Hi, I set up a bunch of inovelli blue dimmers a few months ago, overall they work great! But I do have some lights that flicker a lot, especially at low brightness. I have a neutral wire setup, which led me to believe this wouldn’t be an issue. It might just be because my place has weird sockets and I’m forced to use these crappy bulbs…
I was looking into it, and came across this bypass. The product page (and a bit of googling) seems to suggest it would help with my flickering issues. Before I pull the trigger and buy some of these, I have a few questions!
Will this actually help with flickering when I have a neutral wire?
Am I correct in assuming I only need one of these per Inovelli switch, but I would wire it up at one of the light receptacles?
Are there guides on how to wire this in? I like to be 1000% sure before I go messing with wiring.
This might be the wrong place to ask this but… it seems like a pretty simple component for $28. are there any cheaper alternatives out there?
Officially, it’s only for use with non-neutral setups, as are similar products — which, as you’re wondering about, do exist. The Fibaro Bypass and Lutron Minimum Load Capacitor (LUT-MLC) are two others I’m aware of besides the Aeotec you linked to, plus Inovelli is supposed to be coming out with their own soon. It seems you might be in Canada, so availability may vary, as will price; I don’t know if they’re cheaper, and perhaps there are other options.
As for the rest of your questions, you should indeed only need one. It looks like Aeotec has wiring instructions on their site. They show European wiring, but the idea should be the same for US and Canada (just note any terminology differences), and I’d be surprised if it didn’t come with localized in-box instructions, though I don’t remember mine.
A couple other ideas to consider, although not quite what you asked:
At a relative’s house, I just swapped one of the LEDs for a halogen, and it took care of the problem without more re-wiring — at the expensive one of the bulbs looking a bit different at extremely low levels, but possibly only because I know where to look (I don’t actually remember if this was no-neutral or neutral with still odd behavior, and I think it was the G2 Red Series, so different hardware than you.)
Swapping the bulbs out for different ones known to play well with leading-edge dimming — all you’ll get with no-neutral setups, otherwise it would be configurable) might help, although it looks like these are supposed to, too. Your luck just tends to vary more with lesser known brands.
Thanks! All that info is super helpful. I might as well give it a shot as, unfortunately, I am VERY limited on bulb choices due to the rather odd sockets I have here.
The other issue is it might be the transformer’s fault. Most electronic transformers have minimum loads, and you might find that using a smaller transformer is needed when going all the way down to 6W bulbs. Swapping out transformers might be the easiest fix, but it’s going to cost a lot more than just using different bulbs.
The bulbs that you linked are low voltage bulbs, which means they are being driven by a transformer. Inovelli dimmers are not rated for transformer loads. So your issue is not the bulbs. Your issue is that you are using the dimmer to attempt to drive a load that it is not rated for.
If you want to dim that load, you need an ELV or MLV dimmer, depending on the transformer. If you want to use an Inovelli switch, then wait for the on/off switch which will be released shortly.
Huh! There’s really not a lot of options for these MR16 bulbs, especially no higher voltage ones. I’m guessing because they’re usually used in a setup with a transformer…
Didn’t realize that would be an issue for dimmers. To be fair, they do work fine as long as I don’t dim em too low.
The on/off switch you’re referring to is… just for on/off right? I’d still much prefer to have dimming, even if I can’t really go lower than 20%.
I just rent this place, so tbh I might as well just stick with what I have, any more major changes to the electrical setup here would be a waste of time and money. Thanks for the advice everyone!
