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[JeremySParker]

I am the choir director for a church that has a set of track lights over our choir loft that keep burning out. Replacing the bulbs is expensive as they are about 52' up in our sanctuary, requiring us to hire someone to bring in a cherry picker each time they're replaced (which is about once every 1.5 years). For this reason, it would seem to be wisest for us to replace these bulbs with long-life LEDs, but we've heard that we can't use LEDs with our current Leviton dimmer system. I want to know if that's true for all LED solutions or just those offered by the supplier we spoke with. I'm including photos of our current fixtures (both installed on/off and up-close shots of a spare), a sample bulb, the control panel for our dimmer system, and one of the other switches we use.

The existing figure is a Progress Lighting P9207 Track Lighting Fitting (http://www.progresslighting.com/products.aspx?product=P9207-28) for 300W R-40 / 250W PAR-3

Are there LED solutions that we can use without replacing our fixtures and/or our dimming system?

Thanks!

[Cailen Waddell]

I am the choir director for a church that has a set of track lights over our choir loft that keep burning out. Replacing the bulbs is expensive as they are about 52' up in our sanctuary, requiring us to hire someone to bring in a cherry picker each time they're replaced (which is about once every 1.5 years). For this reason, it would seem to be wisest for us to replace these bulbs with long-life LEDs, but we've heard that we can't use LEDs with our current Leviton dimmer system. I want to know if that's true for all LED solutions or just those offered by the supplier we spoke with. I'm including photos of our current fixtures (both installed on/off and up-close shots of a spare), a sample bulb, the control panel for our dimmer system, and one of the other switches we use.

The existing figure is a Progress Lighting P9207 Track Lighting Fitting (http://www.progresslighting.com/products.aspx?product=P9207-28) for 300W R-40 / 250W PAR-3

Are there LED solutions that we can use without replacing our fixtures and/or our dimming system?

Thanks!

Short answer:  If you want to smoothly dim to zero and back up, No.  If you want to only dim to about 50% brightness, and then pop out or on, then yes, maybe.

All quality dimming LEDs need power and data.  The data line tells the leds what intensity to be at, the power provides electricity.  Your system dims the power. (for simplicity sake it dims, in actuality it chops up the sine wave)

Ask your leviton rep for a demo, I bet they won't dim smoothly out....

If you are ready to take the plunge, look into products from The Light Source.  Their LED house light is as close to perfect as you can get for me...

[Steve Garris]

You'll have to compare Lumens to the incandescent bulbs, but you can directly screw in the BR40 type bulbs. Not sure how well they dim, but there are plenty available:
http://www.earthled.com/products/tcp-elite-br40-17-watt-120-watt-equal#.U8mhu0DyRrY

[JeremySParker]

Short answer:  If you want to smoothly dim to zero and back up, No.  If you want to only dim to about 50% brightness, and then pop out or on, then yes, maybe.

Thanks, Cailen! Just to clarify, are you saying from experience that the gradual to/from 50% then on/off is the performance you've seen with LEDs in fixtures like these, or would I need to somehow program the dimmer to do that? The dimmer we currently have only does a linear brightening/dimming - you set a brightness level and then set how many seconds for the transition to that level. So if the transition needs to be programmed as you're describing, I suppose that would take a new dimming system?

[JeremySParker]

You'll have to compare Lumens to the incandescent bulbs, but you can directly screw in the BR40 type bulbs. Not sure how well they dim, but there are plenty available:
http://www.earthled.com/products/tcp-elite-br40-17-watt-120-watt-equal#.U8mhu0DyRrY

Thanks, Steve. The dimming part is the critical facet we're concerned about. While we know that there are LED options out there that would fit the fixture, some articles (like this one, for instance: http://www.popularmechanics.com/home/improvement/electrical-plumbing/how-to-use-a-dimmer-switch-with-cfls-and-leds-15882096) mention that dimmer systems designed for incandescents won't work with the typical LED.

[Rob Spence]

As mentioned above, the LEDs need power for their control circuits.

When you start dimming them (reducing the voltage to the fixture), eventually there is insufficient voltage available to keep them on, so they go black. How far down you can go is a function of the design of the specific light unit. I have LEDs at home that will dim down quite a bit before going out.

