MR16 LED Help please!

Martin Bleasdale · Feb 17, 2019

Good evening,

We are renovating our house and I replaced the halogen MR16 bulbs with Philips LED dimmable version in one of the bedrooms. Once fitted they appeared to work fine. I left them on and came back to the room to find it in darkness and now noting works. (Even tried replacing the old halogen bulbs) The lighting on on a 1 gang 2 way dimmer set up with 2 dimmers operating the lights.

Hopefully someone can help!

Many Thanks
Martin

SparkyChick · Feb 17, 2019

So, unless you upgraded the transformers for the lights to dimmable LED compatible ones and are using a dimmer capable of driving such things, you could have damaged the transformers or the dimmers.

SparkyChick · Feb 17, 2019

Welcome to the forums by the way

If you want a product recommendation, I generally go for Varilight dimmers and their transformers which are dimmable LED compatible.

Martin Bleasdale · Feb 17, 2019

Thanks for the reply. How would I know what I need to replace?

Wilko · Feb 17, 2019

Hi Martin - you have just witnessed the unfortunate lack of interworking with lights. If you felt able, you could perhaps replace the dimmer with a switch and see if that works. Take pics of the connections before starting and before that make sure the power is off ....

dinger809 · Feb 17, 2019

It reads there, that you have two dinners on the same 2 way circuit, is that the case?

Martin Bleasdale · Feb 17, 2019

Thanks Wilko. I’m gutted, the led bulbs were expensive but I thought it would be a good idea and efficient in the long run. To have them fail within 5 minutes!

I’ve tonight treplaced one of the dimmers (the main one) for a varilight one from Screwfix and so far nothing!

Martin Bleasdale · Feb 17, 2019

Hi Dinger809,

Yes one dimmer next to the bedroom door and one dimmer on the wall next to the bed

dinger809 · Feb 17, 2019

You cannot have two dinners operating the same lights, they will conflict with each other and burn out the dimmer, transformer or both. One needs to be a switch only

Martin Bleasdale · Feb 18, 2019

Dinger809 Thanks that’s interesting, it was like this when we moved in and it worked only ok (did flicker a bit) with the halogen bulbs.

May be worth replacing both switches then and one of them with a ‘normal’ on off switch?

Many Thanks

SparkyChick · Feb 18, 2019

If you've not got any test gear, it might be worth employing the services of a local (preferably recommended by family/friends/colleague) spark to check the various components to establish exactly what's wrong.