LED Double dimmer

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11 Nov 2013
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Surrey
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United Kingdom
My Electrician installed some pendant LED bulbs ( 1 x bayonet in each pendant) with some LED switch modules for a double dimmer. Everything worked fine for a week, now I have a problem with one of the pendant lights where the dimmer on max doesn't produce much light at all. I haven't swapped bulbs yet, but they are brand new bulbs and cost £12 each. Any suggestions before I possibly tinker myself.
 
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Swap bulbs and see if fault is bulb or dimmer. I have all LED and fluorescent lights now, and had only 4 lamps with problems, changed make of bulb and all was then OK. So start with easy option swap bulbs.
 
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The LED bulb can vary a lot in how they convert 230 Vac 50 Hz into a constant current supply, from simple capacitor to a pulse width modulated controller, the aim is to get as much light as one can without over driving the LED. If you do over drive an LED before it fails completely the output goes down, the current used is also dependent on cooling, so a manufacturing fault as simple as running out of heat sink compound could cause the lamp to fail.

The problem is when working out the life of a bulb they have say 100 bulbs under test and when only 50 remain working that is considered the average life, so unless you have a load of bulbs the same, it is hard to claim the batch was faulty, as often you only have one of the batch.

Clearly if it fails within days it's faulty. But if it lasts 5 years instead of 10 years you can't really show it was only lit for 4 hours a day and not 24 hours so you are unlikely to get a free replacement. So in real terms a £4 bulb is as good as a £12 bulb, as you are unlikely to get a replacement if either fails.

There are exceptions, I would pay more for a bulb for the caravan, running off a battery a bulb rated 10 ~ 36 volt DC with 100 lumen per watt is better than one rated 12 Vac 50 Hz with 70 lumen per watt, but in the house not worth the extra cost.
 
Eircmark - thanks for the useful information.

I cannot take the Bayonet bulb out it's stuck for some reason. But I've noticed something which makes me think it's the LED dimmer module (there's 2 in, dual switch).
When I turn on the working light, I can turn the dimmer slightly and the light comes on, if I then turn on the problem light I have turn the dimmer knob at least 75% of the way to get a light! Would this indicate what I'm thinking, maybe Switch LED module? When I brought the Osram light from the Electrical shop they tested both for me to demonstrate how they worked. I wouldn't imagine it's the dimmer switch, Heritage Brass I brought 6 months ago.
 

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