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traviswalken

Can dimmer damage led fixtures?

traviswalken
12 years ago

Please be patient with my terminology and spelling. I am not much of an electrician!

I am in the middle of a kitchen remodel and installed 5 of these lights: http://www.homedepot.com/h_d1/N-5yc1v/R-202823462/h_d2/ProductDisplay?langId=-1&storeId=10051&catalogId=10053

They are manufactured by Lighting Science Group.

After installing the lights, I installed a Lutron dimmer made for dimmable led's and flouresent lights. The dimmer did not work. I then checked the instructions that came with the lights and found that the dimmer I installed was not listed among the dimmers compatable with the lights.

A couple days ago, I realized that the kitchen lighting circuit had current on the neutral (white) wire (50-60 volts). I troubleshot for a couple hours and couldn't figure out the cause. I then hired an electrician who troubleshot for a couple hours. We finally narrowed down the problem to the led fixtures. When we removed the led fixtures and replaced them with incandescent bulbs, the problem was solved. We added the fixtures one at a time and narrowed the problem to 3 of the 5 fixtures.

Either the fixtures were manufactured incorrectly, or I damaged the fixtures. What do you think?