LED Lighting

[DWEBB5]

We were discussing some of the new efficient lighting that are coming out, mostly the LEDs.

"But I wonder if they've solved, or cured the RFI problem. The more powerful ones I use, knock out FM radio and the Fire Department radios if they're anywhere near them:(
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programme...ne/9782116.stm  "

" Some REAL numbers on them: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/...u?ref=category
NanoLight - The world's most energy efficient lightbulb!
"Why use any old lightbulb when there’s the NanoLight! Using only 12 watts of electricity, the NanoLight generates over 1600 lumens, equivalent to a 100W incandescent lightbulb."  "

"   one... http://www.triplepundit.com/2011/01/...troducing-esl/
Higher power factor than LED's  "


Now the topic of RFI has entered the picture.  People are complaining that the LEDs are causing problems with  scanners, and local VHF radios.
Question:
Does anyone here use LED lighting IN the Ham shack?    Any trouble?  Feedback?    Ever hear of this before?   Thanks in advance all, David

[K1TWH]

___I've got a number of RFI free LED bulbs in my home, but I did send a few from eBay vendors to ARRL.  They were unbelievably noisy.  How so much noise could come from such a small object was amazing.   Quiet bulbs were from GLB (used to be @ Cyberguys) and Miracle Bulb.   The Miracle bulbs are stroboscopic like fluorescent bulbs, so 100% use of them cannot be recommended for families with members that are sensitive to flashing strobes. 
___I'd say buy from reputable vendors and return them if there is RFI.
73,  Tom WB1FPA

[K6AER]

LED lights don’t emit any RFI. It is the power supply that is pulse modulating the LED that is generating the radio interference. A led light has a narrow window going from dark to full brilliance. By pulse modulation and varying the plus width the average brilliance can be efficiently varied. I an effort to provide the most efficient light the pulse shape is very square which generates lots of RFI due to its fast rise time.

Probably most of the RFI is being radiated in the house wiring. You might try some snap on RF beads where the wiring goes into the light socket.

[DWEBB5]

So if I used low voltage DC instead of a power supply, that would eliminate the RFI caused BY The power supply?

Still using AC and the LED light the other option is below.
Adding the choke AT the LED light would eliminate the noise in the rest of the house wiring. So any radios would be unaffected.
http://users.catchnet.com.au/~rjandusimports/tut_9a.html  <-- That's an RF bead Right?

[ZENKI]

The LED lights to watch out for are these. If you get one of these near your ham radio days are over from 1.7 to almost 150mhz. These are legal 10 to 50  watt broad spectrum jammers.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/10W-LED-Flood-Light-Floodlight-Lamp-Warm-White-Garden-Outdoor-Lamp-/121057218689?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item1c2f929081

They sold by various ebay sellers and as re branded  versions in stores. They have no EMC compliance whatsoever. This is a disaster for the broadcast and ham bands and they just flowing
into countries around the world from China.

Its astonishing that such a product can be legal to sell anywhere when it causes so much interference. The QRM will be 40 DB over S9 if you used one and something like 20db over S9 from
a neighbor. As usual the people paid to enforce the EMC laws just turn a blind eye to this crap from China, and users of the radio  spectrum who pay a license fee get ignored. A sad reflection on how are societies are allowed to
operate these days.  What I can never understand is that manufacturers who produce products like these in their own country would suffer the full consequences of the law and have to spend countless hours and dollars
meeting these EMC requirements. Then on the other hand importers and ebay sellers can flout all these laws to the disadvantage of legitimate manufacturers who meet the EMC standards.

These LED lights are worst than things like plasma TV's and on a band like 80 meters where signals are very strong you wont hear a thing.  If you were a facist regime or  a dictatorship like North Korea and you want to jam
as much of the HF spectrum on a budget you would install this type of LED light. If you see these around please report them to your radio society EMC committee, you will hear them!

[ZENKI]

There was story on Eham about LED lights from a shop jamming the Swedish Bus VHF radio network.

This is a real serious issue that most authorities are just ignoring.

The whole issue of radiated emissions from things like Plasma TV's, Solar Inverters, MMPT regulators/panels and LED lights need to be looked at and new standards developed.
The  EMC laws are just not keeping up.

