Help! Why the flicker?

[The Natural Philosopher]

AH!. A steady flicker...that appears once the units are warm? Bet its a weird oscillation in the electronic transformers.

Ditch em and get some other ones.

[The Natural Philosopher]

Ditto. I have some electronic ballasts in fluorescents that do this. Till they warm up.

[The Natural Philosopher]

90p, but mine seem to have infinite life. Newey and Eyre

[Chris Oates]

Yes the little ones - I always buy open faced as they're not used in bathrooms - the address is

buy 20 at a time. they may refuse to deal with you or not have any. nothing to lose by asking though

[norm]

Clutching at straws here but....you are running from two smpsu/transformer things. If you disconnect one then does the other continue to flicker in the same manner ?

I wonder if what you are seeing is some kind of beat frequency as the frequency of the 'transformer' output drifts as it warms up.

They could start of very close to being in phase with each other then drift at different rates.

I'll admit it seems unlikely, but you never know.

n

[Bill Gardener]

Took out one of the lamps from each set and the flicker stops. So although the transformer is rated at 150W and the lamps at 50W each. The transfomer can't cope with three lamps.

Bloody ridiculous.

Thanks for everybodies help,

Bill

[The Natural Philosopher]

Yep. On the limit stuff. I buy from Newey or another electrical distributor for this stuff. They don't stock total crap usually.

>

[Andy Hall]

Was this an electronic type, Bill?

.andy

To email, substitute .nospam with .gl

[Bill Gardener]

Yes

[Andy Hall]

So presumably dropping out of regulation or some other funny effect, I'd be inclined to return it, since it shouldn't do this...... .andy

To email, substitute .nospam with .gl

[Ed Sirett]

You might get away with replacing the 50W with 35W. IME there is a required derating for electronic 12V supplies of 30%. The figure is 0% for low tech Xformers, which can still be dimmed with the right type of dimmer.

[Mike Tomlinson]

In article , Bill Gardener writes

I have three in-cupboard 20w LV halogen lights in my kitchen. The two connected to one electronic transformer (SMPSU) don't flicker; the third one, connected to its own transformer, does. The flicker is a random changing in brightness.

Swapping the transformers and bulbs over didn't cure it; the flicker stayed with the lone fitting and I put it down to the transformer being under-loaded and not regulating properly. Since it's only in-cupboard lighting, I haven't let the flicker worry me; it would be very irritating if it were in general room illumination though.