This morning we got the light re-mounted. Which was a biiiiiiiitch. Mr S turns to me and says - did you read the reviews on that light? I was like no - what did they say?
He says... a couple of people complained about it buzzing. The rest complained about how difficult it was to install. One guy was like - I'm an installer and this thing was ridiculous.
Which made me feel like a baller and less stupid. Because us weekend warriors aren't professionals, and you are constantly thinking professionals would get it up in a couple of hours. You also sort of learn at the last minute that you need an LED approved dimmer. Which you didn't know existed.
Our light buzzes like an angry bee, so we went out and bought the new dimmer. But that didn't fix it, so now Mr S. needs to talk to the manufacturer. I'm not sure if I won't have to take this thing down again.
So- no actual check marks for this project.
Yeah. Being an early adopter sometimes sucks. Traditional lighting designs have been pretty stagnant for quite a while now. And these LED lights have finally gotten so the light isn't a weird color. Some of them are finally getting pretty cute. But wow. I kinda would have hated to pay someone to install this thing.
ReplyDeleteI genuinely loved that sarcasm. I can't even argue that. Which is why I didn't think I needed to read light reviews. Before this weekend I didn't even know that was a thing.
ReplyDeleteLet's get sciencey about this ...
ReplyDeleteSome light reading about transformer humming noise.
My guess is that the leads to the light elements are unshielded and are kicking some DC back into the transformer that's converting your 120 VAC to whatever power standard the LED light uses internally, assuming there isn't a leak inside that gray box itself.
So maybe you can try isolating the output wires from that gray box away from the input wires and the gray box as much as possible? (I suggest doing this while it's powered down, naturally.)
If you can keep it switched on when you can keep an eye on it for several hours, that might help as well, but after that if the transformer's still buzzing, it's going to stay buzzing ...
I'm not seeing enough hardware to justify the price you had to pay, actually.
Not a bad guess.
ReplyDeleteThis whole thing makes me laugh - but wow it's sort of freaky how fast you guys found my light. I know google image search exists, (and you guys are bright) but just wow. That's hilarious. I will remember that when I post images of stupid expensive lights.
Right now the working theory is that because that dimmer is on a circuit with a bunch of other stuff like my refrigerator it's creating extra noise. I mean essentially I'm trying to tamp down the power from the house because those lights are less electricity intensive. So it seems what is needed is a more powerful dimmer to account for the other things on that circuit. 600W. Now go looking for that one and see how much it costs! I will wait for you to recover from your fainting spell.
But that light is still up! It's so cute. And everyone gets to learn some new stuff about electricity.
This is one of those projects I think it was good to try ourselves. Aside from the frustration. If I had an electrician out I would have thought he was trying to take me. Plus it's just good to keep a running tally of how hard things really are, so you know what to pay when you have to hire someone.
I was so confused by the picture in the previous post, but now the photo of it lit up I can see why it caught your eye. Glad it wasn't me installing it though!
ReplyDeleteHahaha. In the post I forgot to tell everyone that this was a literal white glove operation. Oils from your skin can damage the LEDS. We must have gone through a half a box of rubber gloves because you sweat in them. They did send you one set of white gloves, but no one on earth could install this by themselves. That is how stupid this install was.
ReplyDeletetime destroys everything. And it still might be junk....but I am a woman. It's not the worst kind of junk I could be into.
ReplyDeleteI'd like to think I gave an up and coming business a chance. I am not buying that thing to save the earth. I bought it because it was cute. And that is the type of tipping point you need for a nascent sector. And really - you need stupid people like me to work out all the bugs making it so those items become cheaper over time.
ReplyDeleteYup. "good for the environment" only counts for so much when people are buying. "looks good" and "does what I want" and the like count for WAY MORE than many many people want to admit in public!
ReplyDelete