Trade Talk > Electricity

LED Problem?

(1/1)

mbarson:
So my son is selling LED bulbs for the robotics groups he goes to and I buy a few to get a feel for the product. These are the first LED bulbs I have used so I am trying them around the house. The one place I was still using incandescent bulbs was in the garage door opener. With three 60 watt bulbs going I thought it would be fun to replace them with one 9 watt LED. The light was quite good, especially for one bulb. Then the strange thing happened... our openers would work intermittently. At first I thought it was the batteries so I changed them in both remote units but the problem persisted. My wife and son said it may be the new bulb so I replaced it back with the old bulb... problem gone! It seems that when the LED bulb is on it interferes with the signal to open or close the garage door. When the bulb is off it works OK. Has anyone else heard of this problem? It is kind of interesting.

Bud9051:
Hi mb, that is interesting, especially when you think of everything that is going wireless.  I would bet the mfg would be interested in the feedback, is it US or China?  US would be easier to communicate with. 

Now, since it is your nickle :), you could try a different brand to see if there is a difference. 

As for technically why, I would guess an oscillator is being used to step up the frequency of the 60 cycle power so they can rectify and filter the DC needed for the LEDs.  This is a common practice in electronics as it reduces the size of the capacitors significantly.  Is this a brand I can pick up locally to test?

Bud

Navigation

[0] Message Index