In everyday lighting, have you ever noticed that LED lights don't emit a steady, continuous glow, but instead flicker? This phenomenon is commonly known as LED flicker. Many people are confused about why perfectly good LED lights flicker. Don't worry, we'll explain the reasons in detail below.
Dimmer Compatibility Issues
LED lights flickering during dimming is a common occurrence. First, it's important to understand that not all LED lights have a dimming function. If you notice an unusually high frequency of flickering in your LED, it's likely that you've connected a non-dimmable LED bulb to a dimmer, causing incompatibility and flickering.
The type of dimmer is also crucial. Avoid using dimmers designed for halogen lamps. This is because the rated power of halogen dimmers is much higher than the power required by LEDs. Using them to adjust the brightness of LEDs can easily cause flickering due to the power mismatch. Therefore, if you want stable LED dimming, be sure to choose a dimmer specifically designed for LEDs to fundamentally avoid flickering during dimming. Power supply voltage fluctuations
Unstable power supply voltage is also a major factor causing LED flicker. It's important to note that modern LED lights are extremely sensitive to variations in power supply voltage, detecting even the slightest voltage fluctuation, which manifests as a change in brightness. However, the flickering caused by this is not continuous.
For example, when high-power appliances like a washing machine and refrigerator are running simultaneously, the voltage in the circuit will briefly fluctuate, causing the LED light to flicker. Once the high-power appliances are operating normally and the voltage stabilizes, the LED light will return to normal brightness. Essentially, this type of LED flicker caused by power supply voltage fluctuations is not a serious problem and causes minimal damage to the lamp itself.
If you still want to address this issue, there's a simple solution: connect your large appliances and LED lighting circuits to separate power circuits. This effectively prevents the high-power appliances from affecting the LED light supply voltage when they start, reducing flickering.
LED Light Faults
Of course, LED flickering isn't always caused by external factors; it can also be caused by a malfunction in the lamp itself. If an LED light in your home previously worked properly but has recently started flickering frequently, it's likely that the driver inside the fixture is faulty.
The driver, as the core power component of an LED light, is responsible for converting external AC power into DC power suitable for LED light generation. A problem with this driver directly affects the LED light's performance. Driver failure is often caused by prolonged overheating of the LED light. For example, improper heat dissipation design, prolonged use in high-temperature environments, or obstruction of the light's surroundings that impedes heat dissipation can all lead to driver damage.
For LED lights with a faulty driver, repair options vary depending on the driver's installation method. For LED lights equipped with a removable external controller (driver), simply replacing the controller with a matching controller will usually restore normal operation. However, if the driver is internal and tightly integrated with the light itself, making it impossible to remove and replace, the light is essentially worthless and requires a replacement.
