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Comments on LEDs flicker even without a dimmer

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LEDs flicker even without a dimmer Question

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The LEDs in some rooms of my house flicker when the switch is on. There is no dimmer, it's a basic toggle switch. When the switch is off, they stay off as normal.

How can I troubleshoot and fix this?

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On or off? (2 comments)
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Maybe your switch is starting to wear out. The contacts might not be making solid contact when the switch is supposed to be on. To test this, replace the switch. If it now works, toss the old one. If it still flickers, you now have a spare switch.

Another possibility is that your power has occasional glitches. This could be because heavy loads in your house are kicking in (anything with a substantial motor, like a washing machine, air conditioner, etc), or the power to your area is glitchy. The LED lights may be more sensitive to this than old lights that took multiple line cycles to heat up and cool down. In that case there is little you can do other than to find LED lights that are less sensitive to glitches.

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DIY troubleshooting (4 comments)
DIY troubleshooting
Lundin‭ wrote about 1 year ago

Maybe it would be a viable DIY troubleshooting to turn off fuses one by one and check if the LEDs stopped flickering, until the culprit is found (assuming a reasonably modern fuse box where you can just pull a switch on/off, not the old ones with ceramic fuses). That is, in case the problem is the washing machine disturbing LEDs in the living room, you would find out this way. If something connected to the same fuse is causing it or if the LEDs are just bad... well that's another story.

matthewsnyder‭ wrote about 1 year ago

It's not clear to me why things on other circuits would cause this. I don't have anything in my house that uses more than 1-2A, and all the breakers are 20A max btw. Residential service is usually 100-200A.

The flickering lights don't have anything except the lights on that circuit/breaker.

Lundin‭ wrote about 1 year ago

matthewsnyder‭ Anything based on coils will produce voltage/current spikes whenever energized or de-energized: both the expected "EMF" used to drive whatever the coil is driving, as well as a "back-EMF" which is a current going in the opposite direction and may damage or interfere with other electrical equipment. This gives both conducted (over wires) and radiated (over air) electromagnetic emissions. The usual generators of such unwanted emissions would be DC motors like in the mentioned washing machine. Other forms of emissions are also possible like for example the intentional emissions from a wi/fi router. All of this is why electronic products need to conform to certain electrical compatibility standards before getting put on market. Now if you bought some cheap electronics from China or the like, it might not conform to such mandatory standards.

Lundin‭ wrote about 1 year ago

matthewsnyder‭ Although it may of course simply be a problem with the LEDs themselves, but if you experience the same problem on multiple places then maybe that's less likely.