Dimmable LED lights

[DanHouston]

I'm really new to LED lights (I only have 2 strings of LEDs at the moment), and this will be my first year doing a show (LE and Dongle built, been working on sequnecing for a while). I started putting up some of my lights and once I get my chips back from being programmed (for the dongle) I am going to really start some testing with the actual lights.

As I was reading here I came across the topic of half-wave, full-wave, dimmable and non-dimmable LED lights. I have no idea what my LED lights are. THey are the 25 ct G40 LED lights from target (got them on clearance last year). Based on comments in the forums here I am going to guess they are half-wave since they don't say antyhing about one or the other on the box. In my sequences right now I am ramping these lights on/off, but have read if these are not dimmable LEDs it may damage them?

Is there a safe way to test if they are dimmable or not?

[kgustafson]

Some people say they can tell if they are full-wave by looking at them (they flicker).  I cannot.  I just look at the technical specifications.  It should say full-wave or dimmable in the specs.  If you don't see that somewhere in the literature, stay away from them.

Another approach would be to buy a single strand of the unknown lights and test it via vixen (or the light dimming package of your choice).

Kurt

[Rainlover]

If you plug in the halfwave lights and shake them, they seem to flicker.

John

[fertsy]

You should have no problem dimming any strand of lights, even if they are LED. My entire show is LED and I have never had a problem. The only thing I know of that is not dimmable are strobes that are NOT LED. LED's do dim at a different rate than incandescent but that is what the dimming curve is for. You should be able to find a setting to give you a nice even dim along with your others lights.

[Steve Gase]

Besides strobes, don't dim anything with its own controller -- like lasers, or meteor/snowfall lights.

[DanHouston]

Thanks all....Guess I'll grab'em and see what happens on the bench.

[fertsy]

Besides strobes, don't dim anything with its own controller -- like lasers, or meteor/snowfall lights.

Thanks I didn't know that. then again I don't own any of that cool stuff.

[SteveMaris]

Your lights from Target will dim fine. I have thousands of them.