Advice ref blinking lights all circuits

[Lukeowl]

Hi there,


I should start by saying I am not an electrician, but am after some advice as we have a problem that we aren’t getting any answers on.

In January, we had a new fuse board installed to replace an old edition one. This is a recent Wylex model with circuit breakers. The electricians who installed it also added some outdoor lights, a couple of sockets in the kitchen and updated a few sockets around the house for us.

Approx 10 days after the work completed we began to notice intermittent blinking on lights across both upstairs and downstairs lights and on lamps plugged into sockets. There is no rhyme nor reason to the blink – it doesn’t matter if any appliances are running or none, so we’ve ruled out a surge due to boiler, fridge, etc.

We spoke with the electrician who did the work, they inspected the connections at the board and said everything looked fine and they suggested it was likely to be a supply issue. Powergrid came out, inspected and setup voltage recording device and left that running for about 8 days. They say that there is no fluctuations from their side that would cause “flicker” so have said it’s not an issue from their end.

I’ve spoken with the electricians who did the install again, but they seem void of any idea on what to look for or what could be causing this problem.

Does anyone on this forum have experience of similar issues being related to anything non-supply related – so from the board onward internally? Is it possible a fault could be present on the board itself?

From searching google, there’s lots of suggestions that flicker on all circuits including sockets is likely to be a supply issue, but this isn’t really what I’d call a flicker. It’s a very short blink. More noticeable on filament bulbs than the LED types. Not ever so frequent enough to cause headaches or anything, but frustrating, annoying and worrying as I have 2 young kids and I am really paranoid about electrical safety (which is kind of the reason we had the old fuseboard replaced in the first place!).

Thanks in advance for any advice or ideas offered.

 

[ipf]

I realise that, but thought as no conclusion was reached it may be helpful to resurrect the thread to see if knowledge of this type of problem had improved over the last eighteen months or so.

Plenty of people have come across this sort of problem....and corrected it successfully, generally finding a fault such as one of those already mentioned in the thread.

 

[Mike Johnson]

I cured the flashing in one set by the use of a capacitor across the terminals of one lamp, there was no fault to correct on this particular installation.

 

[ipf]

I cured the flashing in one set by the use of a capacitor across the terminals of one lamp, there was no fault to correct on this particular installation.

But this was general, throughout the house, not one lamp...or one circuit , even.……...anyway, it's all in the past

 

[Mike Johnson]

As far as I understood it started to happen when the OP changed one circuit to LED's from halogen, not generally throughout the house?

 

[ipf]

As far as I understood it started to happen when the OP changed one circuit to LED's from halogen, not generally throughout the house?

You’ve lost me there. Have you read the opening post?

 

[static zap]

Since I've had a power cut recently , I notice every flicker of my under powered lounge LED lamp.
(some of the more expensive Dimmable Lamps seem to smooth this out !)

 

[Mike Johnson]

You’ve lost me there. Have you read the opening post?

I have re-read it and find that I was the one lost, not you, sorry for the miss-understanding.

 

[DPG]

I have re-read it and find that I was the one lost, not you, sorry for the miss-understanding.

We all do that sometimes, I wouldn't worry about it.

 

[SparkyAndGeorge]

I cured the flashing in one set by the use of a capacitor across the terminals of one lamp, there was no fault to correct on this particular installation.

This is 'capacitive coupling' when a LED will flash or strobe at set intervals, likely every 1-2 seconds. The OP did say their flashes were completely random so unlikely to be the same kind of fault.

 

[Mike Johnson]

The ones I cured would flash at random times, sometimes as much as an hour apart.