Why lights flicker?

LED lights and downlights have a bad reputation for flickering and ruining the ambience of a room, however this is far from the truth and LED lights can often provide a more consistent and lower power lighting than their halogen counterparts.

LED’s gained this reputation from cheaply and poorly made LED drivers handling a much lower power range than what most drivers provide.

How To Avoid Flickering Lights?

Loose Bulb Fittings

Having a bulb that is not fully seated in its socket is the most common cause of flickering lights and thankfully, extremely easy to resolve. Simply ensure that the bulb is powered off by turning it’s switch to off, then fully unscrew the bulb and check the electrical connectors to ensure they are in good condition with no corrosion. Then gently screw the bulb back into it’s socket ensuring that it cannot wiggle or unwind itself easily. If the light is still flickering you may have other issues.

Dimming

Dimming can be a great way to change the ambience of a room, however, if done incorrectly it can also result in flickering lights and lights that intermittently do not work.

When selecting bulbs or light fittings to use with a dimmer, it is very important that you use products rated for use with a dimmer. This should be in the specifications of the product, however if it is not it is better to give us a call to double check.

When selecting a dimmer, it definitely pays to use a high quality component as a poor quality signal is one of the leading causes of light flicker. There are two options when selecting a dimmer which you may have seen, leading edge and trailing edge. In short, leading edge dimmers work great with halogen/incandescent lights and trailing edge dimmers work much better for LED lights.

It is also important to ensure that the dimmer that you select is rated to a higher wattage than the combined wattage of the light you want to control with it. For example a 200W dimmer, could handle a maximum of 15 x 10W LED lights, as it is not recommended to get within 75% of the maximum load as this may cause issues of it’s own.

Faulty Wiring

While very uncommon, another potential cause of flickering is faulty wiring. This can be as simple as the electrician forgetting to tighten a screw all the way, to something major within the distribution box. Any of these options are extremely dangerous to diagnose and should only be completed by licensed electricians.

Faulty Fitting

Even if you have purchased all of the right fittings, unfortunately it is unavoidable, and some product may simply not work as intended. Luckily however, if you purchased the lights from JD Lighting, it is highly likely that your lights will be covered by one of our many fantastic warranty options! If your electrician has determined that the fitting is faulty, simply call our customer service team and we should be able to organize a replacement for you.