LED light blink

Igotadose

We've just had a new LED light installed in a bathroom. We have numerous LED ceiling fixtures throughout the house, soon to be 100% LED indoors. They're great.

Now, when the new LED light is turned on, other lights blink briefly in adjoining rooms.

As far as I can tell, all the lights are on one circuit (there's only one marked 'lights' in the service panel.)

My concern is that this will wear out the existing lights and, potentially, is hazardous due to some kind of power leak across a circuit.

Is the problem with the new light, or at the panel, or somewhere else? The light in question is one of those bathroom-rated types, so it's waterproof, we made sure of that when we purchased it. All lights installed by a licensed electrician who has done work for us over the years and is very good.

_Brian

Ring the sparks and chat to him about it, he will want to come back and double check everything is ok.

If this wasn’t happening before the retrofit but is now then it’s either a problem with the fitting or perhaps a loose connection. Either way a good sparks would want to double check things.

Steve

The bathroom light is supplied via a transformer because it has to be low voltage (assuming it's over a shower or bath), the blink is caused by the transformer taking a lot of power as it energises.

I would not assume it is unsafe but I would certainly seek something in writing from the installer - as it is domestic he is obliged to provide a REC cert for the work.

Igotadose

Still under investigation; wall switch replaced as it was definitely bad (wiggling it caused the bathroom light to turn on and off.) However, the led blink still persists, though it now takes more clicks of the new switch to make the adjacent LED fixture blink. Unfortunately I need to start ripping up floorboards in the attic to get at the junction boxes where the lights are mounted to see what the wiring story is there.

Could the problem be with the new fixture? Is it somehow discharging/overloading/something and causing electricity to travel to the adjacent fixtures by some sort of short or overlap in the lines? I suspect the problem is at wherever the lines meet up in a box somewhere.

Igotadose

It has been awhile till we got back to this problem, which is still with us.

Today, the electrician was out and we tried several things.

He ran a new cable directly from the incoming power, to the fixture, bypassing the switch and existing wiring. The problem still exists - switch elsewhere, the light blinks. We then just wired the neutral and ground via the new wire, with no 'feed' wire attached, and *still* the light blinks. This is making us suspicious of the neutral (return) wire.

He then ran new cable, from the switch, to the fixture, replacing the existing wiring as it looked a bit 'pinched'. This made no difference in the blinking behavior.

Final test, we replaced the LED fixture in an adjacent en-suite, with an incandescent fixture. The on/off switch in the en-suite is the one when thrown most reliably causes the blinking fixture to blink. With the incandescent fixture in place, no more blinking. Other switches elsewhere in the house cause it to blink, however.

We're kind of stuck as to what to do next. Could the problem be that the 'power through the neutral' is so slight that it doesn't cause the mains breaker to flip, but is enough for this fixture to blink? Should there be some kind of resistance added to the fixture? The electrician thought that since the fixture was sourced in China, it might be it didn't meet some kind of requirement that fixtures made in Ireland do with regard to preventing this kind of thing, but that seems like a stretch. It seems concerning that there's power through the neutral when the switch is off.



Would replacing the breaker at the mains panel make a difference? Or, do we have a shorted neutral somewhere?

Thanks for any suggestions, this is really puzzling.

listermint

get another LED fixture from elsewhere in the house and test it on that fitting.

if it works, throw the old bathroom one in the bin and buy another brand

aido79

Igotadose wrote: »

It has been awhile till we got back to this problem, which is still with us.

Today, the electrician was out and we tried several things.

He ran a new cable directly from the incoming power, to the fixture, bypassing the switch and existing wiring. The problem still exists - switch elsewhere, the light blinks. We then just wired the neutral and ground via the new wire, with no 'feed' wire attached, and *still* the light blinks. This is making us suspicious of the neutral (return) wire.

He then ran new cable, from the switch, to the fixture, replacing the existing wiring as it looked a bit 'pinched'. This made no difference in the blinking behavior.

Final test, we replaced the LED fixture in an adjacent en-suite, with an incandescent fixture. The on/off switch in the en-suite is the one when thrown most reliably causes the blinking fixture to blink. With the incandescent fixture in place, no more blinking. Other switches elsewhere in the house cause it to blink, however.

We're kind of stuck as to what to do next. Could the problem be that the 'power through the neutral' is so slight that it doesn't cause the mains breaker to flip, but is enough for this fixture to blink? Should there be some kind of resistance added to the fixture? The electrician thought that since the fixture was sourced in China, it might be it didn't meet some kind of requirement that fixtures made in Ireland do with regard to preventing this kind of thing, but that seems like a stretch. It seems concerning that there's power through the neutral when the switch is off.



Would replacing the breaker at the mains panel make a difference? Or, do we have a shorted neutral somewhere?

