LED Lights and Garage Door Opener???

Joel Koltner wrote:
> "Michael A. Terrell" <mike.terrell@earthlink.net> wrote in message 
> news:4BC750B9.C003B50D@earthlink.net...
>>  They didn't.  The LED lamps are retrofitted.  They did the red first,
>> in my area.
> 
> Hmm... I wonder why red?  Spends the most time on?  If one color is 
> going to fail, presumably people will just stop anyway, so why not make 
> it the red one that'll fail anyway?

Unfortunately not. The opposite is usually the case. People tend to 
plough into each other at junctions when the red light has failed.

I expect red (and yellow for roadworerks please don't hit me signs) were 
the first to adopt because high intensity pure colour LEDs in those 
colours were available first at a decent price. It is only comparatively 
recently that true green high intensity LEDs that would pass muster for 
a green traffic light have become available at an affordable price.

Regards,
Martin Brown

Joel Koltner wrote:
> 
> "Michael A. Terrell" <mike.terrell@earthlink.net> wrote in message
> news:4BC750B9.C003B50D@earthlink.net...
> >  They didn't.  The LED lamps are retrofitted.  They did the red first,
> > in my area.
> 
> Hmm... I wonder why red?  Spends the most time on?  If one color is going to
> fail, presumably people will just stop anyway, so why not make it the red one
> that'll fail anyway?


   My guess was that they were replacing more red lamps, and started the
conversion to LED as they failed.


-- 
Lead free solder is Belgium's version of 'Hold my beer and watch this!'

On Thu, 15 Apr 2010 12:17:35 +0100, Martin Brown
<|||newspam|||@nezumi.demon.co.uk> wrote:

>Hammy wrote:
>> On Thu, 15 Apr 2010 06:28:47 +0000 (UTC), don@manx.misty.com (Don
>> Klipstein) wrote:
>> 
>>>  My experience with LED traffic signals in Philadelphia and suburbs 
>>> thereof is that the LED ones are showing their superiority.
>>>
>>>  Please keep in mind that Philadelphia gets more extreme high temperatures
>>> than much of Florida.  I have already lived through merely a July 1995 day
>>> in Philadelphia fair-chance getting hotter than Miami was ever officially 
>>> noted to have achieved, some chance tying Miami's record high temperature 
>>> in combination with dew point that is high even for Miami!
>>>
>>>  (PHL airport or closest-to-there official weather station determined
>>> that at 4 PM "local time" July 15th the temperature was 102 F [peaking 
>>> that day at a slightly different time at 103 F.])
>>>
>>>  (I have a tale or 2 to tell about atmosphere temperature at 102 F, and
>>> some cause to discount much-hotter)...
>>>
>>> - Don Klipstein (don@misty.com)
>> 
>> Municipalities in northern climates that converted to LED traffic
>> lights are having to send work crews out to de-ice them. The LED's
>> don't radiate enough heat to de-ice themselves.
>
>This seems unlikely. LED traffic lights are efficient but to that extent 
>there is still enough waste heat at least in the UK up to latitude 55N. 
>It must take exceptional conditions for snow to accumulate on them.

It's not unusual at all.  When I lived in Vermont it wasn't unusual at all to
see snow stuck to the LED traffic lights.  It wasn't often bad enough to
totally obscure the lights, but it could easily become so.

>In the US there is already a fairly simple piece of bent metal solution 
>for wind blown snow clogging up the sun visor cowling.
>
>http://www.ledsmagazine.com/news/7/1/4

That may work with dry snow.  It's not going to do anything with a driving wet
snow.

