• We will be performing upgrades on the forums and server over the weekend. The forums may be unavailable multiple times for up to an hour each. Thank you for your patience and understanding as we work to make the forums even better.

LED night light dim.

Status
Not open for further replies.
ptonsparky

ptonsparky

Tom
Location
NE (9.06 miles @5.9 Degrees from Winged Horses)
Occupation
EC - retired
My Broan bath fan/light predates LED. I replaced the standard incandescent night light with an LED replacement when it died. Turning the fan on causes the NL to glow dimly. I removed the candelabra based lamp & open circuit shows about 25 volts with the fan running. 1+ with the fan off. You can tell the LEDs are on even then but very dim.

Not an issue for me, other than interesting.
 
cadpoint

cadpoint

Senior Member
Location
Durham, NC
I'm Beginning to wonder about LED's... Is this a case where one has to keep shared common power away
from the device and only power it from the switch!

My kitchen light over the sink has that glow, it was one of the earliest LED available and frankly doesn't get used.
I never changed anything in the kitchen!

I'd rather use fluorescent bulbs, for me it has a better hue over all than any LED.

Old corkscrew fluorescent bulbs are going the way of the edison lamp!
 
G

GoldDigger

Moderator
Staff member
Location
Placerville, CA, USA
Occupation
Retired PV System Designer
My first guess is capacitive coupling through the motor windings. Possibly a bad ground/neutral connection on the socket?
A noticeable characteristic of LEDs is that, unlike incandescents, their visible light output is proportional to current even at very low current levels. An incandescent filament produces no visible llght at all until it reaches a critical temperature range.
 
LarryFine

LarryFine

Master Electrician Electric Contractor Richmond VA
Location
Henrico County, VA
Occupation
Electrical Contractor
I think the LED is responding to the same coupling your high-impedance voltmeter is reading.
 
R

retirede

Senior Member
Location
Illinois
I put an LED nightlight bulb in my Broan fan a few years ago. I don’t think I’ve ever energized the fan without the main light on, so the thread made me wonder. I just checked it running the fan only - no glowing bulbs. We could have different model fixtures. Mine would date back to 1997.
 
ptonsparky

ptonsparky

Tom
Location
NE (9.06 miles @5.9 Degrees from Winged Horses)
Occupation
EC - retired
retirede said:
I put an LED nightlight bulb in my Broan fan a few years ago. I don’t think I’ve ever energized the fan without the main light on, so the thread made me wonder. I just checked it running the fan only - no glowing bulbs. We could have different model fixtures. Mine would date back to 1997.
Click to expand...
2009.
I didn't wire the house so IDK how they routed the three switch legs up to the F/L. Ignorance is bliss?

The Light was originally a 4 pin CFL. It has not been used since a LED replacement quit a couple years ago. The LED NL issue predates that.

Full disclosure: As of a week ago the CFL ballast is no longer installed and a medium base LED lamp is used. (Field Engineering) All these blinking LED threads and spare time pushed me to investigate a bit.

I removed the LED NL and connected it to the 24 volt DB transformer. It appears similar to post 1 brilliance.

Put the NL back in F/L and tried again. NL comes on with fan control switched On even though the fan is not operating. Humidity is low.
Interestingly the NL increases slightly when the Light switch is turned On with no lamp in the socket. All this with the NL switch in the Off position.
 
W

winnie

Senior Member
Location
Springfield, MA, USA
Occupation
Electric motor research
cadpoint said:
I'd rather use fluorescent bulbs, for me it has a better hue over all than any LED.

Old corkscrew fluorescent bulbs are going the way of the edison lamp!
Click to expand...

Another member who was rather biased against LEDs made a very good point: white LEDs are fluorescent sources. They work by using a deep blue semiconductor light source combined with phosphors to create the white light.

There is quite a variety of phosphors out there. Some LED emitters produce beautiful light, others produce horrible light. I personally really like GE Relax HD bulbs

Jon
 
R

retirede

Senior Member
Location
Illinois
ptonsparky said:
2009.
I didn't wire the house so IDK how they routed the three switch legs up to the F/L. Ignorance is bliss?

The Light was originally a 4 pin CFL. It has not been used since a LED replacement quit a couple years ago. The LED NL issue predates that.

Full disclosure: As of a week ago the CFL ballast is no longer installed and a medium base LED lamp is used. (Field Engineering) All these blinking LED threads and spare time pushed me to investigate a bit.

I removed the LED NL and connected it to the 24 volt DB transformer. It appears similar to post 1 brilliance.

Put the NL back in F/L and tried again. NL comes on with fan control switched On even though the fan is not operating. Humidity is low.
Interestingly the NL increases slightly when the Light switch is turned On with no lamp in the socket. All this with the NL switch in the Off position.
Click to expand...

My bulbs are all screw-in. So completely different scenario.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
 
mtnelect

mtnelect

HVAC & Electrical Contractor
Location
Southern California
Occupation
Contractor, C10 & C20 - Semi Retired
I have posted this problem before. After doing the "Scientific Method" replace everything.
It's the lack of space in the candelabrum base ... not enough space for the required filtering necessary.
So, I went to "Do it" center and replaced it with incondesent.
Can I say that ... Or is it a "Woke" violation.
 
hbiss

hbiss

EC, Westchester, New York NEC: 2014
Location
Hawthorne, New York NEC: 2014
Occupation
EC
Interesting. I just replaced the incandescent main bulb (75 W rough service) in my old Broan with an LED (75W equivalent). It's one of the clear ones with the LED chips arranged in "rods". It lasted a week due to the vibration. I thought there would be no problem. Going to try a regular frosted LED and see how long that lasts. I would hate to go back to an incandescent rough service lamp. The heat bakes the motor.

-Hal
 
R

retirede

Senior Member
Location
Illinois
hbiss said:
Interesting. I just replaced the incandescent main bulb (75 W rough service) in my old Broan with an LED (75W equivalent). It's one of the clear ones with the LED chips arranged in "rods". It lasted a week due to the vibration. I thought there would be no problem. Going to try a regular frosted LED and see how long that lasts. I would hate to go back to an incandescent rough service lamp. The heat bakes the motor.

-Hal
Click to expand...

I have 3 Broans and use the regular frosted LED bulb in all of them. I have had one failure over the years, but they last longer than incandescents used to.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Top