Jasco/GE Dimmer in larger steps?

Other Devices & Integrations Lighting & Load Control
#1

I use my GE/Jasco Dimmers with great success with Halogen bulbs (approximately 100 steps of dimming) however, trying to integrate many LED bulbs results in unsatisfactory jumps and flickering. Most of my LED bulbs seem to have 4 levels that are approximately 0%, 25%, 50%, 75% and 100%. Is there a modification to the device settings that would allow the dimmer to only move between these 4 settings? Thanks in advance for any thoughts.

#2

Are you buying dimmable LED’s? Many of them are not designed to dim…

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#3

There is a vast difference in led lamps, I find that some lamps are better than others, it is worth buying many types and seeing which works best with your dimmer. You also run into the fact that the dimmer needs a min watt level to operate correctly, this can cause flicker or even a glow in the led with the dimmer turned off.

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#4

Thank you so much for your reply. I’ve evaluate 20 odd dimmable LED lights and I am somewhat limited because I need them to be PAR-30 Short type bulbs. There are also 5 of them in parallel. I have not been able to get any of them to smoothly dim. And yes I have certainly experienced the issues you have experienced. It looks like some of the dimmers can be programmed to deal with steps so that they don’t generate the weird effects. Do you have any experience with WiFi bulbs? Maybe I just go back to a standard switch and control them with WiFi? I like Hue bulbs but they don’t come in the right form factor. Thanks so much for your input.

#5

Thanks for the thought. I had discovered that.

#6

I have a lot of experience with lamps. As LED have developed thay have tried to use old technology to dim them. It is possible to get a good low dim and no flicker, but as i said you have to go through a lot of lamps. If you are willing to settle for not so low a dim level there are more options.

You will find better control with wifi/z-wave/zigbee lamps as they are designed with their own dimming in mind.

We are seeing a slow move to wifi lamps that can be paired with a wall dimmer. This is the way i see future lamps and dimmers as it will remove the old tech dimming new lamps.

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#7

The best smart dimmer on the market by far is the Caseta Lutron dimmer. It can correctly dim pretty much anything out there, but you will have to use their hub. If you get the Pro hub you can integrate it with Vera using the lutron RA2 plugin.

#9

The OP suggests the limiting factor in this setup is the need for PAR-30 reflector bulbs, which are comparatively rare.

So, if all you are looking to do is force the light levels to {0, 25, 50, 75, 100%} then may I recommend you try these Expressions in Reactor?

lightLvlCurr  :=  getstate( 110, "urn:upnp-org:serviceId:Dimming1", "LoadLevelTarget" )

liteLvl  :=  floor( (lightLvlCurr + 24) / 25) * 25

…and use it within an Activity to set the LoadLevelTarget of your dimmer switch (here, device #110) whenever that value changes.