I just changed my CFL lights to LED lights, and made sure to get bulbs that say they are dimmable. A lot of the LED lights say they are not dimmable.

The controls for one light has a dimmer, and it doesn't seem to do much to the two led lights that I installed in the fitting. They do dim a little bit, but nowhere near what I expected. Is this normal?

Are there better brands of dimmers that are meant to work better? Will an electrician know what lights fit well with what dimmers? When I searched on Google, it sounds like some do not work together, and sometimes the dimming range is pretty poor.

Compatibility problems with LED lights and dimmers seems to be a lot less common than it was a few years ago, however the dimmers must be suitable for LED loads. Brands like Clipsal, Legrand, Hager, Gerard Lighting are pretty safe quality wise. Get them from an Electrical Wholesaler where the electricians shop, they won't stock rubbish because tradesman won't buy stuff that they get call backs on.

I just checked mine and we get dimming across the full range of brightness. The LEDs were put in along with matching dimmers and power supplys.

I have no idea what everything is. It was done as part of a State government energy efficiency scheme. The guys put everything in and charged ****all.

After about 18 months the lights started to flicker so they came and upgraded the whole house under warranty. The new ones are better (wider beam) and have been good ever since.

you need to get specific LED dimmers.the old dimmers will work but not anywhere near to the full range of the LED's.only costs about $30 for the proper dimmers, but well worth the money.

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grumplestiltskin said..
you need to get specific LED dimmers.the old dimmers will work but not anywhere near to the full range of the LED's.only costs about $30 for the proper dimmers, but well worth the money.

I have now had that done, and its much better. The old dimmers were 'Deta' universal dimmers, and the LED bulbs were Osram LEDs that were suitable for dimming. When you turned it down to minimum brightness it was still quite bright.

Now, I have Clipsal trailing edge dimmers running these Osram LED bulbs as well as a room where there is a LED downlight module through an electronic transformer. As a test, the Deta dimmer was tested on the LED downlight.

The Clipsal dimmers work as I wanted. The minimum light is less and its fine for having some light, but not too bright.

The Deta dimmer on the LED downlight dims better than on the Osram bulbs, but it gets flickery when down low. The Clipsal doesn't and stays steady even at low light levels.