Vintage LED globes Enhanced Protection & Dimming

Vintage LED globes Enhanced Protection & Dimming.

We have worked closely with our lighting engineers to address a number of issues relating to LED globe performance. There have been issues relating to the resilience of the circuitry in the globe. This reduced globe life and visible stability of the emitted light. This problem has been addressed with close attention in manufacturing and protection circuit adjustments.

Dimming of LED 240V globes has presented a number of issues including:

  1. Flickering at certain levels of brightness settings.
  2. Adjustment of the dimmer from 100% brightness to 0%.
  3. Utilising the full sweep of the dimmer control for smooth adjustabilty.

Our new circuit design addresses these issues with new dimming technology, full sized passive components and surge protection (MOV) built into each globe. This ensures greater protection from power spikes and other power issues, for example electrical storm activity.

We tested the new designs with a range of dimmer brands and found very stable dimming with 100% to 0% brightness and no flicker. The adjustability is greatly improved with a wider range of the dimmer knob being utilised. We could not find a dimmer (trailing edge or universal) that did not perform well with the new design. However, our top recommendations for dimmers are the Clipsal 32ELEDM and Diginet MEDM. These improvements are available on a number of LED’s in stock and this will be a feature we slowly add to the entire range. Globes with enhanced dimming and protection have this feature listed in specification tab.

Why is my LED globe not switching off?

The other not so common problem is the performance of LED globes when used as single switched or dimmed components. In some cases we see LED globes stay lit faintly even when switched off. This is due to the high efficiency of modern LED’s when combined with regular wiring and switching. Some older style switches can induce a very small alternating current via an air gap between open terminals. In rare cases this is enough to light up an LED to a dimmed appearance. This can be annoying in some instances like when the globe is in a bedroom. Where there are more than 10 watts or so on the switched circuit the does not seem to be a problem.

As an analogy, where water pressure limiting valves are installed for modern Flick mixer taps. Regular water pressure is too high for modern mixer taps and so the pressure needs to be reduced just for that one new tap.

Diginet load bypass
Diginet load bypass

We have been testing a DIGINET Load Bypass Device to see if our older globes with this problem can be fixed in a normal wiring situation. The Diginet Load Bypass Device (MMBP) is designed to provide improved dimming and switching performance of some problematic LED and CFL lamps.

The device can overcome the following issues which are occasionally seen when controlling some LED or CFL light sources via electronic dimmers, switches, timers or sensors:

  • When switched off, the LED/CFL lights flicker, pulse on/off or do not switch off
    completely.
  • When switching on, the LED/CFL lights have difficulty turning on and the dimmer
    indicators flicker or pulse.

Globes that have the new Enhanced dimming and protection driver included seem to be more immune to the problem of staying on slightly when switched off. If you have this problem and prefer to try the new bulb they will be listed tagged  “enhanced dimming”