Bought some lights for the bathroom. Trying to better understand what type of dimmers will work it. It says it will need ‘ Dimmable with TRIAC/ELV dimmer.‘ Planning to use an Inovelli Red with it. Any issues?
Light: https://www.lampsplus.com/products/ramona-24-inch-wide-satin-nickel-metal-led-bath-light__150m1.html
Not compatible. Inovelli Red are MLV only. Lutron has some dimmers that are either ELV or phase selectable in the Castea and RadioRa 2 lines.
https://lumicrest.com/elv-mlv-forward-phase-trailing-edge-triac-whats-it-all-mean/
Zooz makes a TRIAC dimmer, this article might help:
https://www.support.getzooz.com/kb/article/1103-zen72-vs-zen77-what-s-the-difference/
If a TRIAC / ELV dimmers are suggested then pretty much any dimmer "should" work.
A TRIAC dimmer holds off the beginning of the AC waveform so only the last portion of the waveform is conducted. This "last portion" could be 5% or 99%.
An ELV dimmer conducts the beginning of the waveform and cuts off the end. Again this can be 5% to 99%.
The issue comes up where the electronics in the lamp electronics are also powered by the above partial waveform. So at low dim levels the issue is not the light but the electronics controlling the LEDs.
It may be possible that your fixture can also be controlled by a "PWM" input or an "Analog" input. Both are low voltage and require a special dimmer control and wiring. These types of dimmer controls are just starting to become available.
It may worth a try to use a Mosfet dimmer. IME MLV fixtures work pretty well with ELV dimmers. But ELV fixtures tend not to work as well with MLV dimmers.
It's amazing that it takes so many $ to get high performance low-end dimming these days. Not sure to invest in fixtures or wait for POE lighting. (Neither is high on the list right now.)
I think it's a combination of a very slow conservative industry and companies figuring how to make more $$ with new tech than they are currently making. Also there are a number of "flops" in the past using "advanced" technology. A friend has a home built in the 60's. All the lights and many outlets use a low voltage technology that didn't make it. The parts have been failing and retrofitting with "standard" wiring is very costly.
That said, I hope in the future we can see more lighting systems designed around LEDs.
I don’t think this is the case. I am using dimmable LED string lights from SuperBrightLEDs.com for under-cabinet lights which spec a TRIAC dimmer, and tried to use a standard dimmer (Ultra-Pro, GE Enbrighten Z-Wave). The lights pulsated (not flickered). Their support looked at what I was using as a dimmer switch and pinpointed that as the cause. I had to switch to the Zooz TRIAC dimmers, which worked well for me since they are TRIAC (even the Zen77 now) instead of MOSFET.
I seem to have overstated my understanding.
Driving any circuit with a dimmer is a less than ideal situation. Happy to see you got it going. Sorry if I led you astray.
No all good. Just wanted to note my experience for future visitors to the thread.
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