Dimming 12 or 24 VDC LED lighting

Here’s one of the common questions our customers have about LED lighting: I’m confused about which dimmers I need. When do I use your Zane dimming products, when do I use the dimmable magnetic transformers you offer, and what is the Lumia dimmer you offer for? Today’s article will discuss what type of dimmer will work for a particular LED lighting application. Many different LED products are now available with an option for dimming. That doesn’t mean that any dimmer will work with every product.

The easiest way to determine what kind of dimmer to use is to understand what kind of power is required by the LED device. For example, if you are considering installing a LED light fixture that accepts household power or what is called “line voltage”, that would mean that it accepts 120 Volts AC. Common examples of this would be the use of a wall dimmer switch with a dining room chandelier. In this case, you might be using dimmable LED light bulbs in the chandelier. Or perhaps you’ve installed our 120VAC input dimmable LED ceiling lights. In this case, you would use our “Lumia” wall dimmer. We have had great success with this dimmer because it was designed specifically for use with LEDs. We have seen where some conventional, non-LED dimmers perform poorly with LEDs. You may experience flicker at the low end of the dimming cycle or an undesirable hum. There are other LED products that operate on low voltage (12 Volts DC or 24 Volts DC). If those products are dimmable and most of them are, then there are two approaches to dim these products. The first decision is to decide if you want a wall dimmer/switch requiring a dimmable power supply (magnetic) or you if you wish to use a regulated (electronic) power supply with our Zane low voltage (rheostat) dimmer. Both approaches are very useful and both approaches have their own advantages. Here’s an example of each approach

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Let’s say you are installing low voltage product such as flexible LED strip inside a cabinet to light the objects on the shelving, and wish to be able to adjust the light level. You may move that piece of furniture from time to time, so in this case, a low voltage dimmer used in conjunction with an AC-DC transformer would be ideal. There will be no hard wiring involved. AC-DC transformers can be plugged into an outlet and easily moved. It is important to know that the low voltage dimmer is installed in between the product and the transformer output. It is not the line voltage you will be dropping, but the voltage to the LED product itself. 

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On the other hand, a more permanent lighting installation such as our 24VDC LED flush mount ceiling fixtures, is more conducive to using our Lumia dimmer/switch in conjunction with a dimmable magnetic transformer. The dimmable magnetic transformer is installed behind the wall or in attic space above and you typically have easy access to the wall where the dimmer/switch would be installed. The Lumia dimmer blends right in with your existing wall plates and switches and is ascetically pleasing. We always recommend that for your safety, you employ a qualified electrician when working with any product that makes a connection to line voltage. Do you have questions about LED lighting we can help you with? Email us your “Ask a LED Tech” questions.

By: John Cody