# I'm staying away from Sylvania LED recessed



## elecpatsfan (Oct 1, 2010)

I bought a dozen 4" Sylvania LED recessed kits for my Aunt's house. They looked great and were super bright.

http://www.lowes.com/pd_250865-3-70658_4294713506%2B4294935637__?productId=3431946&Ns=p_product_avg_rating%7C1&pl=1&currentURL=%3FNs%3Dp_product_avg_rating%7C1&facetInfo=

Unfortunately some days later my Aunt called me and said that when the lights were dimmed they made a buzzing sound that was driving her crazy. Sure enough when I got there I could hear it loud and clear when the house was quiet. I tried all different brands and styles (LED and CFL) of dimmers only to have the same buzzing. Fortunately the store manager at LOWES was decent enough to let me return them even though I had thrown the boxes away, but I still ended up wasting some time. I highly recommend HALO or CREE brand LED retrofits. When I changed over to the CREE brand trims, they were completely silent when dimmed; as are the HALOs.


----------



## Sparky J (May 17, 2011)

Never used Sylvania's are they dimable?


----------



## gnuuser (Jan 13, 2013)

all of your led retrofit lights contain a small transformer and usually are not designed to run off of a 110 volt dimmer switch
unless they are equipped with damping circuitry you would hear humming
consider the cost of them, your lower cost ones will probably be niosy


----------



## The_Modifier (Oct 24, 2009)

Change the switch, it's the issue. It took a supplier and I a bit to figure it out when I was over at his house for lunch one day. His even flickered at the lowest setting.


----------



## elecpatsfan (Oct 1, 2010)

Sparky J said:


> Never used Sylvania's are they dimable?


 
It says dimmable on the package. I also tried about 6 different brands and styles of dimmers to have the same result. When I changed over the CREE brand, everything worked fine. I feel that Sylvania still has some bugs to work out with these trims. JUst giving you guys a heads-up so you don't run into the same problem.


----------



## GrayHair (Jan 14, 2013)

*Hmmmmm*

The LED lighting I've worked with uses Pulse Width Modulation (PWM) for dimming. Dropping voltage to an LED has little, if any, noticeable effect; untill it shuts off! The dimmer basically switches the DC On/Off at high speed. I think I've seen stand-alone dimmers, but have only used those built into a power supply.

I think gnuser may have 'hit the nail on the head' on the hum.


----------



## Sparky J (May 17, 2011)

I know with some Cree lights in the past with some dimmers you have to have a minimum load (for Cree it was on their website a while ago) I have not put some in in a while but I believe that 60 watts was one.


----------

