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Dimmer Issue Hatch 12 Volt Driver Control
I have a customer who has recently installed lighting fixtures from a company called Contrast Lighting that use MR16 led 12 volt AC lamps as the light source ..... the driver for the lamps is apparently electronic 120 to 12 vac manufactured by Hatch.
The circuit incorporates a single Lurton LED dimmer ( not electronic low voltage ) and number of 4 way switches and a standard 3 way switch.
The customer lowers the lighting to its lowest dimmed level available ..... if he turns the lights off at one of the devices on the circuit including at the dimmer and then turns them back on again the lights will not come back on until the dimmer slide is moved upward to at least half way.
Apparently this his is not an issue if the dimmer is at 50% light output or greater.
Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
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Authorized Lutron Contributor
Hello John,
Dimming MR16 LEDs can be a big issue since they are all being manufactured differently, and so the dimming performance will vary greatly from one to the next. Many LEDs on the market (including ones labeled as dimmable) have issues when placed on dimming controls. On top of that, MR16 LEDs are generally one of the toughest types of LED to dim. The issue with these lamps is due to the interdependencies between the lamp, transformer, and dimmer. Only certain transformers work OK on a given LED MR16 and even then, only certain dimmers will work. Also, the MR16 lamps generally have some shimmer as you dim down.
All of our recommendations can be found on the following application note. Anything outside of this application note is considered untested, and therefore we are unable to guarantee LED compatibility in those applications.
http://www.lutron.com/TechnicalDocum...ary/048559.pdf
Another option would be to keep one of the MR16 bulbs a halogen. In most cases by keeping just one halogen bulb installed, you will get a much better and stabilized performance because these types of bulbs are resistive and act like a line filter. Please note that if you do keep one halogen it will dim lower than the LED bulbs and the color temp may not match.
Hope this information helps!
-JustinF