Not all dimmers are compatible with LEDs.
I tried to replace all the CF bulbs in the living room with LEDs and ended up having to buy a new dimmer switch too.
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wheresthefish Partly filled with wrong, Mon 25 Jan 2021, 18:49,
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So in order to save... what? £10 of electricity, I have to throw out and replace a perfectly good dimmer switch? Per room?
Seems a bit wasteful.
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evil_andy Stick stick stick stick sticky sticky stick stick, Mon 25 Jan 2021, 19:45,
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How many tonnes of coal is it worth burning to keep your dimmer switches?
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brb pussy in bio, Mon 25 Jan 2021, 20:10,
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How many tonnes of coal does it take to make a dimmer switch to replace one that I'm being forced to throw out long before the end of it's lifespan?
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evil_andy Stick stick stick stick sticky sticky stick stick, Mon 25 Jan 2021, 20:28,
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it's a bit like how people tend to gloss over that manufacturing just the battery for an electric car releases 18 tonnes of CO2
or basically 5 years emissions of a driving a normal petrol sedan
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cumquat may will not be commenting further on the allegations, Wed 27 Jan 2021, 3:33,
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Several years ago now,
but I had one “friend” on Facebook proudly saying they had driven an electric car all the way from Sussex to Scotland.
At that time the energy mix of the UK generation capacity was approximately 40% coal. Which I reckon got them as far as Nottingham.
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wheresthefish Partly filled with wrong, Wed 27 Jan 2021, 7:07,
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Your figure is a bit high there, chuppy
The quickest of Googling shows that you're wrong about the CO2 by about 30% and you've more than doubled the time taken to balance the CO2 cost of the WHOLE car compared to a petrol-burner.
(, Wed 27 Jan 2021, 10:51, Share, Reply)
I don't think my housemate/landlord has yet realised that his plan to replace all of the house's lamps with 'smart' bulbs is going to cost him more than just buying replacement lamps
since the existing mains dimmer switches won't work with them and normal light switches don't really work well with them either (since you need to leave the power to the lamps turned on in order to remotely control them). Not particularly smart, in my opinion...
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Happosai _,,,,_(O ; o)_,,,, Mon 25 Jan 2021, 22:41,
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I have a few wifi smart bulbs - look good to begin with, then once the novelty wears off, they're pretty boring.
I wouldn't want to make all my lights dependent on a single point of failure eg wifi hub or zigbee bridge - I can see that ending in some loud sweary words at some point
(, Tue 26 Jan 2021, 10:50, Share, Reply)
Not everything needs to be smart
Light-bulbs being a case in point.
(, Wed 27 Jan 2021, 8:46, Share, Reply)
Remember when you didn't have to worry if something as basic as a lightbulb was compatible with something as basic as a switch?
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evil_andy Stick stick stick stick sticky sticky stick stick, Mon 25 Jan 2021, 19:41,
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I wasn’t impressed either.
Don’t even get me started on the dimmable bedside lights I have. Bought a replacement LED bulb for one of those only to have it flicker horribly in anything other than fully on.
Rather than replace two rather nice lamps ahead of time I bought a crap load of spare halogens on Amazon.
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wheresthefish Partly filled with wrong, Mon 25 Jan 2021, 19:52,
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A dimmer isn't just a switch, LEDs work fine with on/off switches.
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FeralCatMan Unusual disease collector., Mon 25 Jan 2021, 20:08,
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I don't have on/off switches.
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evil_andy Stick stick stick stick sticky sticky stick stick, Mon 25 Jan 2021, 20:31,
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A dimmer is a potentiometer/variable resistor, not just a switch.
And a diode is not a bulb.
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brb pussy in bio, Mon 25 Jan 2021, 20:14,
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Well spotted. Have a gold star.
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evil_andy Stick stick stick stick sticky sticky stick stick, Mon 25 Jan 2021, 20:33,
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I don’t have anything to add but I really want a star.
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mofaha ┐( ˘_˘)┌ ʅ(́◡◝)ʃ, Tue 26 Jan 2021, 17:45,
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Nah,
domestic mains lighting dimmers change the shape of the waveform to reduce the overall power in each AC cycle and can only be used with lamps that work with a non-sinusoidal AC supply (hence the need for dimmable LED lamps, and even then some are fussy about the waveform).
Resistive dimmers are too bulky, inefficient and get too hot to be practical in domestic lighting.
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Happosai _,,,,_(O ; o)_,,,, Mon 25 Jan 2021, 20:49,
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I once had a 'haunted' fluorescent bulb.
It started lighting intermittently (~1s) when switched off.
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FeralCatMan Unusual disease collector., Mon 25 Jan 2021, 21:02,
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Fluorescent lamps are powered via a 'ballast' circuit to limit the current supply.
They may contain capacitors which could store sufficient charge to power the lamp for a short duration after the supply voltage has been removed.
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Happosai _,,,,_(O ; o)_,,,, Mon 25 Jan 2021, 22:31,
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I'd thought of a capacitor, but it did it repeatedly.
My guess was some sort of current leakage allowing it to recharge. It died a few weeks after.
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FeralCatMan Unusual disease collector., Mon 25 Jan 2021, 23:54,
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Yeah, sounds like dodgy wiring
or your microwave oven was seriously leaking radiation!
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Happosai _,,,,_(O ; o)_,,,, Tue 26 Jan 2021, 0:40,
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https://b3ta.com/links/1559267
But I hate them buzzy dimmers.
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brb pussy in bio, Mon 25 Jan 2021, 21:36,
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