LED stays dimly lit

H

Hubie

New Member
I have a home brew pair of 50 watt units made with Cree XT-E LEDs .i noticed last night durning the dark period that both units were dimly lit. Not so you would notice until your eyes were used to the dark.

Three questions:

What causes this and what can I do about it?

Is this going to cause my girls a problem?
 
W

wimpy69

Member
At your LED driver the neutral and phase from the mains are reversed, this causes a current leak through the LEDs. Simply reverse them back.
 
H

Hubie

New Member
They are plugged into a timer and everything else goes out. The first thing I thought of was the neutral and hot wire reversed but that wasn't it. I have read that autos with LED's have the same problem.
 
SupraSPL

SupraSPL

Well-Known Member
I had the same problem at one point. I noticed that the reds in the string would stay very dimly lit during lights out. I also noticed that if I touched the heatsink they would get slightly brighter. When I isolated the heatsinks from their metal hangers the problem went away but they would still light up if I touched the heatsinks.

So I ended up rewiring everything very carefully to make 100% certain the hot and neutrals were correct. Also I made sure the ground wire went as far into the circuit as possible. Now the problem is gone but I don't know what step actually fixed it. I strongly suspect reversal of the hot and neutral in some of the drivers or somewhere in the circuit.
 
H

Hubie

New Member
I don't understand the "ground wire went as far into the circuit as possible". I have cked that the neutral and hot connections and they are correct. Could be the manufacture switched them. One driver end cap was loose and I didn't see that the ground went anyplace into the module.They are sealed units. Both units are dimly lit.???

When they are on they are so bright you would not want to look at them.
 
PSUAGRO.

PSUAGRO.

Well-Known Member
Hubie said:
I don't understand the "ground wire went as far into the circuit as possible". I have cked that the neutral and hot connections and they are correct. Could be the manufacture switched them. One driver end cap was loose and I didn't see that the ground went anyplace into the module.They are sealed units. Both units are dimly lit.???

When they are on they are so bright you would not want to look at them.
Click to expand...
It could be improper wiring as stated above...........just make sure your using a MECHANICAL timer NOT DIGITAL(allows a trickle current to pass by design) ....good luck
 
SupraSPL

SupraSPL

Well-Known Member
I think i was using an extension cord that had no ground and the timer was after that extension cord. That is what I meant by carrying the ground as far into the circuit as possible.

Good point PSUagro.
 
H

Hubie

New Member
OK problem solved! I didn't wire the led wrong but I did reverse the polarity when I wired the cabinet. Big dummy!
 
The Dawg

The Dawg

Well-Known Member
Hey Pep's Just Found This Thread And This Problem Is More Common Than You Think.Now Im Not Saying Theirs Not Bad Digital Timmer's However With The Frequency Of This Problem Its Not All On the Timmer 99.9% Of The Time Its A Bad Ground.Case In Point I Also Had This Problem So I Followed Everyone's Advice And Changed My Timmer And Guess What The Problem Didn't Go Away WTF??So I Enlisted The Help Of My Electrican Buddy Thinking I Had A Ground Problem In My House.To Make A Long Story Short He Died Laughing When He Seen My Walmart Surge Protectors And Informed Me Thats Where My Problem Lies.I Now Have 85.00 Worth Of Commerical Grade Metal Surge Protectors And I Have Been Problem Free For The Last 3 Years.
 
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