The Last Inch: Why Does the Lighting Industry Still Struggle with Dimming Compatibility? By JOE BOKELMAN, ENTERPRISE LIGHTING & CONTROLS
M
odern lighting control and dimming systems can cover tens of thousands of square feet and control equally vast numbers of lighting fixtures, or as the saying goes, “the first mile”. However, each of those thousands of fixtures are now end points, or “the last inch”, which can easily jeopardize even the best lighting designs due to unpredictable performance with the lighting controls. Most of the technical difficulties of a making lighting product operate correctly with a dimming control have been resolved. With the development of advanced electronics and clever interfaces, combined with thousands of hours spent testing product and resolving field problems,
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designing lighting ISSUE NO. 3
DECEMBER 2020
the technology required to effectively dim and control almost all modern LED lighting exists. Despite all the above, the industry remains stymied by how to effectively match the dimmer style necessary to control the LED driver used in a given lighting fixture. This lack of compatibility between dimmer and driver creates visibly obvious, unwanted, and often surprising effects like strobing, pulsing, fluttering, popping (jumping to a bright or dim state), ghosting (not turning off completely), blanking (not turning on) and sticking (only full-on or dimming only to a random level). Even worse, some combinations of dimmer and driver show several of these glitches at various set points. For example, some
dimmer/driver interactions will pop on only when set to 100%, strobe while dimming between 100%-50%, stick at the same brightness between 50%1% and then ghost when set to 0%. Some even pulse when set to 0% with a rhythmic electronic heartbeat, while some do all the above for about 10 seconds and then abruptly fizzle out the driver, the dimmer or both. The “magic smoke” packed into those little black boxes escapes forever.