electricallighting
I'm making an LED lamp and was about to install a feed thru switch, but I noticed my wire is too thick for the switch. Rummaging through my drawer for another, I found an old dimmer, fun.
I see that it has the words "permanently installed incandescent fixtures only" written on it. This dimmer is so old, I'd imagine they didn't consider LED when making the warning.
My main question, is it safe to use this dimmer? The LED uses 7 watts, it's 500 lumens.
I got my son a good brand of LED A lamps that says dimmable. When we use a regular dimmer they dim, but not like a regular lamp. When you dim them with a regular dimmer you might not get the same dim from time to time, and on ours the dimming is through but you have have the slide to go. We put these LED's in his fan lights at home and he keeps the full bright.
I know dealers of some of the retrofit LED trims and most of them say use the regular dimmer, but the main reason for that is so you don't have to buy new dimmers when replacing the lamps with LEd's.
Lutron makes a dimmer in the C.L family line that dims LED's and CFL's. These dimmers have a little trim screw dial that you can adjust to lengthen the dimming portion of the dimmer and you set it to be a full range dim on the dimmer.
Older electricians will probably remember the trim setting from older ceiling fans and adjusting them to the full range to tell you if it is on or off. the fan motor would still turn the blades until it is clicked off.
The picture tells you what they look like and what you can dim with them. The 3 way version of this is the same price as a plain incandescent dimmer, so that is what we use for both 3 way incandescent and 1p or 3way LED or CFL dimming.
It makes sense - look for "low voltage LED Lighting" to see what's available, or slide on over to Electronics to build your own.
Dimmable LED bulbs are those with drivers built-in that are "dimmable" - if just running controlled current to LEDs, they are all "Dimmable" (lower current, lower light) so, no, you don't want an LED described as "Dimmable" (nor one described as 12V, probably - a "bare" LED with no other parts attached is best when you are going to feed it controlled current.) If you purchase a "12V dimmer" pre-made, follow the dimmer-maker's suggestions on types of LEDs to attach to it.
LEDs are current devices, so controlling the current will give highly consistent light output (controlling the voltage, less so)
Best Answer
There are dimmable LED bulbs on the market. If yours is one of those you should be fine. If you try to dim a non-dimmable bulb you'll most likely see full brightness at high settings and flashing at low settings. You'll almost certainly shorten the life of the bulb.
The switch label probably considers compact fluorescent bulbs ("energy saving") which are even harder than LEDs to make dimmable. There is just a chance that the dimmer switch requires a minimum load, but I'd expect that to be started explicitly if so.