I’m trying to install LED lights in a ceiling fan. When I do, they come on bright for a split second and then dim to practically be useless. There is no dimmer switch on the lights. The really weird part is that if I replace one of the four LED’s with an old incandescent, then all four lights are bright. I’ve had the same result on a different fan. Any ideas, other than using 3 and 1? My wife’s OCD can’t handle that.
Is there is the dimmer in the wall switch, most of the older dimmers won’t work with LED bulbs. A variable speed fan might have he same problem. There are dimable LEDs, but you still might have to replace the wall switch (or remote).
Are you certain there is no dimmer switch on the lights? I have seen dimmer switches that look like regular light switches. The person who owned the home wasn’t even aware that they were dimmer switches.
Something might also be wired wrong, like bulbs in series or something weird like that.
I don’t see anything that looks like a dimmer. It’s the switch on the left.
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The fans are identical (from appearance anyway) and are about 10 years old. I’m relatively sure that they were installed when the house was built.
A neighbor called me a few weeks ago and said the lights on his ceiling fan stopped working.
I went over to check it out. Standard incandescent bulbs. Standard wall switch.
I removed the light fixture. I noticed a small circuit board was wired in series with the light fixture. I temporarily bypassed it and the lights worked.
I assumed the purpose of the module was to dim the lights. Perhaps the module is controlled from a handheld remote (which he had no knowledge of), or something else, like an X-10 controller.
Maybe the module had failed, or maybe the module was somehow “told” to turn off by a spurious signal. It didn’t matter; my neighbor had no knowledge of a dimmer, so I simply removed the module and connected the two wires together. The fix worked.
So if there is a dimmer module between the light fixture and the fan, and if the module is designed to dim incandescent lights, then that’s your problem. The module will only work when the current is above a certain threshold.
Make sure light switch is off.
Remove light fixture.
Verify 0 V using DVM.
Cut out module using a pair of wire cutters.
Strip the two hot wires in lamp assembly.
Connect them together using a wire nut.
Reassemble.
I doubt that this is the problem, but many light fixtures that have two or more sockets have separate wires for each socket. To install them correctly, you have to put a wire nut on the individual leads and tie them to the supply conductor(s). Therefore, it is technically possible for the sockets to be wired incorrectly during installation. For example, I just put in two ceiling fixtures that have two sockets each and I could have wired them in series rather than parallel. Might be worth checking.
I’ll agree with probably an unused remote control box in the fan. Some type of solid state switch is in there. In my case it was my motion switch for the lights did not agree with CFL. It required a minimum load to work as it used the neutral through the bulbs instead of a third wire. Not sure why it works fine with LEDs yet. Better ballasts? I have multiple fixtures on it and I used to keep 40w incandescents in one of them because of this.
Ceiling fans with lights have, due to government regulations, a wattage governor to help prevent situations where high wattage bulbs generate enough heat to be a fire hazard. Some modern bulbs have a problem with this.
Worth considering.
ETA: specifically there are Hunter brand and Harbor Something brand lights that are effected.
I don’t have a solution, but I too have noticed similar behavior when I tried to replace all 4 bulbs on a ceiling fan/light with LED bulbs. It is definitely not connected to a dimmer. The fan/light did not come with a remote control, and does not have brightness control - just a pull cord that toggles the lights on/off. But I suppose it’s possible that it has a solid-state switch in there somewhere. I gave up and left 1 incandescent bulb in there.
Interesting; I have never heard of this. Thanks for the info. Now I’m thinking it was a power limiter - and not a dimmer - in my neighbor’s fan.
Same here. I was called to check a fan a couple of weeks ago with the same problem. Took the fan down and sure enough there was an unused remote above the ceiling. Took it down, bypassed it, and it worked just fine.
That’s my plan for now. I had similaly shaped incandescents that are practically indistinguishable from the LED’s. Close enough that my wife’s ocd is kept at bay.
LED bulbs draw so little current that they don’t work with a lot of older fixtures, especially those that have a transformer. I had the same problem with the light strips under my kitchen cabinets: they held four bulbs, and if I swapped all the halogens for LEDs they would be extremely faint, but if I kept one halogen in there then they would work fine.