Disappointed in progress of Lutron compatible LED bulbs.

[SparkyCoog]

I am aware of the minimum wattage requirements, but this goes beyond that. I have had 6 17 watt LED par38 bulbs on 6D dimmers and it still would get the dimmer acting randomly and blinking. It really needs to have a wired bulb(for a lack of a better term) for the electronics to function. Even putting in a 10 incandescent bulb in one of the sockets would make everything act normal so it's not a wattage issue alone.

Since thus thread is old, I thought I'd give a story last week when a customer with a QS system hired someone to install some LED trims in a room. The electrician who installed it, couldn't get the lights to come on, so he replaced them with Diva DV600 dimmers to get them to work and threw away the QS dimmers. We just noticed it and have to tell the customer. I dread having to explain to her that the high end system she bought 2-3 years ago have obsolete dimmers.

The RRD-6D has a minimum load of 50 watts. In LED lighting, 50 watts is a good bit of electricity.
The minimum load requirement is (likely) tied to the lack of a neutral wire. Triacs have a non-trivial holding-current requirement.
[In comparison, the RRD-6NA has a 5 watt minimum load, and is adaptive (leading and trailing edge support), but requires a neutral.]

[ekimla]

Hi Sparky:

Your situation sucks indeed and I wish there were better answers. I think that the upcoming Nema SSL-7A standard might help us all:

http://www.lutron.com/en-US/Educatio...01%20FINAL.pdf

[SparkyCoog]

I just noticed my last reply and auto-correct was not kind to me! Anyway, I really wish they come out with some sort of solution whether it's a small resistor that can go between the switch leg and the neutral or actually sit down and work with an LED manufacturer and come up with just one model number that can work with Lutron. Since I wrote this, I have gone to two Lutron events - a QS and a Caseta training show and in each one, Lutron was just absolutely bragging about being the leader in dimming LED's and they had this whole dog and pony show trying out the "competitor's" dimmer vs. the shiny new Neutral-free Lutron dimmer and there was clapping and applause, but they are ignoring their existing customers and I feel their reputation is in the line. Part of being the leader is to consider not just future jobs but keeping existing customers happy. Every time existing dimmers was brought up, there would be crickets and a look of annoyance as if "How dare you not clap for these new dimmers?".

I still don't know how to explain this to a customer. She's going to say "The electrician I hired to put in the LED fixtures told me the $150 dimmers you sold me don't work, but the $20 dimmer from Home Depot he put in works. Why is that?" I can't throw the other electrician under the bus for not consulting with us first because from his point of view, he was hired to put in LED trims. I really don't know if Lutron is not aware of this disaster waiting to happen once others start upgrading en-mass or they actually have the hubris to think they can sell the same system twice to customers.

[SparkyCoog]

It's been almost a year since I started this thread and have not heard any official solution from Lutron yet. Again, I'm asking for just one model LED that works with a regular maestro dimmer. It could be A19, Par30, Par38, retrofit trim, or whatever. Out of all the major LED light bulb brands and all the fly by night ones, Lutron, I'm asking for one light bulb that works with already installed dimmers without replacing that dimmer. Is there any progress in that or does Lutron going to not answer this and hope that in a few years nobody will care?

[Steve S.]

It's been almost a year since I started this thread and have not heard any official solution from Lutron yet. Again, I'm asking for just one model LED that works with a regular maestro dimmer. It could be A19, Par30, Par38, retrofit trim, or whatever. Out of all the major LED light bulb brands and all the fly by night ones, Lutron, I'm asking for one light bulb that works with already installed dimmers without replacing that dimmer. Is there any progress in that or does Lutron going to not answer this and hope that in a few years nobody will care?

Thank you for the feedback. Through testing, Lutron has found a couple of bulbs to be compatible with non-neutral based system dimmers, such as the RRD-6D. Below are the report cards (although note that some bulbs will have a minimum requirement of 2 to operate).
http://www.lutron.com/en-US/ResourceLibrary/LEDReportCard/Report%20Card%20TCP%201411%20PAR38%20LED17P38D41KF L%2017W%202014%20JUN%20RevA.pdf
http://www.lutron.com/en-us/Resource...MAR%20RevA.pdf
http://www.lutron.com/en-US/Resource...MAY%20RevA.pdf
http://www.lutron.com/en-US/Resource...MAR%20RevA.pdf

[SparkyCoog]

Thank you for the feedback. Through testing, Lutron has found a couple of bulbs to be compatible with non-neutral based system dimmers, such as the RRD-6D. Below are the report cards (although note that some bulbs will have a minimum requirement of 2 to operate).
http://www.lutron.com/en-US/ResourceLibrary/LEDReportCard/Report%20Card%20TCP%201411%20PAR38%20LED17P38D41KF L%2017W%202014%20JUN%20RevA.pdf
http://www.lutron.com/en-us/Resource...MAR%20RevA.pdf
http://www.lutron.com/en-US/Resource...MAY%20RevA.pdf
http://www.lutron.com/en-US/Resource...MAR%20RevA.pdf

Wow, thanks for looking these up. 2 lights is no problem at all. I will save these and give them to our customers.