My 1st LED Bulb, Glows & Flickers when the lights OFF. I'm Lost/frustrated

Some alternative answer, a bit late but anyhow:

- Even when a LED lamp is completely disconnected on one side, it can still glow. If the switch is situated between the neutral line  of mains and the lamp, there will be a 60Hz voltage difference between the conductive parts of your fixture and the surroundings. These surroundings have a potential (earth) close to the neutral line of your mains supply. There is a small parasitic capacitance between the wires of the lamp and the surroundings. This will conduct a small current. This current will not flow through the return line of your mains, and is not detected by a Watt-O-meter. A LED lamps needs very little current to start emmiting light , a current of 100uA can already be visible in dark conditions.

Possible solutions:

- Set the switch in the other Phase of mains.

- Use a double pole switch and disconnect both phase and neutral.

- Attach a small load parallel over the LED lamp. A 100K resistor might do the Job .

Warning: Do not modify your electric wiring unless you are both skilled and qualified for this !

Then my question is, while on OFF would the LED bulb use less electricity than a normal bulb (also off).

This is a theoretical question: The dominant factor in these currents is the capacitance between fixture and active mains wire. This is also present using incandescent lamps. The LED lamp has however slightly higher threshold so the dv/dt over the capacitor is less.In practice, a LED lamp that is disconnected from mains in the neutral line uses slightly less energy compared to an incandescent. Mind you: We are talking about uAmps range at 120VAC and large phase angle, probably a few mW. A passive MW radio antenna might recieve more energy than this.

It would be good advice in terms of energy savings to concentrate on equipment in standby mode ( adapters, tv sets, computers, TV-decoders, pumps within central heating systems ), and let's not forget airco's that working on when nobody is in. Put these off when not used. Put circuit breakers between PC's/ TV sets and do not use their standby mode . Makes also sense in terms of fire safety because old television sets have a tendency to ignite in standby mode. They are one of the more common sources of domestic fires.

My LED bulbs also glow with the light switch in the off position.  I know they use less electric when they are on but if they are "always on" even at a dim glow with the swith off arn't I wasting power? 

While I may not have been the seller of your product ... Yes, lol, they certainly don't light themselves =)  Are they on a dimming circuit, is the dimming switch bad?
 

Quote:

Originally Posted by AGAPETUS 

My LED bulbs also glow with the light switch in the off position.  I know they use less electric when they are on but if they are "always on" even at a dim glow with the swith off arn't I wasting power? 

 

 

i realize this thread is old but i'm having the same problems.

I was very excited to go to Costco and purchase these LED light bulbs that claim to work at 2.5watts!

I am working on the third floor where all the wiring is new and i don't have the "glow" problem. Downstairs, however it appears in different rooms - dining room kitchen - but not the bathroom.

My concern is - am i wasting a lot of electricity by leaving them?

At 2.5 watts per bulb, you'd need to have each one running for 40 times as long as a traditional 100 watt incandescent to use the same ammount of energy.  At 12 pence per kilowatt hour (in the uk), you'd have to leave an LED light on for 400 hours to use a kilowatt hour.

Do you have two way switching? I am having a similar problem, and working on the theory, that elecetricity is being transfered by induction, as in two way switching one wire always remains active.

I believe the two way switching inductance is the problem. I have recently deployed  over 70 off 2.4W LEDs throughout as part of a modernistion program for my 1930s house. I have 2 x circuits with 2 way switching, - the dining area and the kitchen. The kitchen has a residual glow issue, but the dining room does not. The owner of the company I work for spent days researching this before he comfirmed the inductance issue - he has a large house with several glow issues. The amount of glow is actually dependant on how far the "Switch Live and Neutral" run parallel in the same cable, - the longer the run, the brighter the glow.

This can apparently be eliminated by a change to the wiring (wheteher its "electrically legal" I don't know) by running the Switch live and neutral in different cables, or indeed by putting a resistor (I don't have the rating to hand) between the conductors. I did actually order some from RS Components but cancelled the order after 5 months as they could not deliver.

I now have the ultimate solution  - ignore it! if we are talking of uA, the savings overall  make the residual usage insignificant.

I also use them in showerproof GU10 fittings protruding from my sofitts and in waterproof enclosures in the garden, all fitted with a photocell to swich on when the daylight fails - fantastically efficient. 

I have the same problem with my 1 watt LEDs.  I have three of them.  I only bought three of them because Walmart sold them for $7 each.  That is perfect for the three outside decorative lights in the front of the house. One watt of LED lighting is plenty of lighting since we have 3 of them. 

Now for the problem.  I have a Home Depot timer on my outside light circuit to turn them on at dusk and off at dawn, and it keeps track of time and daylight savings automatically.  As I mentioned I have three LEDs.  2 of them are one brand, 1 of them is another brand.  Two of them flicker when the timer is off, the one that is a different brand does not.  Walmart is now out of them so I cannot test other bulbs.  I also had a problem with these three lights when I had CFLs installed.  They would flicker at night when they were on.  It was as if I had 3 strobe lights on the front of the house so I had to remove the CFLs to try the $7 LEDs. 

One more observation...if I put a regular incandescent bulb in any of the sockets on this circuit (just one is all it takes) then the CFLs did not flicker at night when they are on, and the LEDs do not flicker during the day when they are off.  I suspect the pure resistive load dampens the transient voltages or ripples on the circuit.  This means the timer must put noise on the line whether it is gating the power or not.

Many AC dimmers are powered through the lightbulb by leaking current through the filament.  This is not enough to light up an incandescent but is more than enough to make an LED glow.

There are dimmers that require a Neutral wire that power the dimming circuitry from hot to neutral and do not leak through the light fixture.  Next thing you want to look for is that the dimmers are phase-adaptive.  This means they should work with incandescent, magnetic, and electronic lights (CFL and LED).  You'll never get perfect dimming because of the way they have to chop the AC power to dim the LEDs and they may still flicker a bit on very low levels or while dimming/raising but the neutral dimmer should solve the "nightlight" problem.  Lutron RadioRa2 RRD-6NA is a good example.

Check out LumenCache lighting if you're starting from scratch, building new, or have easy access to the back of your fixtures.  It solves all these problems and won't burn out your expensive LED bulbs like AC dimmers will.