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One by
one, the deal-breakers for LED lights has fallen and one of
the most important of these was the ability to offer
dimmable lights. The ability to dim lights can be line in
the sand for some spaces in terms of type of lighting and
original LED lights did not have this capacity. New
advances now offer two ways to do it and our built in
dimmable electronics is the cleaner of the two. Let's take
a look at newly improved world of dimmable LEDs.
Dimmable bulbs and fixtures are now commonplace in
residential lighting (think halogen kitchen spots) and
across the commercial and retail space. Basically, anywhere
you need more control over light intensity is a valid
opportunity for dimmable bulbs. The inability of LED lights
to match this quality of incandescents was originally a
problem. We say incandescents (halogens included) since
fluorescents and CFL's either do not have the ability to dim
or will show a drastic change in color or quality of light.
The whole purpose of a ballast is to regulate the voltage
and insure a minimum level to the bulbs so trying to reduce
this input or "dim" the bulb is not compatible with the
function of fluorescent lights. Not true for LEDs.
LED's
are pretty simple electronic devices. The diode converts
electrons into photons so reducing the output of photons
without changing the color of wavelength of light is an
electronic one. The ability to dim LED lights is just a
function of attenuating or controlling the input. We have
two options. first, the work-around. There are actual
interfaces you can screw into the socket and then screw your
LED bulb directly into this interface socket. You can then
manually adjust or set the dimming quality for that
individual light as needed. This is more of a specific use
where you want to dial in a light intensity area by area.
Some cases like restaurants or certain retail solutions may
require this level of control but for most needs, a global
dimming mechanism at the socket is preferred where you can
dim an entire room or bank of lights at one time. This is
the standard set-up for most existing incandescent dimmable
lighting so we want to be able to match this to avoid having
the sub out the existing lighting architecture. Good news.
We can now for most standard dimmable form factors. Make
sure when you do your lighting inventory to specifiy if a
light is dimmable or not so we can quote your project
correctly. Dimmable LED lights are more expensive as they
electronic components allowing this flexibility are built
right into the light. On average, you can expect a small
difference in price to add the dimming capacity. You can
see the different for a given bulb type in price at our LED
light prices page.
One
note. It's important not to put a non-dimmable LED bulb in
a dimmable (global) socket and then adjust the light
intensity as this will blow the LED light bulb. Again, this
doesn't apply to the socket that has a secondary interface
between the bulb and the light fixture. Another important
aspect of our dimmable bulbs deals with color of light. We
have customers that buy a 2700 Kelvin (generally the warmest
available LED light) and then dim it down a bit to produce
an even warmer quality of light since LED's are very bright
in nature. This is probably a truer light representation of
very warm incandescents than to color tune the Kelvin down
below 2700. You can always order some samples to test the
right light quality for your space.
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