Dimable 1/2 LEDs from Sears

[Penfold]

Last year I bought about nine boxes of LEDs from Sears during the clearance. I cannot find whether or not they are 1/2 wave or full wave on the box, but I suspect they are 1/2 as they have a little flicker when on. If they are 1/2 will I be able to use these with a Renard controller?

I have heard that it is best to look for full wave technology and that the 1/2 waves have a tendency to fry quickly when dimming.

Mike

[P. Short]

I'm not sure if this is on-topic for this forum...

You should be able to use a 1/2 wave LED string with Renard. My two LED strings are both half-wave, and they work fine with Renard. For best results you need to program the PICs with the PWM firmware.

As far a flickering goes, I don't think that will generally be an issue. The only time that I've really noticed the flickering is when I am really close the to strings and they are moving (or I'm moving past them). This is just my opinion, there are other people who find it much easier to detect the flickering, and be bothered by it.

There is no reason to think that dimming an LED string will damage it. You have read about dimming the replacement C7/C9 bulbs, which is said to cause problems. You may have also been reading about people wanting to convert a half-wave string to full-wave using an external full-wave rectifier, and the speculation that this is not good for the lights.

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Phil