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LED bulb flicker

EricF

Member
Joined
Sep 23, 2009
Messages
10
Location
SF Bay Area
my Hunter ceiling fan is giving me problems..

I tried to put in 2 CFL bulbs into it and they semi fired up and flickerd like a stobe light. the bulbs worked fine in a regular lamp.
I then tried to LED bulbs, which both worked in regular lamps.
The LED bulbs started flickering and were very dim, they looked like black lights.
put the regular incandescent bulbs back in, all was good.

The LED bulbs I bought did not say ceiling fans I'm under the assumption that the ceilng fan LED bulbs and probably CFL's are for dimming. my ceiling fan doesn't dim. It is controlled via remote control, but the lights is either on or off.

Any ideas on what's going on??
 
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BigJohn20

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Sep 4, 2011
Messages
168
Basically, many times when you have an electronic control (many timers, photocells, remote control products, etc) and you want to use CFLs/LEDs, you need to either have the bulbs be of a dimmable nature or the control be rated to work with CFLs/LEDs (the way these controls work is different than standard, cheaper controls).

There's plenty of resources on the net as to why this is the case, but that's really all you need to know.
 
Last edited:

nehog

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Jan 2, 2010
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Location
Jaffrey, NH
...my ceiling fan doesn't dim. It is controlled via remote control, but the lights is either on or off.

Any ideas on what's going on??

The remote on/off functions exactly like a dimmer, you need to use dimmable bulbs in it.
 

kmacht

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Apr 12, 2010
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2,765
Location
Connecticut
Silly question but what does it do with a normal non cfl or led bulb in it? Does it flicker then? Any chance it is the fixture you are putting the bulb into or the wiring behind it and not the bulb itself?

Keith
 
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porcupine73

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Jan 22, 2008
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576
Location
Buffalo, NY USA
Many things that are remote controlled on/off are using solid state relays or other electronic means of switching the lamps on and off. So they may work fine with normal light bulbs, but do weird things with non-linear loads such as CFL's. In the old days, things just had a mechanical relay in them, and that could switch any load without problems.
 

dwaynerz

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Jun 18, 2011
Messages
66
Location
bethalto il
and i was under the impression these cfl lights were to save us all money. not when you have to buy special bulbs to accomadate dimmers and ceiling fans.

maybe with the money saved we can afford to buy the specialty lights?
 

Falcon67

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Jun 11, 2009
Messages
18,371
Location
Merkel, TX
and i was under the impression these cfl lights were to save us all money. not when you have to buy special bulbs to accomadate dimmers and ceiling fans.

maybe with the money saved we can afford to buy the specialty lights?

And garage door openers. Anything with an electronic ballast is going to give you issues with motion sensors, garage door openers, dimmers, etc. I put CFLs in our door opener hoping that would work well enough. It actually does work with the motion sensor, but one bulb is dead in less than a year. So - I have to pick up a pack of old school incandescents for that.
 
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