Recently everyone is noticing many LED lighting products and styles. And the talk on less energy and a very environmentally friendly device. I have most of my residence and office warehouse with LED lighting and here is a few findings with using Clipsal. Presently I have been purchasing various types & sizes from China, Taiwan, and even testing the name brand like Philips, GE purchased from the local hardware store. I have spent thousands of dollars for testing for not only for checking for functionality on a Clipsal but for quality, feasibility, CRI, Etc. For the screw-in E27 type PAR series bulbs the ones rated dimming will go down to about 20% then either flicker or stay slightly illuminated. In the Tool-Kit I just set to the level needed and pretty simple to do. Strangely some rated non-dimming work fine with the Clipsal dimmer, for how long not sure but this is why I am testing. I did notice on a few that I mounted it started to generate a audible BUZZ from the 8 channel dimmer on one generic LED brand, it still works but noisy if in the garage. Some LED bulbs , tube lights will turn on in milliseconds compared to fluorescent with the Clipsal relay. The led Tube for fluorescent tube replacement types are nice as you remove the ballast and directly wire and a nice retro-fit. However the thin LED panels are far better and brighter than the tube retro-fit. I have several 600mmx600mm tested and I think that will be the future for office lighting. You can put 3~4 times the quantity of LED bulbs on one circuit compared to a incandescent as the load (wattage) is far less and drive with a Clipsal successfully. However check with the local electric codes and National Electric Code along with the city if re-wiring for LED as I did. One thing to consider if going to the LED is the electric RF interference. I spent hours troubleshooting my new house garage door opener remote on why it worked great during the day but failed at night. Only to realize that the LED entry lights outside masked the remote control signal when the lights were on the night timer. A quick way to test is put a FM radio near and tune to your station then turn the lights on. If static from the radio you will have remote problems. Many LED are native DC and use ?Drivers to take the existing AC voltage and step down to either a constant voltage or a constant current to be used with a array of LEDs. I am designing some hybrid solar & wind powered systems using a DC inverter and batteries for DC LED lighting at my office and ridding the AC all together. Regards Alan Dobbs Industeq, Inc.