Thanks for any suggestions, this is really puzzling.

What wattage is the new light and are you using an existing transformer with it? They may be incompatible especially if you are using an electronic transformer which only works above a certain wattage.

The problem is almost certainly not at the board.

Igotadose

aido79 wrote: »

What wattage is the new light and are you using an existing transformer with it? They may be incompatible especially if you are using an electronic transformer which only works above a certain wattage.

The problem is almost certainly not at the board.

Thanks for your reply.


The new light (in the ensuite) is different wattage than the blinking light, but I don't have the numbers to hand. I think both are less than 10 watts. As for transformers, the only ones I know of are in the fixtures themselves. Is there a need for a transformer elsewhere ? We simply swapped old incandescent fixtures for new LED fixtures, nothing else.

The power coming through the neutral is bothering me, there shouldn't be any I don't think.

aido79

Igotadose wrote: »

Thanks for your reply.


The new light (in the ensuite) is different wattage than the blinking light, but I don't have the numbers to hand. I think both are less than 10 watts. As for transformers, the only ones I know of are in the fixtures themselves. Is there a need for a transformer elsewhere ? We simply swapped old incandescent fixtures for new LED fixtures, nothing else.

The power coming through the neutral is bothering me, there shouldn't be any I don't think.

Ok. I thought you might have been using an existing transformer from a halogen downlight or something for the led fitting. They sometimes struggle if the load is less than 10w but if the transformer is built in to the new Led then that's not the problem.

I'm not really sure what you mean by power in the neutral. If you are talking about the way the electrician wired it using only earth and neutral then it may have acted like a broken neutral which can effectively be a live in a lighting circuit.

Igotadose

aido79 wrote: »

Ok. I thought you might have been using an existing transformer from a halogen downlight or something for the led fitting. They sometimes struggle if the load is less than 10w but if the transformer is built in to the new Led then that's not the problem.

I'm not really sure what you mean by power in the neutral. If you are talking about the way the electrician wired it using only earth and neutral then it may have acted like a broken neutral which can effectively be a live in a lighting circuit.

The test we ran, was to connect the 'blinking' light to just the neutral and ground that runs to its switch. The blue wire and the yellow/green wire, not the brown one. We then moved to another room, clicked the on/off switch and the blinking light blinked.

Does this indicate a broken neutral? I don't understand what that means - is it 'shorting' somewhere 'upstream' of the blinking light so that completing the circuit (clicking the switch) of another light somewhere else in the house, causes power to come through the neutral where it shouldn't? The lights tha cause the blinking are all on the same circuit breaker, other than that, some cause the blinking more readily than others.

Should we be checking the wiring, again, upstream of the blinking light connection to its switch? We replaced that wire, it made no difference. Tracing the rest of it can be done if necessary. Again, thanks to you and LIstermint for all the consultation and help, this is really perplexing and I'm pursuing it because I don't like weird electrical problems in my house...

aido79

Igotadose wrote: »

The test we ran, was to connect the 'blinking' light to just the neutral and ground that runs to its switch. The blue wire and the yellow/green wire, not the brown one. We then moved to another room, clicked the on/off switch and the blinking light blinked.

Does this indicate a broken neutral? I don't understand what that means - is it 'shorting' somewhere 'upstream' of the blinking light so that completing the circuit (clicking the switch) of another light somewhere else in the house, causes power to come through the neutral where it shouldn't? The lights tha cause the blinking are all on the same circuit breaker, other than that, some cause the blinking more readily than others.

Should we be checking the wiring, again, upstream of the blinking light connection to its switch? We replaced that wire, it made no difference. Tracing the rest of it can be done if necessary. Again, thanks to you and LIstermint for all the consultation and help, this is really perplexing and I'm pursuing it because I don't like weird electrical problems in my house...

I'm not really sure what you were trying to achieve with that test to be honest. A light needs a live and neutral to work. If an incandescent light worked prior to the led being installed then the fault is with the led and nothing else so don't try to fault find the wiring. The problem is with the light fitting.
Maybe try and take the led down from the ceiling and put a flex on it with a plug on it and plug it in and see what happens.

Igotadose

aido79 wrote: »

I'm not really sure what you were trying to achieve with that test to be honest. A light needs a live and neutral to work. If an incandescent light worked prior to the led being installed then the fault is with the led and nothing else so don't try to fault find the wiring. The problem is with the light fitting.
Maybe try and take the led down from the ceiling and put a flex on it with a plug on it and plug it in and see what happens.

Thanks again for the reply.

The incandescent is in the adjacent en-suite. The light switch in that en-suite is one, when flipped, that readily causing the blink to happen in the attached bedroom. It's that LED fixture in the bedroom is the problem.

