LED Lights and Garage Door Opener???

first,

going to

red one

Depends a bit on the locale, mature city, county and state level systems were on a regular, say 6 month, complete relamping schedule. The maintenance crew took the old lamps home where lasted for decades. LED signal modules however have a 5 or more year replacement schedule, think of what that might mean to say San Francisco, New York or Chicago.

LEDs ?

more

Nope. Same lamp in all signal sections (unless of different diameter). MRO spares item control issues.

Different cities probably did it differently. I know that Irvine didn't change out the yellows till years after the green and red.

Charlie

...because they're really 130V (or thereabouts), right?

Do you happen to know what the incadescence bulb replacement schedule is? I recall reading once it's astonishingly short, to make the likelihood of a bulb outage almost nil. (Although it seems like having, e.g., two filaments -- and detection of when one or the other went out to call for expedited replacement -- might have been cheaper?)

---Joel

I think the all-red interval is the replacement for the green-yellow. One is not to enter an intersection on red, where with the green-yellow one doesn't run a yellow. The only advantage of the green-yellow over the all-ways red is that it can be seen. That's its disadvantage too; it will be run.

one

I've seen several red LED lamps fail in the same location in a little over a year, each. I'm starting to see green LEDs failing as well.

Chicago.

is? I=20

a bulb=20

-- and=20

I stated that a six month incandescent relamping schedule was common (at least for red and green sections), as are various lengths up to one year. In well implemented signals there is always at least two instances of every indication. This is actually policy in most places in the US and regulation or even statute in some others.

Now if you want to talk about navigation lighting there are automatic bulb changers that are loaded with as many as ten spare lamps. Even these are changing to LED lamps instead, specified to get graceful degradation and very long life (physical access to the lighting unit is rather challenging for many of these).

LEDs ?

first,

more

Damn, that can be misread. I was talking about incandescent lamps through the colored lenses.

=46or LED vehicular signal modules see (for example):=20

and select 86-385_E_T06-05-09.doc for the MSWord document specifying LED vehicular signal modules in detail.

were

bulbs.=20

suspected

Groovy, glad you got it sorted. I just wish that you had come to USENET more directly. It is a really fun and hugely varied place, but it is NOT world wide web. It predates www and cannot really follow www rules having a well developed rule set of its own already.

Hi!

I had the same problem after installing LED lights around the house. Fortunately, I found a solution that's working fine for me and its cheaper than replacing all remotes I have at home:

I even can open and close the garage door from anywhere with my iPhone and receive alerts. Not many remotes have these features...

And especially red/green colorblind folks, who need the 'stop at the top' feature. About ten percent of the male population...

If you use a trailing edge IGBT dimmer, most CFLs work fine.

Every CFL I have ever seen will dim nicely if you use a Variac.

.... Phil

A company I own tracks down external uplink interference for some of the la rger cellular carriers. Your garage door opener issue is a known problem w ith those little LED landscape lights. Go back to the original lights or s hield (screen) the LED fixtures and your problem should go away. If you're dead-set on keeping your lights, you might get lucky and have the type of garage door opener that allows you to relocate/reorient its receive antenna . If so, relocating that antenna closer to the driveway may help.

FYI - I've not seen these LED lights affect a cell site but one of my neigh bors who knows I'm in the business had your same complaint. We checked it out with a portable spectrum analyzer and directional antenna and indeed, t he LED landscape fixtures were the problem.

For those interested in these sorts of things, LTE-700 cell sites get hit a ll the time by GE UltraMax brand flourescent ballasts. That's the closest thing I can think of as an analogy to your situation - so you can rest easi er about not smoking something.... The FCC eventually cited GE for the pro blem, but not until after they had manufacturered thousands (maybe hundreds of thousands?) of them. That said, I'm not aware of any "UltraMax vs. Gar age Door Opener" problems, but I suppose it's possible. GDO's are certifie d to either FCC Part-15, or maybe Part-18 Rules for the really large door o peners, and all those bands offer fairly little in the way of interference protection. I suspect the LED fixtures are Part-15 as well - and possibly never tested for emissions by their (Chinese?) manufacturers.

Sounds like your culprit is the landscape lighting.

I haven't tried using different dimmer types with different bulbs, but I have tried multiple devices of both types labeled "works with most dimmers" or "works with most CFL/LED dimmable bulbs". None worked properly.

I even bought an LED recessed lamp that said it worked with specific models of dimmers and bought one of those. It didn't work correctly, staying off until half the control range then coming on more than gradually. They also had an irregularity in lighting at dim levels, almost flickering a bit. Unfortunately this dimmer has a neon bulb in the switch to find it in the dark which is *more* than enough current to turn the LED into a night light. lol

I even wrote to both companies about the discrepancy and received nothing but recommendations for other units.

We've tried "dimmable CFL floodlamps" (e.g., BR30's). The lowest dimmer setting appears to leave the lamps OFF or on at almost half intensity! (those that are OFF will lite when the dimmer setting moves some small epsilon above "lowest setting")

By contrast, the incandescent lamps (BR30's and R20's) that we use heavily, emit just the right amount of light at "lowest setting" to serve as "area nightlights" for houseguests who would be unfamiliar with our floor plan and the hazzards it poses to navigate "in the dark" if they arise at night -- and want to avoid the bright light of even a single of the "dimmable" CFL's.

Hmmm... I hadn't considered that! Most of our light switches are "three ways" (SPDT) with built-in illuminators.

I bought some "early" LED lamps (the sorts that are enormous heat sinks) and was unhappy with the light output and its color. (I recognize both of these issues have probably changed in the years since)

However, given the lousy experience with CFL's (even those that we don't dim -- but burn out regularly!), I wasn't eager to try yet another "marketing experiment".

most

to

Having played with triac dimmers and magnetic ballast fluorescent as a kid the serious non-linear properties are familiar to me. I never tried to dim CFLs. Few LED lamps dim properly with triac conduction angle dimmers either. Few modern "lamp designers" get it about the required properties yet.

?-)

Sure they do... check out chip iW3617 ...Jim Thompson

-- | James E.Thompson | mens | | Analog Innovations | et | | Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC's and Discrete Systems | manus | | San Tan Valley, AZ 85142 Skype: skypeanalog | | | Voice:(480)460-2350 Fax: Available upon request | Brass Rat | | E-mail Icon at

I think there's just too much in that "technology" that has been derived

We use CFL's in the kitchen for *most* of the overhead lights -- all but two (which are incandescent for the express purpose of being able to dim them to the same "nightlight" level that we use elsewhere in the house. The CFL's are acceptable in that other application (full intensity) though we haven't been happy with their longevity (i.e., they are only economical with gummit or some other "subsidy" that makes them "free")

We'll let the LED market mature for a while longer before we repeat the CFL mistake (we've got a boatload of incandescents on hand "just in case"). I'd purchased an LED "step light" with the intent of installing it as a permanent "night light" in the bedroom hallway (make it easy for guests to find their way to the bathroom without having to burn the incandescents at that low level). But, it has proven to be a disappointment -- comes on at too bright an ambient light level and itself is too bright!

I still have CFL's because they last a long time. I think I have two that suffered infant mortality. But at this point I am not buying any new ones. It will be LEDs from here on out. However, if they say "dimmable" and don't work with my dimmers, they go back to the store. If enough people do this they will get the message and they will be designed to work in the existing sockets.

At one point I had a 7 watt nightlight and it was far too bright as well. I was careful when I bought an LED nightlight and ended up with one in the bathroom that is about right and only uses some small fraction of a watt. I think it doesn't even turn off in the day, what would be the point? The energy savings would likely be less than the cost of the circuitry.