Speed affected by LED lighting

Hi,

Does anyone have an ideas on this?

I have a row of three LED ceiling lights over my computer in the room where the main BT socket is. When I turn on the lights my download speed halves. The connection used to drop out too, but after 6 Openrreach engineer visits it at least stays connected.

The electrician who rewired my house had to go home and search the internet for other LED related problems so a) I don't want him back again and b) I wonder if the light switch should have a special capacitor to cater for the low current drawn by the LEDs.

Any electrical engineers out there who can give me pointer in the right direction?

Pete

Are the LED lights running via a transformer or are they self contained 230V AC type bulbs e.g. GU10

The situation seems to be some bulb type units are perfectly OK and others are not. If they are CE marked and creating interference you could return them for a refund and suitable complaint.

Compared to the number of reports of Plasma TV's causing issues, LED is a vary rare topic.

Try a "Quiet Line" Test on your land-line phone if applicable, plugged in to the Network Termination Box (NTE - Where BT stops and your internal wiring takes over.)

Dial 17070, followed by Option 2.

Try it at least twice, first with LEDs OFF, then with LEDs ON.

Also repeat as near to your Router/Modem as you can connect to.

Use preferably a "simple", corded phone (generally of the older variety) - but if nothing else available try any corded phone such as the Base Unit of "Cordless Phones".

==============================

The line should be quiet; but if not, it could be humming, crackling, dialling tones etc.

If you do hear any noise with the LEDs OFF, you should report it as a VOICE Fault to which-ever company that you pay LINE RENTAL to, could be BT - but may be wrapped up in your BB contract.

If the noise only occurs when the LEDs are ON, you'll have to decide whether you replace the LED lights with something that does not generate such noise - eg simple, old-fashioned incandescent lamp/s.

In the latter circumstance, also check that the switch, plug top etc for the LEDs, have their screws and other connections properly made, clean etc. A capacitor is unlikely to help; but an alectrical lubricant might help.

Also does the LED wiring run close to and "parallel" to the phone line for any length?

If it does, try separating.

Did the same electrician install these lights?

Did whoever install them install an external (possibly dimming) driver powering all three? I have two such strips in the bathroom, though we never had a dimmer switch installed.

I have many other GU10 spots throughout the house, (these have built-in drivers), all running off the pre-existing light switches with no problems.

Definitely not right I have loads of GU10 all over the house without any issues. It could be the bulbs themselves, have you tried taking them all out and replacing a few with a different brand just to be sure. Long shot at least.

If the noise only occurs when the LEDs are ON, you'll have to decide whether you replace the LED lights with something that does not generate such noise - eg simple, old-fashioned incandescent lamp/s.

I really don't think that's a good solution to have to use other lighting, although I see your point. They should almost certainly work fine with broadband. Clearly for whatever reason this particular setup is causing issues.

Hi

I have my house kitted out with LED bayonet fix (B22) lamps and I am also a radio amateur and have no trouble with BB interference or interference on amateur radio frequencies up to 1296Mhz.
I have seen an article in WHICH? about noises caused by GU9 and GU10 lamps

Keith
G8HTA

Could well be RFI.

The LED lamps will be normally be current driven and depending on the exact configuration of LEDs in each lamp the voltage will be down in single figures. There will be some form of converter to take the incoming 230V AC down to a low enough voltage that the drivers can work with. There will almost certainly be a high frequency oscillator in the switch circuit - outside the normal voice telephony range and probably outside your hearing range.

Given the level of signal on your DSL and the potential field strength of the noise sources it is quite likely that some degree of interference will take place unless the lamps are properly shielded and are designed for minimal RFI.

I actually have 5 LED lamps in the floor, 500mm below my Master socket and Modem, and the incoming wire goes within100mm. They do cause a very small drop in speed - but the lights and inserted lamps were not cheap!

As with many devices the devil is the detail ie which brand model

Thank you all for your suggestions. It looks like I've been fallen for the "LEDs will save the planet" thing without realising they're not as simple as they seem.

There is also a ceiling pendant light in the room and both sets of lights are turned on from one double wall switch which must be designed primarily for old incandescent light bulbs and their low-energy replacements.

I think I will try to find a local electrician who knows more about installing LEDs than the guy who did the original work.

I have all sorts of line noise problems, but after six BT engineer visits it is down to a level where it is still detectable but at least doesn't cause drop outs or speed degradation.

Thanks again,
Pete

I use a lot of LEDs - both mains voltage and low voltage. There's no need to use a special switch. Miains voltage switches work perfectly well on low loads and low voltages. I do agree that radio frequency interference from the LED lamps themselves is the likely source of the problem. You'd be unlikely to hear any noise much above 3kHz on a quiet line test and this is well below the operating frequencies of DSL.

At the moment there are some excellent LEDs on the market and some decidedly dodgy ones. It's also imprtant to have a compatible transformer/driver for low voltage LEDs and these can be a source of electrical/radio frequency noise too.

The lamps I use mostly are these which have "EMC & RFI suppression". They're not cheap but the light output is very good.

In one room I have about a dozen of these and a DSL connection without any problems. Some of these lamps run from electronic solid state transformers and the rest run from a toroidal mains transformer.

No problems with interference whatsoever.

