Well I think I am getting to the root of the problem. Setting the level to 97 and cycling on/off. One bulb would not light. I took the time to retwist all the neutrals and put a proper wire nut on. Neutrals are not a problem.
It’s a 3-light fixture. I moved the offending bulb to a different socket. The problem moved with the bulb. I replaced the bulb with a new one of the same type. So I set the level to 99. Guess what? I cycle on/off and the new bulb is the only one that lights! WTF? These GE dimmable LED’s deteriorate in a very strange way.
I think I’m onto the problem now. LED bulbs do not behave as one would expect with these dimmers. I guess it’s the Triac dimming or something these have that exacerbate the bulbs difference. Just guessing here.
I have a mix of various Zooz dimmers going back to the ZEN27. Some MOFSET some TRIAC. I have never had such a problem like that before. All working fine for me. If those are older bulbs maybe the driver is going bad?
This is the strangest thing. I’ve put all sorts of new bulbs from the same box in the fixture. I get various behaviors (sequenced turn on, one bulb not lighting at 99%) and this didn’t happen with the UltraPro dimmer I had there before. I’m at a loss and am just going to settle at a max of 98% (I see 95). If I set the max level to 95and try to set it to 99, will it just set it to 95?
I would think so, not totally sure how the newer ZEN77 firmware handles it. It has the brightness correction built in so if you set the max to 95 then when you turn it all the way up it will report 99. This is useful so that when looking at a dashboard you can see it is fully on. So I would suspect the true 99 is unreachable at that point.
You probably cannot see any visual difference from 95 to 99 anyway (besides some bulbs not working).
So I set the max level to 95 on the offending dimmer with dimmer going to 99 when motion detected and things seem to work correctly (no bulbs out, fixture behaving as expected). The status reports back 100 on the level as one would expect with the brightness correction I suppose. Happy for now. Thanks so much for your help and patience.
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CRAZY!! Now the island lights (3 single-bulb pendants with conventional, dimmable GE LED bulbs) have started to exhibit the same phenomenon. When the dimmer level is 99, one bulb, the main feed, is off. When dimmed to 15, the same bulb is dimmer than the other two. I changed nothing before this started happening. I did the same as before and set the max brightness to 95 and the one bulb is “full” on, same as the other two, when full bright. I set the dimmed level to 20 and the same bulb is the same visible level as the other bulbs. The other two fixtures with a single bulb are fed from the first pendant. Very strange. I might get my meter out if things change again.
NO MORE ZEN77 dimmers for me. I did not have this problem with the UltraPro 800 dimmers I had before. I wish I had never changed them. Expensive, non-corrective and confusing experiment.
Not sure how the dimmer could cause one bulb to behave differently than another when they are both connected to the same dimmer. Sounds more like the bulbs are not compatible with that type of dimmer. I have even used $1.99/4 generic bulbs from Ace and have not seen this problem before. I think a lot of my dimmers are the older MOFSET style though.