[W8AAZ]

Great. I was gonna try some LED bulbs but don't want to front the big money and then have headaches.  I suppose that most people are happy as long as their wifi and cellphones are not messed with. Or if they are, probably no clue as to what is going on and blame the service or the equipment.  And I wonder what is the source of my constant S8 background noise on some bands, assuming if it is neighborhood home devices, I probably have no recourse, or with them putting digital whatsis into everything made now, could never hope to keep up with fixes anyway. 

[K0JEG]

Just passing along LED lighting that doesn't put out RFI out past a few inches.

Sylvania RGB LED strip lighting, picked up over the weekend at Costco. Comes in 4 2' lengths that interconnect, 12V, 2A wall wart and an IR remote box. I couldn't detect noise with my FT-817 (using stock antenna) until it was about 4-5 inches from the strip, and then only on 40 and 80 meters.

[AB4ZT]

We are steadily replacing all of our incandescents and CFLs with LEDs and have no issues whatsoever. 

73,

Richard, AB4ZT

[AA4HA]

LED lights don’t emit any RFI. It is the power supply that is pulse modulating the LED that is generating the radio interference. A led light has a narrow window going from dark to full brilliance. By pulse modulation and varying the plus width the average brilliance can be efficiently varied. I an effort to provide the most efficient light the pulse shape is very square which generates lots of RFI due to its fast rise time.

I guess this needs to be restated and reinforced. "An LED does not emit any form of RFI". If you ran your house off of DC power you would have absolutely zero EMI/RFI from lighting.

Any problems you are having are caused by lousy designs in the power conversion circuitry to bring 120 VAC down to DC voltage levels or in some pulse modulation schemes to do things other than running an LED off of a pure DC voltage.

If you bought a box of LED's and current limiting resistors and wanted to string them together as LED lighting you would have one of the electrically quietest forms of illumination possible other than a heated filament bulb but many times more efficient.

Companies that design in el-cheapo power supplies and conversion schemes should "be beaten with sticks".

I wired my house when it was being built with a secondary DC power system with 12 volt, 2 amp circuits at a bunch of auxiliary outlet plates where I also can connect into shielded audio cable, Ethernet or multimode fiber (only used in two places right now but the capability is always there for more fiber, just add connectors to the existing glass). The DC lighting also has the advantage of being connected through breakers to a big set of batteries so during a power outage the only thing I notice is the beeping of UPS'es for things that still require mains power.

[ZENKI]

A  very good point. 

The point is that  EMC laws that govern power supply products need urgent revision. There are numerous examples of switch mode  power supplies on just about every conceivable device causing  RFI problems. Even Applies Iphone charges are horrendous QRM producers across many ham bands. Now if a company like APPLE has lousy EMC advisors, what hope is their for these small companies who produce these LED products that causes massive  HF interference.

LED lights don’t emit any RFI. It is the power supply that is pulse modulating the LED that is generating the radio interference. A led light has a narrow window going from dark to full brilliance. By pulse modulation and varying the plus width the average brilliance can be efficiently varied. I an effort to provide the most efficient light the pulse shape is very square which generates lots of RFI due to its fast rise time.

I guess this needs to be restated and reinforced. "An LED does not emit any form of RFI". If you ran your house off of DC power you would have absolutely zero EMI/RFI from lighting.

Any problems you are having are caused by lousy designs in the power conversion circuitry to bring 120 VAC down to DC voltage levels or in some pulse modulation schemes to do things other than running an LED off of a pure DC voltage.

If you bought a box of LED's and current limiting resistors and wanted to string them together as LED lighting you would have one of the electrically quietest forms of illumination possible other than a heated filament bulb but many times more efficient.

Companies that design in el-cheapo power supplies and conversion schemes should "be beaten with sticks".

I wired my house when it was being built with a secondary DC power system with 12 volt, 2 amp circuits at a bunch of auxiliary outlet plates where I also can connect into shielded audio cable, Ethernet or multimode fiber (only used in two places right now but the capability is always there for more fiber, just add connectors to the existing glass). The DC lighting also has the advantage of being connected through breakers to a big set of batteries so during a power outage the only thing I notice is the beeping of UPS'es for things that still require mains power.

[K1DA]

Roybi battery powered tool chargers can be REAL annoying.