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Now my wife thinks the chandelier lights, all bulbs are working, is not as bright as it use to be. We have not changed a bulb for years if ever (been in this home 8 years now when we put this fixture in). This is in the breakfast room which is adjacent to the kitchen where I had the issue on can lights which started my thread. Wife thinks it is not as bright as it once was, but Im not sure it could just be the LED light vs the old bulbs?
Can these two dim lights in adjoining rooms be related? I cant imagine how as they are separate circuits on different breakers, they might have wiring behind the walls and ceilings that are near each other is all I can think might be related?
Thanks in advance again.
If I had a device to measure the voltage at the switch would that show me if there was less power than expected at that point?
You need a voltmeter. Measure the voltage going to the socket of one of the bulbs in the chandelier and going to the switch which controls them. Nominally it should be around 117 volts. Anything between 110 and 120 should be ok. Note that these are live circuits so review how to measure voltage. Lots of stuff on youtube. If not comfortable you need an electrician. I would not be surprised to find that your home or some part of it has low line voltage.
The LED bulbs you installed may well have circuitry that compensates for a low line voltage.
You need a voltmeter. Measure the voltage going to the socket of one of the bulbs in the chandelier and going to the switch which controls them. Nominally it should be around 117 volts. Anything between 110 and 120 should be ok. Note that these are live circuits so review how to measure voltage. Lots of stuff on youtube. If not comfortable you need an electrician. I would not be surprised to find that your home or some part of it has low line voltage.
The LED bulbs you installed may well have circuitry that compensates for a low line voltage.
Im comfortable measuring voltage is that a better choice than measuring luminosity?
Update. the chandeleir with 6 bulbs was on the same circuit as the four can lights. I get a pretty bright light from the new LED bulbs in the cans though it is not as bright as former incandescent bulbs were. But all 6 bulbs of the candeleir are not at all bright. If 10 is brightest and 1 is dimest they now are a 1. So I replaced them with LED bulbs as well. It did not fix the dim chandeleir bulbs at all. I think the wattage on the chandelair bulbs is greater than the other bulbs mgith taht be the issue?
Im super frustrated with the LED conversion mandate which seems poorly communicated and with many more options to find the same effectiveness as before but with no education to educate you to pick the one that works for you. This is much more expensive but many times harder to find a good LED fit. Im not a fan at this point.Wasted most my Saturday and spent $150 and still cant get the circuit which needed one bulb replaced to work properly. Only thing that has .changed is Im using LED. Ridiculous, smells like another fed gov good idea gone bad.
Do the voltage of all 8 bulbs on the same circuit need to match? If so why did no one at Lowe's, or Home Depot or Lamps Plus tell me? lol
Update the chandelier bulbs are 60 watts and the 4 cans are 90 watts. Is that the issue? I dont recall having this issue on incandescents
Update. the chandaliar with 6 bulbs was on the same circuit as the four can lights. I get a pretty bright light from the new LED bulbs in the cans though it is not as bright as former incandescent bulbs were. But all 6 bulbs of the candielair are not at all bright. If 10 is brightest and 1 is dimest they now are a 1. So I replaced them with LED bulbs as well. It did not fix the dim chandalier bulbs at all. I think the wattage on the chandelair bulbs is greater than the other bulbs mgith taht be the issue?
Im super frustrated with the LED conversion mandate which seems poorly communicated and with many more options to find the same effectiveness as before but with no education to educate you to pick the one that works for you. This is much more expensive but many times harder to find a good LED fit. Im not a fan at this point.Wasted most my Saturday and spent $150 and still cant get the circuit which needed one bulb replaced to work properly. Only thing that has .changed is Im using LED. Ridiculous, smells like another fed gov good idea gone bad.
Do the voltage of all 8 bulbs on the same circuit need to match? If so why did no one at Lowe's, or Home Depot or Lamps Plus tell me? lol
You need to get your story straight. When you tell us you have two different branch circuits showing low light the obvious view is that you have a whole house problem...likely low voltage. But now it is one branch circuit with all the low light bulbs on it.
Basically all the light bulbs on a given branch are in parallel. That is they all have two connections which are common. So the socket voltage for each bulb should be at almost the same voltage. There is a slight drop between them but it will be a fraction of a volt and you will barely see it even on a good digital voltmeter.
So measure the voltage on a couple of sockets...should be about the same and somewhere around 117 volts. Than measure the voltage getting to the switches. All should be close together.
