Annoying LED flicker

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mikcl

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Electrical
I have 2 walmart brand led bulbs on circuit. There is no load on circuit. With an unloaded power strip plugged into the circuit, i noticed the bulbs cut out periodically when i excersise the switch on the power strip. Like if i slowly turn off the switch, perhaps causing an arc, the bulbs flicker.

I then put another brand of led bulbs and do the same thing and it has no effect on those bulbs.

Have anyone encountered something similar? What is occuring?


Im not sure if i should chalk it up to cheap led bulbs and perhaps rf interfernce? Or should i be hunting down a loose comnection?
 
I should clarify, the bulbs are in overhead porcelin lamp horders and the power strips are plugged into ouflets on the same circuit.

There is no load on the circuit and the intermittent flicker on the walmart bulbs is only caused when i operate the switch the power strips.
 
I went to my cousins house when he called me about some lights that would start flickering in a bath room, a bed room, and on a ceiling fan in the living room, it turned out to be LED lamps he had bought at Lowes. After changing them to a brand name lamp all was fine.

Roger
 
No load on the power strip and yes it does have surge, rfi and emi supression.

A different brand of led bulb was not effected.

with my meter i do not see any voltage drop when the blink is occuring, perhaps its not fast enough to catch it.

Total shot in the dark, but I am guessing the noise generated from the switch (or maybe the surge supression components) is causeing RFI on the circuit that the cheapo bulbs do not like.

Is that possible?
 
Very possible, but hard to come up with a definitive reason.

LED emitters require a regulated DC current to operate. A normal LED drive circuit actively prevents any sort of flicker or change in brightness...which is a problem if you want to be able to dim the bulb. So then you need to add complexity to detect dimming and adjust the current being fed to the emitters.

The circuitry which detects 'is this bulb being dimmed can easily be fooled by noise on the supply circuit. This can be a problem for both cheap and expensive LED lamps.

Jon
 
Don't overthink it, it is probably the cheap lamps.

Roger
 
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