So, how low do you need to go?

Also, a bigger problem I see is turn on. As the voltage rises, at some point the control circuit in the lamp will start and the LED comes on. That could easily be at half brightness.


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[Jerome Malsack]

Quote from another link were Tom Cornish corrected me with some training. 
 
There will almost certainly be issues with dimming conventional home-grade LEDs on entertainment dimmers - most LEDs require either a full sine wave dimmer or a reverse-phase dimmer, of which your tree packs are neither.

A PAR38 home-grade LED bulb puts out maybe 800 lumens; an HPL575 bulb puts out about 14,000 lumens.

There may be a couple very specific situations where what you are proposing may have some value, but home-grade bulbs (and par38 cans in general) won't do much for a real show.

With the Par38 lights you can look at about 15 to 20 feet and get about 6 to 10 foot circle of light.    With needing a throw distance of 30 to 40 feet you are still needing to stay with the currents supply of lights.  Or change to a larger Par56 theater light.  I would say to order and get a stock of the 300 watt lights if possible until new lighting solutions are developed to meet your needs.  The theater lights will still have a short life span or shorter life span. 

15 watt and 20 watt LED lights are only equal to 90 to 120 watt.  Your using 300 watt bulbs.  Par 56 is 300 to 500 watt.   

[Rob Spence]

Quote from another link were Tom Cornish corrected me with some training. 
 
There will almost certainly be issues with dimming conventional home-grade LEDs on entertainment dimmers - most LEDs require either a full sine wave dimmer or a reverse-phase dimmer, of which your tree packs are neither.

A PAR38 home-grade LED bulb puts out maybe 800 lumens; an HPL575 bulb puts out about 14,000 lumens.

There may be a couple very specific situations where what you are proposing may have some value, but home-grade bulbs (and par38 cans in general) won't do much for a real show.

With the Par38 lights you can look at about 15 to 20 feet and get about 6 to 10 foot circle of light.    With needing a throw distance of 30 to 40 feet you are still needing to stay with the currents supply of lights.  Or change to a larger Par56 theater light.  I would say to order and get a stock of the 300 watt lights if possible until new lighting solutions are developed to meet your needs.  The theater lights will still have a short life span or shorter life span. 

15 watt and 20 watt LED lights are only equal to 90 to 120 watt.  Your using 300 watt bulbs.  Par 56 is 300 to 500 watt.

Did you even read the original post and look at the photos?
He shows the lamp he uses, 150w.

He isn't short of lamps. It is simply very expensive to get at them. Your solution with theater grade lights does not address it.



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[Jerome Malsack]

Yes true on the 150 watt bulbs  I saw the 250 and 300 watt rating on the fixture. 

I have also seen where it was stated that for every double of distance you loose half the candle power. 
At 8 feet, 1/2, so the candle power will be down to 2000 and another 8 feet it will be down to 1000. 
one more and were at 24 feet and at 500.  at 32 feet it is 250 candle power on the artist. 

So if they cannot use the 10 to 20 lights over the choir and maintain the light level he may have to move to another answer.   

The LED bulbs are wanting the full wave or reverse wave dimmers and you agreed may not work well on the LED's or the application / performance. 

[TJ (Tom) Cornish]

Are there LED solutions that we can use without replacing our fixtures and/or our dimming system?

Thanks!

First of all, welcome to the forum, and kudos for doing two things right that for whatever reason elude the average first-time poster: you used your real name, and you actually put enough information in your post to get some help.

I would suggest getting a bulb and trying it with your current system.  One of two things will happen - it will either work sort of OK - there may be some dimming levels that don't flicker and possibly by re-programming your system to different dimming levels for those channels, you may be able to live with it, or you will find that they don't work, and you will need to figure something else out, either living with only on/off, or replacing the dimmer.

If you do have to replace the dimmer, at least your current wiring will be usable, which is usually the most expensive or difficult part.

I am a fan of Philips EnduraLED bulbs - we have about 800 of them at my office, and they have been fabulous, but we did have to replace some dimmers to avoid flicker.

[ProSoundWeb Community]