New LED Bulb issues

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AKElectrician

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Soldotna, AK, USA
Recently installed some new LED bulbs in a simple home depot motion light at my own home the other day.
After installing two new LED bulbs in a working light they started to flicker so i put in a incondescent with a LED and it stopped flickering holds like it should. Any ideas why this has happened on three light all same issue and fixed by having one incondescent and one LED?
 
Among other things a resistive load (even a temperature dependent one like a filament) will provide a more stable voltage waveform across the terminals of a two terminal dimmer. This allows stable triggering of the phase sensing circuit that chops the AC waveform.
This will be much less of a factor on a dimmer which includes a neutral reference (a three terminal dimmer.)

The same voltage instabilities caused by a non-linear load, with a high forward breakdown voltage, can affect other electronics, like motion sensors.
 
AKElectrician said:
Recently installed some new LED bulbs in a simple home depot motion light at my own home the other day.
After installing two new LED bulbs in a working light they started to flicker so i put in a incandescent with a LED and it stopped flickering holds like it should. Any ideas why this has happened on three light all same issue and fixed by having one incondescent and one LED?
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It has to do with the way the LED driver draws power and the type of switching device used in the motion detector. If the motion detector used an actual relay, you would not have this issue, but 90% of the inexpensive versions don't, it's too expensive, so they use a triac (solid state switch). But a solid state switch never actually turns off, it "leaks" a little. That leakage current through it is minimal, but it's enough to charge the caps in the LED driver, which charge up, then discharge through the LEDs, which bleeds the caps, which get charged again by leakage, etc. etc. etc. The result is flashing to you and I. When the incandescent lamp is added, the resistance of the filament "eats" that tiny amount of leakage current instead of allowing it to charge the LED driver caps. You could accomplish the same thing with a "burden resistor" if you wanted to open up the motion detector and solder it across the triac switching output.
 
AKElectrician said:
Recently installed some new LED bulbs in a simple home depot motion light at my own home the other day.
After installing two new LED bulbs in a working light they started to flicker so i put in a incondescent with a LED and it stopped flickering holds like it should. Any ideas why this has happened on three light all same issue and fixed by having one incondescent and one LED?
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yeah, you have minimal load on a switchleg, and it's all LED.... and inexpensive LED's, if i'm reading this right.
no easy solution, other than higher grade LED's.
 
I just had this problem also. I haven't see any schematics on how the LED drivers are configured (and it probably varies a lot from manufacturer to manufacturer), and same with the motion sensors.

But here is what is probably happening:

The motion sensor need a small amount of constant power to work properly. (Notice how when you first turn it on, it takes a minute to start working the way it should?) It normally gets that power by leaking a small amount of current through the incandescent lamp.

With LED lamps, the ballast won't let that current flow. (And by ballast, I mean the electronic circuit that converts the 120V AC to low voltage DC.) The ballast is completely turned off until a full 120 Volts is applied. So the motion sensor can't leak enough current to stay active.

Replace one LED with an incandescent lamp, and now the motion sensor can allow a small amount of current to flow through the one incandescent lamp, and suddenly everything works.
 
How many minutes a day does this thing run? This is an application where you're gonna spend dollars to save a penny.

LEDs don't produce much IR, so it's not going to melt off snow or ice. Electrolytic capacitors used in LED ballasts tend to have problems in sub-zero temperatures. This kind of usage is really hard on them. The ballast is allowed to freeze to ambient, then ran just long enough to heat up only to get chilled to -20F
 
Electric-Light said:
How many minutes a day does this thing run? This is an application where you're gonna spend dollars to save a penny.
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Back yard lights for playing ball with the dogs, thought that a LED might penetrate a little farther out than Incandescent lights, with snow LED's are amazing. In fall with no snow, terrible waste of time, Halogens, Metal Halide's all the way. Not trying to save any money.
 
AKElectrician said:
Back yard lights for playing ball with the dogs, thought that a LED might penetrate a little farther out than Incandescent lights, with snow LED's are amazing. In fall with no snow, terrible waste of time, Halogens, Metal Halide's all the way. Not trying to save any money.
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I don't get it. Metal halide and motion activated lights do not belong together.
You could try PAR spot light which will go out a lot farther than out than BR flood lamp.
 
Electric-Light said:
I don't get it. Metal halide and motion activated lights do not belong together.
You could try PAR spot light which will go out a lot farther than out than BR flood lamp.
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Why don't they belong together? As in directly next to each other? No way. But a yard light on the utility pole and motion sensor lighting on the house I would say is the only combo I have seen work in multiple places, to get the best area lighting possible. Not the case at my house just dinking with products to see what its going to do in a real world application not a showroom. So when someone asks me to put a light up outside there house I know whats what.

Tried those spot light style ones wasn't a fan for area coverage, but it lights up what you point it at.

Installed PAR38 ecosmart 90W replacements.
 
AKElectrician said:
Why don't they belong together? As in directly next to each other? No way. But a yard light on the utility pole and motion sensor lighting on the house I would say is the only combo I have seen work in multiple places, to get the best area lighting possible. Not the case at my house just dinking with products to see what its going to do in a real world application not a showroom. So when someone asks me to put a light up outside there house I know whats what.

Tried those spot light style ones wasn't a fan for area coverage, but it lights up what you point it at.

Installed PAR38 ecosmart 90W replacements.
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What he was saying is a HID shouldn't be controlled by a motion detector - too much warm up time on an HID lamp, the thing may never get to full brightness and then the motion detector is not calling for run anymore. And worse yet if next call to run is too soon after the last one - it won't light at all because pressure in the arc tube is still too high from the last run to start another arc.
 
kwired said:
What he was saying is a HID shouldn't be controlled by a motion detector - too much warm up time on an HID lamp, the thing may never get to full brightness and then the motion detector is not calling for run anymore. And worse yet if next call to run is too soon after the last one - it won't light at all because pressure in the arc tube is still too high from the last run to start another arc.
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Never would have thought of using a motion sensor on a HID light, 500W lamp would be running the two sensors ive seen at full capacity which I would assume would shorten the life a bit, not to mention what you stated above. But now that you said shouldn't got to play devils advocate. I could see it being used if you had the sensor run a timer that controlls a contactor to light say a public covered Ice Rink with HPS or M-H, one hour timers get forgoten to be rewound causing what you say above, overrides get forgoten to be corrected. Walk up and boom lights turn on, after no movement for 2 hours boom they turn off (well after everyone has left and noone is there). Have the constant night light of course independent of the other lights. Why shouldn't this work? Its common practice now with flourescents on a much shorter cycle time to be operated with occupency (motion) sensors, even though there is research stating that short cycles can decrease bulb life offsetting the energy savings with bulb replacements, yeah they will turn on though, till they are dead. https://www.hew.com/brochure/occsenswp.pdf
See these new occupency flourescents in bathrooms, hallways, closets. Most turn off in 20 mins maybe 30 mins.
But to install a motion sensor in a HID fixture to operate it no not going to produce good results.
 
thread starter,

I think we have a misunderstanding regarding motion sensor. I though you were talking about outdoor security lights that use high wattage halogen lamps that turn on upon motion but turn off within a minute or two.

What type of motion control does it use? For example, manual-on, auto off. Auto-on, auto off. etc.
How long does it stay on per activation?
 
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