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Can someone ELI5 why often lights set up with a dimmer also flicker? (mander.xyz)

submitted 2 months ago by Mothra@mander.xyz to c/asklemmy@lemmy.ml

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Seen this in many houses, people upgrade their lighting setup and install a dimmer. Which works. But usually it also makes the lights flicker unintentionally, which is super annoying IMO.

Now, my understanding of electrical engineering is pretty rudimentary so I'd appreciate more something that explains the concept in a way that Cavewoman Mothra can understand rather than something technically accurate.

Thanks

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[–] slazer2au@lemmy.world 66 points 2 months ago (11 children)

Power coming into the house is AC which means 50-60 times a second the power goes from +110/240V to -110/240v.

LED lights run off DC power, so to change the power type a capacitor is somewhere that holds enough charge to keep the item working until the AC power is back to a usable positive value.

Dimmers limit the power going to the light, so the capacitor doesn't charge enough to keep the light and circuitry on for the full negative swing of AC power.

This is ungodly rudimentary, and corrections are welcome. There is also many nuances I am missing.

[–] Mothra@mander.xyz 7 points 2 months ago (6 children)

Thanks, some of this makes sense. But why is it then not constantly flickering? They usually flicker for, say, five seconds then they stop flickering for 20 then they flicker again and so on. Or they flicker for like a minute then they're fine for a couple more minutes, then back again flickering. The timings vary a lot from house to house.

[–] Admetus@sopuli.xyz 8 points 2 months ago

Building on their comment, perhaps the capacitor is building up energy and dissipates it every 20 seconds. Like beats in resonance when you hear a pulsing in the volume when a guitar plays a single note or chord.

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