Soft-start LED's

Status
Not open for further replies.

Open Neutral

Senior Member
Location
Inside the Beltway
Occupation
Engineer
Are there any outdoor floodlight fixtures with soft-start LED's?

I have a case where the homeowner hates motion-tripped illumination as it startles her, but she needs it.
I was hoping she might be OK with a slower starting lamp.
 

LarryFine

Master Electrician Electric Contractor Richmond VA
Location
Henrico County, VA
Occupation
Electrical Contractor
Possible alternate: Dual-brite lights that dim instead of extinguishing after timing out.
 

gar

Senior Member
Location
Ann Arbor, Michigan
Occupation
EE
181205-2422 EST

Open Neutral:

Why would you expect one to exist? It would add cost.

A basic LED chip is essentially a very fast response device. Picoseconds or higher. With added phosphors to make white light it is somewhat slower. To get some sort of ramping slow light buildup you will require additional circuitry. Are there slow ramping dimmers? I don't know. Quite possibly some home automation system might have such a feature.

.
 

gar

Senior Member
Location
Ann Arbor, Michigan
Occupation
EE
181206-0947 EST

Open Neutral:

Interesting. I like Dallas, now Maxim. If one already uses the Maxim chip, then it won't be a huge cost factor.

.
 

JFletcher

Senior Member
Location
Williamsburg, VA
Are there any outdoor floodlight fixtures with soft-start LED's?

I have a case where the homeowner hates motion-tripped illumination as it startles her, but she needs it.
I was hoping she might be OK with a slower starting lamp.

Another possible alternative: using multiple fixtures with lower intensity LEDs... Or having the ability to turn them on remotely, thus avoiding the shock of going from full darkness to gas station bright (lower Kelvin lamps would also help in that regard).
 

kwired

Electron manager
Location
NE Nebraska
The point is to stop running the driveway lighting several thousand hours per year, and instead automagically turn them on when there's a reason to do so.

Still have recessed halogen flood bulbs around my house, but for similar reasons. They come on every night with a photocell, but are on dimmer switches and set to low light level. Makes good security lighting. Now if I want more light temporarily I could turn up the dimmers. I don't have but if I wanted I could probably bypass the dimmers with a motion detector if I wanted automatic light increase, or even turn on additional luminaires with the motion detector.

Did about same thing on a newer house I wired but have dimmable LED trims in the cans.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Top