So the voltage here is fluctuating between 184 and 190 and the lamps in this house are misbehaving, or mostly are.

I have two shining down on my work area. Branded "synerji". These are dimming and getting less dim as the voltage fluctuates. In the same room another fitting has two bulbs same size, marked as same power, same lumens etc, brand "Osram". These glow just enough to let you know that they are getting an input.

In the front room there is a standard lamp with a bulb branded "ausma". This one seems completely untroubled.

Did I just write "between 184 and 190"? Make that betwee "174 and 184" now. 

Anyhoo... the other day the wife was not happy with the light she uses when knitting. And to be fair, it wasn't that great. It was a golf ball lamp with an Edison fitting. I have a few of those in the house and tried just swapping them around to see what was acceptably brighter whilst I could still override my instinct to go to a shop and spend money. This led to me noticing another difference between different brands of LED globe.

I have a situation where two fittings are fed by the same switch box. This has a double pole switch but is fed by just one cable. Effectively the switch serves as a fitter to drive the two fittings. And when the one fitting was on, the globe in the other would glow dimly. This was an ellie's globe. I'd seen this behaviour before with a CFL that had been in the same fitting, and the family electrician had told me that the fitting probably had a dodgy neutral (but it was the same neutral as the other fitting, so?). Anyway, as a result of all the swapping around, there is now a globe branded "bright star" in the same fitting. And it doesn't give the half-on glow that the ellies globe did.

So LED globes are not just sommer LED globes. Clearly built to different specs. I need to work out what the good brands are. I can tell you that it's not Osram, despite the well known (by me) name.

Whoopee! 186. Dropped to 184 before I hit the "6" key.

 

Edited July 21, 20232 yr by Bobster.

8 minutes ago, Bobster. said:

So the voltage here is fluctuating between 184 and 190 and the lamps in this house are misbehaving, or mostly are.

I have two shining down on my work area. Branded "synerji". These are dimming and getting less dim as the voltage fluctuates. In the same room another fitting has two bulbs same size, marked as same power, same lumens etc, brand "Osram". These glow just enough to let you know that they are getting an input.

In the front room there is a standard lamp with a bulb branded "ausma". This one seems completely untroubled.

Did I just write "between 184 and 190"? Make that betwee "174 and 184" now. 

Anyhoo... the other day the wife was not happy with the light she uses when knitting. And to be fair, it wasn't that great. It was a golf ball lamp with an Edison fitting. I have a few of those in the house and tried just swapping them around to see what was acceptably brighter whilst I could still override my instinct to go to a shop and spend money. This led to me noticing another difference between different brands of LED globe.

I have a situation where two fittings are fed by the same switch box. This has a double pole switch but is fed by just one cable. Effectively the switch serves as a fitter to drive the two fittings. And when the one fitting was on, the globe in the other would glow dimly. This was an ellie's globe. I'd seen this behaviour before with a CFL that had been in the same fitting, and the family electrician had told me that the fitting probably had a dodgy neutral (but it was the same neutral as the other fitting, so?). Anyway, as a result of all the swapping around, there is now a globe branded "bright star" in the same fitting. And it doesn't give the half-on glow that the ellies globe did.

So LED globes are not just sommer LED globes. Clearly built to different specs. I need to work out what the good brands are. I can tell you that it's not Osram, despite the well known (by me) name.

Whoopee! 186. Dropped to 184 before I hit the "6" key.

 

Another point to look which is major. This is if the LED is dimmable. I would guess dimmable LEDs would be less of a problem than not dimmable. The supply level affects the driver inside the bulbs. 

Try Phillips by brand and see if your problem goes away. 3 LEDs in each bulb. The worst I found were those with over 20 small LEDs. This is the only brand I can say I have now for over 8 years without a single failure. All other brands that I have tried does not make it past 9 months if the are on every night. 

Edited July 21, 20232 yr by Scorp007

As a fellow low-supply-voltage sufferer (should we start a club?), I’ve actually also experienced this and have had luck with smart bulbs (which also allow me to do app-based dimming). I use Tuya bulbs (originally purchased them to indicate load shedding - where they turn a different colour when there’s no supply. Was useful when I was running a smaller battery bank.)

 

However I’ve never gone below 199V so I’m not sure if you’ll have the same luck at your lower voltages… which might be a bit too low to operate them.

 

Likewise dimmable bulbs work well as per @Scorp007’s suggestion; albeit they go somewhat dimmer at those lower voltages and voltage fluctuations also affect brightness; whereas the smart bulbs stay at full brightness regardless of input voltage. I’ve seen specifications online that indicate Tuya-bulb voltage support all the way from 85V-265V; though this may differ from one exact bulb model to the next.

Edited July 21, 20232 yr by JayMardern