk k4511. Does this sound correct and is this likely to solve my issue?

The dimmer tends to work ok at higher power but plays up when dimming the lights. Also I have a total of 13 bulbs running off this - two five bulb hanging fixtures and three gu10 spots. Total wattage of the bulbs is 70 which again the mk k4511 seems ok to handle?

Any help much appreciated

 

[oldbutnotdead]

Sounds about right. MK's tech specs aren't all that useful but they do say that their Standard and Intelligent dimmers aren't suitable for LEDs. Standard dimmers usually use triacs to control voltage which works fine for tungsten lamps. LEDs want constant voltage and varying current- your problems are about right for triac dimming of LED loads.

 

[MikeC84]

Thanks for this! So on the following I should be looking at the grid plus k4511? It needs to be one of the grid plus options to fit the setup I have.

https://www.mkelectric.com/en-gb/Products/WD/LEDdimmer/Documents/MK Dimming Compatibility Guide.pdf

 

[oldbutnotdead]

Thats the one most likely to work...you'll probably find the bottom 20% of the dimming is still a bit poor but the rest of the curve should be fine