Making a LED reading lamp dimmable

[PaulRainbow]

Constant current LED dimming…. A bit like the man asking directions in Ireland. If you want good, cost effective and reliable dimming. I wouldnkt start from there. There are some great dimmers, but mostly for whole house lighting systems like Lutron and Rako. The lesser dimmers either flicker, don’t dim much, are unreliable, or damage the LED, or any combination of that. Sorry.

The ones in post #12 do none of that.

 

[Chiara’s slave]

The ones in post #12 do none of that.

As it turns out, in spite of the odd looking spec, the guys lights are 12v dimmables much like any other. Lots of trailing edge dimmers do that. My mistake, I thought they were something completely different.

 

[littledancersadhu]

I a am electrician, and we only have the "old/better" tungsten lamps in the house.
Easy to dim, nice light to read under.
Lamps and dimmers super cheap at charity shops.
Tottally not a fan of led, and my wife has epilepsy so the old tungstem lamps are a softer light.

 

[Chiara’s slave]

I a am electrician, and we only have the "old/better" tungsten lamps in the house.
Easy to dim, nice light to read under.
Lamps and dimmers super cheap at charity shops.
Tottally not a fan of led, and my wife has epilepsy so the old tungstem lamps are a softer light.

Lots of interior designers hate them too. We’ve got ours to work fairly well now, we have mostly mains level trailing edge dimming, though a number of 24v led tape, all RGBWW, which is dimmed by Tuya Smart compatible 5 channel dimmers. But LED tape is easy to dim. It makes goid boat lighting in the 12v version, we use 24v at home as you can power longer runs of tape.

 

[PaulRainbow]

Lots of interior designers hate them too. We’ve got ours to work fairly well now, we have mostly mains level trailing edge dimming, though a number of 24v led tape, all RGBWW, which is dimmed by Tuya Smart compatible 5 channel dimmers. But LED tape is easy to dim. It makes goid boat lighting in the 12v version, we use 24v at home as you can power longer runs of tape.

My boat is 24V but i fitted DC-DC converters to the light circuits and use 12V LEDs, mostly with the dimmers i posted earlier. The converters give a nice stable supply, i've seen really hot LEDs on 24V boats when the chargers are putting out around 29V, especially the strips. Mains systems run through drivers don't suffer from such a wide voltage fluctuation.

 

[Chiara’s slave]

My boat is 24V but i fitted DC-DC converters to the light circuits and use 12V LEDs, mostly with the dimmers i posted earlier. The converters give a nice stable supply, i've seen really hot LEDs on 24V boats when the chargers are putting out around 29V, especially the strips. Mains systems run through drivers don't suffer from such a wide voltage fluctuation.

The higher voltages could well shorten LED life Mains level drivers are indeed very stable, at 12.1 volts usually. That’s what LEDs like. My own 12v system isn’t really 12v, like most. When we arrive at the boat it is always at 13.4v. It might well be more with the engine running. Fortunately if we’re under way, enough things will be running to restrain it a little. The fridge is a good damper.