Caseta Dimmer and buzzing

[mshul]

I had an electrician install the Caseta Dimmer and now there is a buzzing noise that gets louder when I dim the bulbs. The bulbs are Cree BBR30 9.5 W LEDs which are on the list of compatible bulbs. When I had a plain switch there was no buzzing noise.

Thank You.

[Pete F.]

@mshul, Thank you for your post and we apologize for the buzzing that you are experiencing. The Cree BBR30 was tested in 2014, before the Caseta dimmers were released, so it was never tested with the dimmer and therefore, the bulb does not appear on the Compatible List. (Page 72 for the Cree bulbs that are compatible with the Caseta in-wall dimmer). In order to guarantee dimming performance, we would suggest selecting an LED that appears on the list for the dimmerm you are using.

Some LEDs experience high inrush currents. These are big spikes in power draw, when the dimmer is turned on. Our dimmers dim, by turning the lights off and on 120 times a second. With buzzing, you are actually hearing the high inrush that the LED is experiencing. You don't hear this when the LED is on a switch, because the LED is not being dimmed. I hope this information is helpful. If you have any other questions, please let us know.

[finedrive]

I purchased some Sylvania bulbs that were on the compatible list and my lights are buzzing very loudly. Is this what I am to expect from Lutron?

[SDR-Mike]

It is very hard for Lutron to keep up with every change the bulb manufacturer has. Drivers change when another is 0.5 cents a unit cheaper. The bulb manufacturer should change the part number, but they often don't- it would most likely trigger a new UL Listing (big $$). There is sometimes some trial and error when the slected bulb was tested quite some time ago. Remember, all this testing and posting of the results (and this forum site) is FREE of charge to all. Hard to keep up with the explosion of LED products and changes to existing product. LED's are still the wild wild west when it comes to designing "correctly".

[Matt R.]

Hello finedrive,

When ever we get reports that LED products that we have listed on our website are performing differently than results shown, we are very interested in knowing exactly which model number of LED you have. Would you please email the LED information into leds@lutron.com in order for use to dig into you application further?

Please let me know if you have any questions.