The whole 'blinking' problem started, when the "original" incandescent in the en-suite was replaced with an LED fixture. Prior to that, switching on the en-suite didn't cause a blink. Once we replaced the incandescent there, the blinking started and has persisted as long as there was an LED fixture in the en-suite. Now, putting back an incandescent in the en-suite, no more blinking from flipping the switch there.

The other test we ran, in the bedroom, was to disconnect the live wire (brown) from it, and just leave the neutral & ground attached. We could *still* get the bedroom fixture to blink. This is why I think the problem is somehow, flipping a switch on a different fixture (in this case, the en-suite with the LED fixture), causing the blinking means the power is coming through the neutral. Does this mean a broken neutral? Normally, should the neutral have any power going through it when the attached fixture is turned off?

Finally, it's not just the presence of an LED fixture in the en-suite causes the blinking in the bedroom. Flipping switches in other bedrooms or the hallway, causes the blink, which leads me to think it's some kind of 'system-wide' problem with the neutral.

Hope this helps. We (me and the electrician) are stumped by this. He's following up with a more senior electrician he knows to see if he's encountered a problem like this. It might be the fixtures themselves, perhaps they need some sort of resistance built in to prevent blinking due to small surges of power from the neutral.

aido79

Igotadose wrote: »

Thanks again for the reply.

The incandescent is in the adjacent en-suite. The light switch in that en-suite is one, when flipped, that readily causing the blink to happen in the attached bedroom. It's that LED fixture in the bedroom is the problem.

The whole 'blinking' problem started, when the "original" incandescent in the en-suite was replaced with an LED fixture. Prior to that, switching on the en-suite didn't cause a blink. Once we replaced the incandescent there, the blinking started and has persisted as long as there was an LED fixture in the en-suite. Now, putting back an incandescent in the en-suite, no more blinking from flipping the switch there.

The other test we ran, in the bedroom, was to disconnect the live wire (brown) from it, and just leave the neutral & ground attached. We could *still* get the bedroom fixture to blink. This is why I think the problem is somehow, flipping a switch on a different fixture (in this case, the en-suite with the LED fixture), causing the blinking means the power is coming through the neutral. Does this mean a broken neutral? Normally, should the neutral have any power going through it when the attached fixture is turned off?

Finally, it's not just the presence of an LED fixture in the en-suite causes the blinking in the bedroom. Flipping switches in other bedrooms or the hallway, causes the blink, which leads me to think it's some kind of 'system-wide' problem with the neutral.

Hope this helps. We (me and the electrician) are stumped by this. He's following up with a more senior electrician he knows to see if he's encountered a problem like this. It might be the fixtures themselves, perhaps they need some sort of resistance built in to prevent blinking due to small surges of power from the neutral.

Sorry I may not have been clear in my reply. I am 100% convinced it is a problem with the LED fitting.
If you follow my advice and put a flex and plug on the Led and plug it into a socket it should behave the same as when switched from the switch so you will be able to eliminate any problems in your neutral or any other fault in your fixed wiring of your house.

hesker

aido79 wrote: »

Sorry I may not have been clear in my reply. I am 100% convinced it is a problem with the LED fitting.
If you follow my advice and put a flex and plug on the Led and plug it into a socket it should behave the same as when switched from the switch so you will be able to eliminate any problems in your neutral or any other fault in your fixed wiring of your house.

I’m no electrician but worth asking..... with the incandescent fitted to the en-suite what happens when you flip the switch in the other rooms. In other words is it only when another LED is turned on that the blinking happens. Is it possible the LEDs are emitting some EM radiation or high pitched sonic signal that is causing the blinking in that LED.

whizbang

Op; just to be clear, when you say Blink, do you mean;

1. Other Led lights already switched on and illuminating, flickers (dims?).
2. Other Led Lights Switched off, not illuminating, now illuminate.

Igotadose

whizbang wrote: »

Op; just to be clear, when you say Blink, do you mean;

1. Other Led lights already switched on and illuminating, flickers (dims?).
2. Other Led Lights Switched off, not illuminating, now illuminate.

One LED light, switched off, in a bedroom ceiling, flickers.

aido79

Igotadose wrote: »

One LED light, switched off, in a bedroom ceiling, flickers.

Do you have any dimmer switches on the lights?

Igotadose

aido79 wrote: »

Do you have any dimmer switches on the lights?

No dimmers on any lights.

LUCAS LED

Igotadose wrote: »

One LED light, switched off, in a bedroom ceiling, flickers.

Def LED bulb fualt . New one , ballast inside bulb is gone , filicking is typical fault of driver which is built in a bulb. Take care

Igotadose

LUCAS LED wrote: »

Def LED bulb fualt . New one , ballast inside bulb is gone , filicking is typical fault of driver which is built in a bulb. Take care

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