Electricity question: Flickering Light

Apr 07, 2004 2 Replies
C

My wife recently bought a very nice light for our newly redone office. This light requires only to be touched to be turned on and off - no manual switch. We put a fluorescent bulb in it and it worked great.



The only problem is that when the ceiling fan is on and the light is off, the light will flicker like a strobe. I also noticed that when I pull the chain on the fain, I sometimes hear a loud pop in my computer speakers. We ended up returning the light to the store, but that doesn't solve the mystery.



What wold cause this? Poor insolation between wires? A bad diy job from past owners?



Thanks, C



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B

Electric motors can place electric pulses or "noise" on your electric lines. This can cause problems with electronic devices. (Your lamp had an electronic "touch" control.) You can get a noise filter such as the following for your plug-in stuff...

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Or a noise filter for your ceiling fan...
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C

According to C :

It's not likely to be anything to do with the wiring per-se.

"Touch buttons" are extremely sensitive devices (often very sensitive circuitry trying to detect capacitance), and may misbehave in the presence/close proximity of anything generating electrical noise (like a ceiling fan motor or ceiling fan speed adjuster). Or even a dimmer. Over the wire, or radiated.

As the other poster suggested, an AC-filter on the lamp is likely to solve the problem. But not guaranteed.

Using a fluorescent bulb in it may make the sensitivity worse - because they're electrically noisy themselves (in certain ways). So, experiment if you want to try again.

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