I have a ceiling fan with a dimmer. Originally bought 4 dimmable cfl’s. One went bad so I just stuck a non dimmable one in. Now,when I turn the lights off, the non dim flashes every half second. Rectifier bridge? Any ideas?
The flashing is caused by leakage current in the dimmer, which has a snubber circuit (R4 and C4 in this example, plus C1) across the triac and allows a small amount of current through even when off, enough to charge the capacitor inside the CFL until it turns on. The only way to prevent this is to use an ordinary incandescent bulb so it shunts the leakage current away, but you have all CFLs (dimmable CFLs are designed so they aren’t affected by this current; also, putting a non-dimmable CFL on a dimmer can have bad consequences, including a fire hazard).
