I just moved into a new home where some of the electrical appears to have been recently re-done. Nearly every light in the house has a dimmer on it, which is fine with me because I prefer to keep light dim. However, most of the lights are cheap Ikea, non dimmable LED's. I initially noticed some lights in my bathroom ocassionally flickering when I tried to dim them, and discovered they were not dimmable. After replacing them with dimmable LED's, everything is fine. Last night I turned on the living room recessed lighting and dimmed it, for the first time and two lights started flickering, as well as smoking. When I turn the dimmer all the way up there doesn't appear to be any issue. Those two lights were gone but the others are fine.
So, that being said, this scares the hell out of me. Had my son turned it on and not noticed the smoke, it probably would have caught fire within seconds. Is this a symptom of the LED's or something else? Not that I have allowed other lights to flicker, but why haven't I seen this in other rooms.
A little more background information: The seller just had an electrician do a $4000 inspection and overhaul of the electrical as a contingency for the purchase. The 200A panel and breakers are brand new and all the wiring is 12ga or less.
Best Answer
LED lights are made up of two parts the LED itself and a driver which transforms the house power to the operating power of the LED. The smoke is more than likely coming from the driver of the LED if it is non dimmable. The obvious is it was not designed for dimming and that would cause it to burn up. So if you have LED's that are non dimmable then you need to take them off of the dimmers or replace the LED's with dimmable drivers.
Stay safe and good luck