Guys,
I have 2 home theaters that I used Lutron RF dimmers (MRFA-6MLV-URC) to control 1 lighting circuit. These have worked perfect for the last 10 years, now my customers have replaced the incandescent bulbs with LED's. When I turn the switch off 1 of the 4 lights remains on dim. I have tried 2 different brands of LED bulb's and they do the same thing. I am open to changing out the dimmer if that is the answer. I'm using a MX-900 remote.
Thanks
Al

Might be more complicated than that, unfortunately. Not all led lamps respond the same way to dimmers. Lutron has a chart of dimmable led's; that might be your first step...

[Link: lutron.com]

Typically, this is caused by not having enough load on the dimmer.

Two choices, add more LED lights to the circuit

Or swap out the dimmers for forward-phase.

In a pinch we have installed one of these to fix the problem you have...

[Link: amazon.com]

Unfortunately, LEDs are a pain. Even ones that say they can dim, many times don't. The Lutron piece that para19 mentioned has worked for us in the past.

In a pinch? This is exactly the product to use to come close to solving the problem. It's MADE to solve the problem.

Every dimmer needs a certain minimum load to operate correctly. LED loads are very different from incandescent loads, firstly in that they draw much less current. There's irony in having to increase the load on a dimmer when one of the reasons for using the LEDs in the first place is the lower current draw.

Thanks for that Para, didn't know it existed.

Another tool in the bag!!

The main issue with that dimmer is not the LED's, it is that it is a non-neutral dimmer. It bleeds milliamps of current though it for its own power. They do not play well with LED's.

Dimmers with neutrals have different problems. We went so far as to have Crestron control a DMX dimmer, which controlled a Lutron Magnetic circuit dimmer. The output of the Lutron, 0 - 240V (overseas) went to 240V - 12V transformers with simple bridge power supplies and capacitors large enough to smooth some little bits of steps.

Even after manipulating the HELL out of the size of the lower dozen or so steps, those steps are still visible when dimming. At least the damn thing dims to zero!

This is not recommended because it means running all the LEDs off of a local brute-force DC supply. Our walls had enough space for JBL 18" subs, so the power supply was no problem, but in general? Too hard.

Does this mean that since this product puts load on the circuit therefore its drawing more power thus negating the cost savings that LED's bring?

Not entirely. It puts enough load on the circuit for the circuit to work properly, and any rodents who have made their way into the panel to feel nice and comfy on a cold night, but it still uses less power than incandescents would.

Tell the clients to put incandescent bulbs back in, problem solved.


Even if you get LED's to dim, they probably won't be happy with the performance. They don't dim the same as incandescent bulbs, for many reasons, but one big one is the color temp never changes. So they appear to not dim much.

The lutron capacitor thing has been a 50-50 success rate for us. Last I tried it with the urc/lutron dimmers it didn't work.

We have a hard and fast rule at this point, We can't control led bulbs with a ccp, or ir remote. Gotta be an ip based system or ra2 with an ir keypad. The cost coupled with far superior performance of incandescent lights in a theater usually drives the cust back to old school bulbs.

I'm playing on a "hack" to lutron caseta that would ir control a pico. If it works, I might be putting a bunch of them on Amazon... it will be mid June before I know for sure as I'm waiting for parts from China.

The reason I said "In a pinch" is because from what I have been told from Lutron and according to their online docs the Lutron - MLC is only to be used with switches not dimmers (ie: Caseta PD-5WS-DV). They don't guarantee it will work with dimmers.

Despite the model number, I had thought the part I heard about was actually a resistor. Do they have a resistor for stabilizing dimming of very low current loads?