In general LEDs will give you an equivalent incandescent wattage. About 6 to 1 or so. I just replaced a couple of can bulbs with LEDs. 45 watt can bulbs get replaced with 7 watt LEDs. Unfortunately there is another complexity. LEDs also have a color. I always use 2700K bulbs which is a mildly yellowish light that I think is close to an incandescent. there are a couple of others however that are whiter.
My appology on the facts, my wife and I were not communicating. I thought the breakfast room and kitchen chandeleirs were on 2 different circuits from the 4 cans lights. Well turns on the breakfast room one was not the one she was complaining about it was the one in the kitchen, which I thought was a separate circuit but it is not.
I thought the kitchen fixture was on a different circuit from the cans too but it is not, it has shades on each bulb and looked off to me when it was just barely showing any lighting going on with either the incandescant bulbs or the LED bulbs I just used to replace all 6 of them.
The 60 and 90 wattage was what the LED's replaced. The cans use 12 Watts and the other use 6 watts. The 6 chandeleir bulbs light very very dimly with both the incandescent bulbs and the LED bulbs.
Two weeks ago we have company and all 10 of these lights were working fine. After the company left two of the can lights went out. One was just loose so I screwed it in and it worked. I replaced the other with an incandescent flood bulb we had and that is when the dim light on both sets ( 4 cans and the 6 in the chandeleir) went super dim. Replacing the 4 can lights with same LED types worked on just new lights were a little dim for my wife. Nothing I have tried has fixed the other 6 lights on the same circuit.
Is the mis matched watts between the can and the chandeleir builbs an issue? If not, its time to bring my electrician in to fix it.
You didn't mention what type of light bulbs. If they are CFLs then they are done. CFLs are actually the same as fluorescent bulbs and when beginning their decline will not light up properly.
If the cans are old like 90s or something then they likely need replacing. if the bulbs have been in there a long time the sockets can corrode.
Also sounds like some power has been redirected from that circuit to power something else in the house at the same time but the breaker didn't blow so I think it is the cans and bulbs.
The old bulbs were all incandescent not fluorescent. House was built in 1999, we bought it in 2010 so not sure when the cans were put in but this is first time we have replaced those bulbs. We bought the chandelier when we moved in at the end of 2010. They had not been replaced nor gone out they just are dim and I got LED's to be compatible with the 4 cans I had replaced on the same circuit.
I didn't mention it but this house has high ceilings. Its 12 feet up in the kitchen/breakfast/family room where they are an additional 8 can lights on different circuits. The LR has 8 cans at 20 feet high. My study has 4 can lights at 16 feet and on we go. I assume all are incandescent as the only ones I have had to deal with are. The upstairs Gameroom and landing have 10 can lights on several different circuits and all bedrooms are can lighted too. Only type this house has other than the chandeliers.
The Lamps Plus man informed me today that the selection of the right LED for my use can vary with the high ceilings the area I am addressing today.
It sounds like 4 can lights and the chandelier are all wired in parallel so they should all see the same voltage but I do not understand why having a mix of LED and incandescent bulbs resulted in the lights all being on but very dim. Then when I replaced all 4 with the identical LED bulbs they all light up, not as bright as my wife wants but probably as they should have for the wattage and lumen they are designed to put out. But I can not explain why the chandelier lights stopped lighting up bright when this saga on the can lights began and is right now. I'm baffled how the cans are bright but the chandelier is very very dim unless its the mis match of LED bulb wattage.
The bulb brightness is controlled by the voltage to the bulb. Some LEDs can cheat as they may have circuitry that compensates for low voltage. But basically the bulbs should all put out their rated light at their rated voltage.Thus the suspicion that the voltage is low. Low voltage generally comes from a bad connection somewhere. Can be in the breaker or the wiring or the switch. All places where a connection is made are suspect.
One caution. Such a fault means somewhere something may be getting hot. Mostly electrical connections are contained but be aware that there can be something heating up. So do not leave the lights involved on when you sleep. If I had one of those that I could not figure out I would turn off the breaker when I was going to sleep. I am an EE so that is not likely to happen but I would find it and fix it or at least leave it depowered until I could figure it out.
Again the LEDs in the cans may have circuitry that compensates for low voltage. LEDs can go both ways. Sometimes the circuitry is set up so they can be dimmed by lowering the voltage. Sometimes they are set up so they will put out max light at a lower voltage. This would effectively mean they cannot be dimmed. There are also a dozen variants on these themes. Engineers given the choice always screw around. Feel duty bound to do something clever even if it annoys some buyers.
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