Why does my light hum when dimmed

Many people know the problem: as soon as I dim my new lamp or light, there is an annoying noise. We have the solution for you.

Do you know the problem? You buy a new light, want to dim it and suddenly it starts humming or buzzing. Even if it is not loud, it is very annoying after a while. Especially when you want to make yourself comfortable in the living room, you really don't need such annoying background noise.

Now there is good news and bad news.

The good news:

It's not your lamp. It's not the lamp itself that's making this noise, even if it might be coming from the lamp. Dimming always involves several components. First of all, the LED technology built into the lamp must of course be dimmable. In addition, the power supply must also be dimmable and I need a dimmer in the wall with which I can dim my lamp using a button or rotary dimmer.

This brings us to the bad news:

In most cases, the problem is that the interaction between the power supply and the dimmer is not working 100 percent. A frequency causes the power supply to oscillate and you hear an annoying humming noise. This can sound very different at different dimming levels. For example: the lamp is at 100%, then you usually don't hear any noise, at 70%, for example, the noise is very loud and at 30% you only hear a slight whine. Dimmers from switch manufacturers in particular cause problems like this.

SUGGESTED SOLUTION:

A solution that we have already used many times and with which we have had only positive experiences is to use a different dimmer. Here we explicitly recommend the dimmer from Eltako: EUD61NPN-UC

With this dimmer we have always been able to eliminate the noise from the LED lamp. No matter which lamp manufacturer it was. We have this dimmer in stock and it is usually with you within 1-2 days.

In some other cases, the light has not been installed correctly. Loose screws or other components can cause this noise due to the frequency emitted by the dimmer. A quick first solution would be to tighten all the screws on the light and test it again.

ATTENTION: You must first check whether the light is dimmable at all. Not all LED lamps are dimmable, and non-dimmable lights will usually flicker as soon as you turn down the light intensity.

If you have any questions, please post them in the comments. We will answer each one.

PS: Dimming is only possible in combination with a button. It doesn't work with a rotary dimmer!

This is what our customers say:

"Competent, clear, friendly advice and smooth order processing
I now have dimmable LED lamps that don't flicker or hum! :-)"