Load lamps

[cjimbos]

Changing to led for house lights the LEDs go out but the 1 one will dimly come back on what can I use instead of an incandescent lamp as a load lamp. 

[pscandrett]

I don't quite know what you're asking about the '1 one' but if you're dimming LED houselights one of the standard answers now is to install the Artistic Licence LED sundial dimmer, specifically designed for dimming LED lamps. https://artisticlicence.com/product/sundial-quad/
(This may not answer your question but hope it's useful anyway.)

[Tomo]

Simply swapping out tungsten lamps for "dimmable" LED lamps does not work and never will.
I cannot emphasise that enough!

2-wire mains dimmable retrofit LED lamps will never* dim all the way to zero, and all brands will 'popcorn' where they turn on/off at different points.
- Both limitations are mostly due to manufacturing tolerances, so the cheaper the lamp, the worse.

Reverse-phase/trailing edge/IGBT dimmers generally make them behave better than the traditional SCR/triac dimmers you currently have, and may be good enough for some purposes/installations.

The major modular dimming systems have reverse phase modules available, or you can rewire to fit external products like the AL Sundial mentioned above.
But don't expect them to be as good as the tungsten you had before, that is only possible with DMX-controlled LED fittings or remote LED drivers like the ETC F-Drive.

Eg If your existing houselight dimming is ETC Sensor racks then you can fit "PhaseAdept" or "ELV" modules - your ETC dealer can check which are suitable for your existing racks, and arrange a trial to see if they give "good enough" results.

* While it can technically be done, it'd cost far more and always perform worse than the existing mid-range remote-driver LED retrofits.

[pmiller056]

The community theatre I work with has successfully swapped their tungsten GU10 houselights to LED, retaining the SCR/Triac dimmer. The following post has relevant information. https://www.blue-room.org.uk/topic/77016-small-theatre-house-lighting-update-suggestions-anyone/#comment-603906

 

[alistermorton]

@pmiller056 - do they smoothly dim all the way from completely off to fully on, at any speed of fade, without pop corning or flickering? If they do, you are to be roundly congratulated.

[pmiller056]

The Philips lamps linked to dim correctly from off to on, both ways. No flickering, popcorning or 'step' at low brightness. The dimming curve takes a bit of getting used to - it is noticeably 'S' shaped. The dimming curve is very flat around 'off' and 'on' and steep in the middle. They work well and correctly with an all-led load on the SCR dimmer in use. The filter inductor in the dimmer no longer buzzes like it used to! Please thank @sandall for directing me to these lamps. These lamps are less than a year old, so I've no idea how well they will age. In our case, they are in open fixtures so heat related ageing should be minimal.

[sunray]

4 hours ago, pmiller056 said:

The Philips lamps linked to dim correctly from off to on, both ways. No flickering, popcorning or 'step' at low brightness. The dimming curve takes a bit of getting used to - it is noticeably 'S' shaped. The dimming curve is very flat around 'off' and 'on' and steep in the middle. They work well and correctly with an all-led load on the SCR dimmer in use. The filter inductor in the dimmer no longer buzzes like it used to! Please thank @sandall for directing me to these lamps. These lamps are less than a year old, so I've no idea how well they will age. In our case, they are in open fixtures so heat related ageing should be minimal.

During a 3ph dist board replacement, electrician wired the existing 3core (3C flat R,Y,B - not 3C&E) lighting circuits as 3ph instead of 1ph L,E,N. Apparently 3 of the 4 20W bulbs in 2 double fittings over noticeboards went with a rather spectacular bang. Luckily these were the first to be switched on and the remainder of the halls lights were undamaged. They supplied exactly those linked to by Sandall, during 'normal use' by a switch they are fine

The 2 light circuits in the hall include 5A sockets and plugs which get re-plugged into dimmer pack for show mode. With just those 4 LEDs connected (measured as 12-13W) none of the 4 channel packs coped, went from almost off to almost 100% within first few% of dimmer and to 100% within top few%, few being certainly less than 10%. With a couple of hundred Watts of GU10's added I'd make a guess they go from off to full  at about 20-40%. We assumed they contain constant current drivers and chose to not switch them on when in show mode.

 

However  Varilight V-Pro 1-Gang 2-Way LED Dimmer Switch White - Screwfix in trailing edge mode is quite successful (hasn't been tried in leading edge mode), I'd go with your description of the curve.