Finding a normal electrician who understands RF interference detection and mitigation will be fun.

LED installation should be old bulb out and new bulb in. The key is what actual bulbs have been installed and searching to see if others have issues with the brand used.

Florescent lights are as old as houses but still can give issues with ADSL.

The simplest way to quickly fault find is remove LED bulbs and see if ADSL behaves better after a resync. The next step is look for RF noise by walking around with a battery radio tuned off a station at around 600 KHz (AM) it will likely be noisier as you get near to certain devices.

They could be ones which have the drivers in the sockets - as I have. That reduces the occasional replacement costs.

Hi

As others have said the brand/type will be important. What I will add is these LEDs can be bought of Ebay more cheaply but often are fakes and/or cheaply made. They may have a CE mark, but typically doesn't mean a lot for cheap stuff of Ebay.

So as well as finding out the details of the brand/type, I would ask the person who supplied them where they bought them from, if they say Ebay, I think there is your answer.

Regards

Phil

In reply to a post by PhilipD:

Hi

As others have said the brand/type will be important. What I will add is these LEDs can be bought of Ebay more cheaply but often are fakes and/or cheaply made. They may have a CE mark, but typically doesn't mean a lot for cheap stuff of Ebay.

So as well as finding out the details of the brand/type, I would ask the person who supplied them where they bought them from, if they say Ebay, I think there is your answer.

Regards

Phil

I have only Ebay purchased LEDs and have no problem with Broadband. It would be interesting if OP has mains or Trensformer LEDs. If the latter more likely to be transformer rating.

Hi

Not all LEDs will be bad from Ebay, just the chances are quite high. The same LEDs may work perfectly for someone else, a lot depends on placement and the potential for other factors shouldn't be ignore such as wiring.

If the lights are running directly from the mains (direct replacements for mains halogen types) then they have built in AC to DC converters and these, certainly from Ebay as generic types, will be pretty crude due to the lack of space and lack of any expense spent on them.

A separate power pack doing the AC to DC conversion will often fare better even if still a cheaper Chinese type simply because there is more space to get the basics correct.

I lot of these types of LED products on Ebay are at best cheap Chinese imports pretending to be nothing else and often you get what you pay for with no particular issues, at worse they are knock off Chinese copies of branded items. Ebay is full of stuff that isn't what you think it is, just ask trading standards!

Regards

Phil

Post deleted by MrSaffron

Other than spamming another site link post added nothing to what others have said

Thank you for that intellectual response. Are you an EMC engineer? Do you have any qualifications which are relevant to this discussion? Oddly I saw nothing in the preceding exchanges mentioning the regulatory issues which are integral to this problem, did I miss something?

It was my understanding that spamming was considered gratuitous advertising. All I have done is offer a link to a site with people who have years of experience and specific qualifications in electromagnetic compatibility - which is precisely what this topic embodies. If the Mods feel that m y contribution is not relevant or the link offered arrives at a site which uses pay per click advertising trickery then I suggest the post be removed.

So I ask, why is it that you oppose someone freely offering help? No one is obliged to visit the site, perhaps you might respect others here enough to allow them to make that decision for themselves?

Best wishes,

Nige Coleman BA BSc.Eng

Alarm bells always ring when you dig up an old post from months ago and post some link at the end.

Understandable and accepted. However this issue is part of a much bigger problem endemic to our society right now. EMC is a very specialised field, which even many average electrical and electronic engineers have only touched the tip of the iceberg. At consumer level detailed knowledge isn't required - as long as that contingent has access to the information it needs to remedy the issues at hand.

I only persist because we are rapidly approaching a tipping point whereupon the effects of the lack of market surveillance and enforcement will begin to affect large numbers of people. Getting a handle on this early may prevent widespread problems later. For folk in the countryside this is much less an issue (unless of course they are being affected by their own equipment) but in densely populated areas the aggregation of interference sources can build up to problematic levels quickly; consider high rise flat as one example at the extreme end of the chart.

The aim is simple; help and mitigate where necessary and prevent if possible. The more widely known this problem is the better it will be for everyone in the end. LED interference to FM, DAB and broadband is already more common than might first appear from a casual search of the internet.

Let's face it, no one wants their broadband compromised by their own electronics, much less someone else's. I already know of two cases of compromised broadband where a neighbour is responsible and refuses to do anything. You might be surprised to learn that overcoming such a scenario is much harder than you first think.

Best wishes.

See PM - flashing envelope on the left of "Forum Index" in the top menu.

In reply to a post by N_ge:

Thank you for that intellectual response. Are you an EMC engineer? Do you have any qualifications which are relevant to this discussion?

Actually, I have a lot of experience of RFI ... and there is at least one other here who also has significant understanding and experience.

Do you really think that regulation will sort out these problems? The answer is no because too many manufacturers ignore the requirements, as do a lot of users.

Its also possible to get a "noisy" unit due to a manufacturing or post-manufacturing fault. I saw that with a computer power supply and it was only discovered due to an Openreach engineer using some kind of "sniffer" probe. Prior to that I had established we had a time-of-day linked noise issue but had assumed it was nearby machinery.

It's embarrassing though, we work on RF and actually happened to have a LISN "mains interference tester" lying around so I was able to confirm it myself, the computer generated considerably more mains noise than another unit of similar age.