Electrical help - LED bulbs always lit

AHarvey

AHarvey

AHarvey

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Joined
6 Mar 2008
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Stoke area
Hi,

I've replaced the hall and landing lights in the last 2 days as well as switches.

Each light takes 3 x G9 led bulb.

I initially replaced the downstairs light in the hall and the switch. It's a 2 way switch in that it controls the hall and the upstairs landing light. Took the old light down, connected it all up matching wires/locations and it all worked great. lots of light.

Just done the upstairs light and followed the same as the downstairs, added the bulbs and they are lit. hit the old switch and they light up properly. Changed the switch just in case and even with the new switch I have the same issue.

Checked the wires, all look good, well connected.

So, the downstairs lights are off or on.

Upstairs lights are either very dim and on. They don't go off.

Any suggestions?

Amazon review of the bulbs say that other people have had this but no answer on why, they blame the bulbs. But, I find it doubtful out of a pack of 6 I just happened to pick the 3 that go off for downstairs and those that stay on upstairs.
 
When you say they are lit (when switched off) are they lit but very dimly?

If the latter this is a known problem (as BB has suggested above), can happily link to some solutions on YT.
 
Brutal biff said:
Check your not switching the neutral and not the live to the leds or this can also be caused by induced voltage along the switch cable
Click to expand...

Wiring is identical to the one downstairs so can't see it being an issue.

Kol said:
When you say they are lit (when switched off) are they lit but very dimly?

If the latter this is a known problem (as BB has suggested above), can happily link to some solutions on YT.
Click to expand...

Yeah it looks like a known issue, found a pretty much identical issue on screwfix https://community.screwfix.com/threads/led-blubs-staying-on.127528/

Someone suggested a bleed resistor inside the switch.


EDIT: Oddly, just turned them off for a photo after they've been on for an hour and they go completely off now. Residual charge maybe.
 
A resistor is not the best answer, it'll be wasteful and also has the possibility of getting hot.

Ideally you want a contact suppressor: https://cpc.farnell.com/ampohm-woun...-100/contact-suppressor-0-1uf-100r/dp/FT00715 which is basically a capacitor and resister in series, most of the impedance is from the caapcitor (the resister is just there just to make sure things don't peak too highly. Note that a contact suppressor is normally wired across the switch to suppress the arcing when it makes or breaks, in your situation you want to wire it across the lamp, you've already got C across the switch from the cable, which is causing the problem, you effectivly want to add some C to what will be the other half of a voltage divider to drag the voltage across the lamp down to such a point that it doesn't try to start
 
Sounds like it may be the way to go Adam, as it's definitely an issue with the switches.

Since I said they are both off they are now both lit all the time, and moving the switch a few mm's turns them off completely. Something else to sort now :D
 
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