New home LED can trims strobing

J

Jawrenn18

Member
Location
Charleston SC
Good afternoon,
We recently completed the setout on a new construction home and are having quite the issue. We have 2 bedrooms and a living room that the LED 1 peice recess trims strobe when anything is plugged in. We have checked all connections and wiring in switches, outlets and cans. All good. Checked the neutral lug in the panel and all the neutral wires. All good. No dimmers standard wall switches. Each bedroom is on its own breaker and consists of 5-6 outlets, 4 cans and 1 ceiling fan. Lights work fine but as soon as anything is plugged in the cans start to strobe. I'll post a video as well. I'm down to thinking the trims may have an issue but there are about 80 in this house and only these rooms are doing it. Even when I plug in the polarity tester that comes with my circuit tracer they strobe. Has anyone run into this? Circuits are 15 amps and nothing else is on except the cans. To be clear each individual circuit consists of 5-6 outlets, 4 led cans and 1 DC motor ceiling fan. Fan is off while we're testing so no load from that either. Trims are Juno 4" led "retro fit" but we're supplied by builder for the standard recess housings. Breakers are arc fault Simens brand and new from supplier. Any advice or thoughts appreciated! Sorry video to large to upload.
 
Have you tried more expensive light bulbs?

What is the wire size / neutral size to each of the lights?

Measure voltage at the light fixture terminations while something is plugged in. (I would also test it with the ceiling fan on if you can.)

Verify wire nuts are not loose in all boxes from the panel to the lights.

LEDs are sensitive to voltage dips and disturbances.
 
Do the afci breakers use a neutral? Replace it with a regular breaker, and see if they work properly, It’s possible the afci is defective, and the neutral is not making in the breaker. But with two different circuits, not likely. Sounds like a mis wire somewhere on those two circuits.
 
Elect117 said:
Have you tried more expensive light bulbs?

What is the wire size / neutral size to each of the lights?

Measure voltage at the light fixture terminations while something is plugged in. (I would also test it with the ceiling fan on if you can.)

Verify wire nuts are not loose in all boxes from the panel to the lights.

LEDs are sensitive to voltage dips and disturbances.
Click to expand...
Cheap leds are- good led have a much better range of operation than incandescent. You can tell power issue from incandescent were a led can hide them. Hence why every says trouble shoot with incandescent bulbs
 
It's not always about cheap vs expensive. Some costly ones are bad too.
Transient response characteristics is not a part of official ballast spec be it for L.E.D. or fluorescent. Some are caused by lack of electrical inertia and some are caused by transient induced hiccups. For example, there are some LED ballast that would literally turn off, then back on from inductive kick back from turning off the bathroom fan (CREE first generation).

There's also been end user complaints about inadequate L.E.D. ballast not being able to prevent utility's TWACS signal from impinging noticeable flicker into the light output.

120-277v ballast maybe rated to operate in that range, +/- 10% and measurable light output may never change when the voltage is slowly swept with a variac, but may flicker/flash with abrupt change.

I've seen some fantastically designed Osram Sylvania 120-277v with such fantastic transient response that you could piggy back it off the power cord of a spot welder and you would never notice anything in light output regardless of what the welder is doing. However, with many 120-277v, you will notice a fluctuation when something like a power saw or a vacuum is started on the same circuit.

Devices that are designed similar to a desktop computer tend to do better. They're designed to handle a full power loss up to a cycle or two without the load ever noticing it in order to allow for UPS transfer time, however if you hook up lighting to a consumer ITE, (not double conversion), you will most definitely know when it transfers from the flicker. You won't ever notice the flicker from an LED tape light fed from a 12v rail on a PC during the UPS transfer.

Different cars handle pot holes differently, but even if you don't hit a pothole, the ride quality/noise/shimmy varies between freshly paved vs worn out road.
 
Would you not say that a well named brand “should” be better than a random brand being that the company will try and continue to try and stay in business so they will want there lights to work better so they don’t oiss people off?
 
AC\DC said:
Would you not say that a well named brand “should” be better than a random brand being that the company will try and continue to try and stay in business so they will want there lights to work better so they don’t oiss people off?
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Not necessarily. A Chinese company will make a run of 800,000 or so, and maybe only put some reputable buyer's name on 750,000

Then they have 50,000 no-name ones to sell on Amazon
 
AC\DC said:
Like wac or kitchler I feel are good——
halo or tcp or even Lithuania make cheap housing for there fixture.
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But in your endorsement of wac lighting and kichler, you have one of each.

WAC makes all of their own components, The kichler products are made in China. By who, exactly? I don't know that. But I would venture to say they're being made at a factory that's also making stuff without a brand name, and it's using the same components.

That's not to say everything you find on Amazon is good because That's just not the case. But just because it's on Amazon doesn't mean it's junk
 
James L said:
But in your endorsement of wac lighting and kichler, you have one of each.

WAC makes all of their own components, The kichler products are made in China. By who, exactly? I don't know that. But I would venture to say they're being made at a factory that's also making stuff without a brand name, and it's using the same components.

That's not to say everything you find on Amazon is good because That's just not the case. But just because it's on Amazon doesn't mean it's junk
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correct- I can find WAC on amazon- I can find XYleng-Wwnadkg- production for 95% cheaper. May work May not- for sure not listed- I get your point.
Its all the same sweat shop-

I am just a Wac Dealer so trying to be biased lol
My personal opinion when I pick it up a can light- if my credit card weighs more than its got crap for heat sinking for the driver to stay cool. WAC feel like a dame tank I could kill some one if I threw it at them.
 
James L said:
Not necessarily. A Chinese company will make a run of 800,000 or so, and maybe only put some reputable buyer's name on 750,000

Then they have 50,000 no-name ones to sell on Amazon
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One way of cutting cost is integrated circuits. Manufacturers buy pre-made L.E.D. ballast controller ICs and build them into their product, or even just design from off the shelf China LED ballasts.
A US based company CREE used to make LED bulbs and this video shows the LED ballast controller chip.. As you can see, it's highly integrated. It's hard to predict how these ballast ICs behave to adverse events.

Several version prior to that, CREE had an LED lamp with what appears to be in-house designed LED ballast and they were terrible.

Cree’s $13 LED light bulb is the best yet, looks and feels incandescent (hands-on)

The Verge is about technology and how it makes us feel. Founded in 2011, we offer our audience everything from breaking news to reviews to award-winning features and investigations, on our site, in video, and in podcasts.
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If you were to flick off a shaded pole motor on the same circuit (shaded pole motors have quite the inductance), the kickback voltage spike would actually cause the ballast to reset. Such spike is really short in the sub-cycle range, but the lamp turns off for several 100 mS.
 
Flicker Index said:
...
If you were to flick off a shaded pole motor on the same circuit (shaded pole motors have quite the inductance), the kickback voltage spike would actually cause the ballast to reset. Such spike is really short in the sub-cycle range, but the lamp turns off for several 100 mS.
Click to expand...
I found them to be quite efficient at tripping GFCIs.
Back to Strobing..
 
I don't know how appropriate it is to show a promotion on a class, and if it is against the rules, feel free to delete this post, but I was recently sent a class promotion from PMI on flicker. It might be relevant to those who would be interested in it. It is a free class.

Light Flicker Class

Examine and discuss examples of Flicker, its effects, and example waveforms captured by PMI analyzers in real-world power quality investigations.
info.powermonitors.com
 
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