Practical advice on commercial lighting from LED retrofits to lighting design.

When LED lamps first started to make their way to the market, early adopters were frustrated when they tried to dim them. In most cases, the technology wasn’t far enough along. So in a setting like a restaurant, where ambiance is often king, many were understandably reluctant to switch to LED.

It wasn't that long ago we were answering the question: can LED lights be dimmed? The answer is yes, but years later problems can still surface when you try to run LED lamps or fixtures on dimmer controls.

Why are there still issues, even when lamps and fixtures are more reliable and dimmers more tolerant?

As a lighting specialist that deals with mostly restaurant clients, Brandon Melton faces the topic of LED dimming almost daily. Brandon has many years in the lighting world and works with some of Regency's largest restaurant chain customers to eliminate common LED dimming issues and properly light their spaces. Here's Brandon with more: 

Dimming LEDs can be tricky for a variety of reasons, and it can sometimes be difficult to pinpoint the source of the particular issue you're facing, like flickering. In this post, we'll zero in on one particular issue: a lack of load resistance.

Conventional (TRIAC) dimmer switches – the ones designed to work with incandescent and halogen light bulbs – require a certain amount of "holding current," or wattage in non-electrical-engineer terms, in order to work properly. When paired with an incandescent, the bulb draws enough voltage for the dimmer to work with and reduce. The control cuts the voltage, sending less to the lamp, or bulb, resulting in reduced light output (dimmed lighting).

The University of Texas at Dallas faced a number of problems with the metal halides it was using to light its Activity Center. If you've used high intensity discharge (HID) lighting before, you can probably empathize with their troubles. The challenges the university was facing with its HID lighting system are commonplace – the very ones you'd expect with HID.

Click here to see how we helped make UT Dallas' lighting easier