Lightwaverf delay in switching on

dave77

Just fitted a new lightwaverf smart series dimmer. When clicking on it takes a second or 2 before there's any light then it winds itself up to full brightness. Is this delay normal?

ufo550

Not much experience with Lightwave dimmers, but most decent dimmers have a 'soft start' mode. Prevents high loads going through dimmer, when lamps have a catastrophic failure, and so prevents damage to dimmer. Mostly typical with halogen lamps, but LED lamps do have a microsecond surge on start up.

Ask Lightwave technical, found them quite helpful.

dave77

Sorry, I meant the ~2 second delay before any light whatsoever. I knew they start low and gradually get brighter.

ufo550

Don't know then. >2 second does seem nanosecondly long, if you get my drift. Give Lightwave a bell.

dave77

Yeah will do on Monday, was just wondering if anyone else could confirm this was normal before I fit the others. I doubt the other half will approve at the moment, the previous hue bulbs with wall mounted dimmers get instant light.

Chester

The lamps you use make quite a difference, and the brightness level as well.  For example, switch to full brightness, you may notice that your lamps come on really quickly.  Switch on to the lowest calibrated level, they might take considerably longer.

The advantage with Hue and similar systems is that the controllers are in each lamp and have all of the power they need all of the time.  It's much more of a challenge controlling LEDs by a 'remote' dimmer.

dave77

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Cheers, had it on 40%, faster when up'd to 65, the bulbs don't like the highest level, Philips Master LED's.

Chester

Depends on how many you have in the circuit.  If they are starting to flicker or the dimmer resets (goes green), manually calibrate the maximum level lower.  That way you can tap the on/up button when they're already on to go straight to the brightest level.

dave77

Just 1 bulb. Yeah it reset at 85, the default 3rd level.

PC Nut

Had similar issue when my local server was down (unreacable) and was using light waverf backup server