this post was submitted on 18 Jul 2023
37 points (100.0% liked)

Home Improvement

9048 readers
1 users here now

Home Improvement

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
nichos@lemmy.world
nieceandtows@lemmy.world
Confound4082@lemmy.ml
nieceandtows@programming.dev
37
Do dimmers affect the life of LED? (lemmy.world)
submitted 1 year ago by Tandybaum@lemmy.world to c/homeimprovement@lemmy.world
25 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

In my kitchen I have a flushmount light with an integrated led. I put in an LED dimmer on the switch and all is working well.

However, I had to replace it way sooner than I was expecting. Is there a possibly that the dimmer is hard on it?

I have the exact same one on another non-dimmer switch that is still running fine. That said the other one gets much less use so it could just be that.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] SzethFriendOfNimi@lemmy.world 3 points 1 year ago

As I understand it. LEDs work on PWM. The controllers should regulate it as needed.

So it’s changed from 120 to whatever internal DC current is needed and that’s cycled.

When you use a dimmer you’re lowering/raising that 120v which is messing with the bulbs AC/DC converter which is designed to take 120 and output the applicable DC current for whatever LEDs it has on the circuit.

It definitely won’t adjust the PWM rate or brightness except in some extreme range and I’d personally avoid it unless you have some bulb that says it’s fine (e.g. doing something clever to adjust the DC based on the AC input)