Thanks everyone for the comments and suggestions.  This problem did get
resolved and the Ultra Bright LED's that I was using in my front yard were
causing RF signal's to block the Garage Door Opener Remote from working
properly.  I swapped them to the back yard and used some other LED bulbs. 
Funny though... These were purchased via eBay but came from a US
Distributor and not overseas, so these were the LAST ones that I suspected
as causing the problem.  
Thanks again,
Jerome	   
					
---------------------------------------		
Posted through http://www.Electronics-Related.com

On Mon, 19 Apr 2010 08:52:59 -0500, "mrjb1929"
<j.bokelmann@n_o_s_p_a_m.n_o_s_p_a_m.comcast.net> wrote:

>Thanks everyone for the comments and suggestions.  This problem did get
>resolved and the Ultra Bright LED's that I was using in my front yard =
were
>causing RF signal's to block the Garage Door Opener Remote from working
>properly.  I swapped them to the back yard and used some other LED =
bulbs.=20
>Funny though... These were purchased via eBay but came from a US
>Distributor and not overseas, so these were the LAST ones that I =
suspected
>as causing the problem. =20
>Thanks again,
>Jerome	  =20
>				=09
>---------------------------------------	=09
>Posted through http://www.Electronics-Related.com

Groovy, glad you got it sorted.  I just wish that you had come to USENET
more directly.  It is a really fun and hugely varied place, but it is NOT
world wide web.  It predates www and cannot really follow www rules
having a well developed rule set of its own already.

Hi!

I had the same problem after installing LED lights around the house. Fortunately, I found a solution that's working fine for me and its cheaper than replacing all remotes I have at home: http://www.gogogate.com/


I even can open and close the garage door from anywhere with my iPhone and receive alerts. Not many remotes have these features...

On Thursday, April 15, 2010 5:12:23 AM UTC-7, PovTruffe wrote:
> Just one thought: why did not they design traffic lights with RGB LEDs ?
> They should be much cheaper with a single lamp.
> However we are all so used to 3 lamp traffic lights...

And especially red/green colorblind folks, who need the
'stop at the top' feature.   About ten percent of the male
population...

Joel Koltner wrote:
> "John Larkin"
> 
> > CFs don't work in cold locations, and most can't be dimmed, and most
> > won't work with 2-wire motion sensors.
> 
> This is a fair statement, but...
> 
> Dimmable CFLs vs. non-dimmable one is primarily a cost issue today; you can 
> readily find dimmable ones at a Home Depot or similarly well-stocked store, 
> but you end up paying a couple bucks more per each.


** The terms "dimmable" and "non-dimmable" are applied by marketing pukes to CFL lamps and packaging. What they refer to is using a regular triac dimmer intended for incandescent lamps to dim the CFL.

If you use a trailing edge IGBT dimmer, most CFLs work fine. 

Every CFL I have ever seen will dim nicely if you use a Variac.



....   Phil 

On Tuesday, April 13, 2010 6:42:57 PM UTC-4, mrjb1929 wrote:

> I have two garage door openers as I have two separate garage doors.  The
> remotes mysteriously do not work sometimes.... BOTH of them.=20

A company I own tracks down external uplink interference for some of the la=
rger cellular carriers.  Your garage door opener issue is a known problem w=
ith those little LED landscape lights.  Go back to the original lights or s=
hield (screen) the LED fixtures and your problem should go away.  If you're=
 dead-set on keeping your lights, you might get lucky and have the type of =
garage door opener that allows you to relocate/reorient its receive antenna=
.  If so, relocating that antenna closer to the driveway may help.

FYI - I've not seen these LED lights affect a cell site but one of my neigh=
bors who knows I'm in the business had your same complaint.  We checked it =
out with a portable spectrum analyzer and directional antenna and indeed, t=
he LED landscape fixtures were the problem.

For those interested in these sorts of things, LTE-700 cell sites get hit a=
ll the time by GE UltraMax brand flourescent ballasts.  That's the closest =
thing I can think of as an analogy to your situation - so you can rest easi=
er about not smoking something....  The FCC eventually cited GE for the pro=
blem, but not until after they had manufacturered thousands (maybe hundreds=
 of thousands?) of them.  That said, I'm not aware of any "UltraMax vs. Gar=
age Door Opener" problems, but I suppose it's possible.  GDO's are certifie=
d to either FCC Part-15, or maybe Part-18 Rules for the really large door o=
peners, and all those bands offer fairly little in the way of interference =
protection.  I suspect the LED fixtures are Part-15 as well - and possibly =
never tested for emissions by their (Chinese?) manufacturers. =20

Sounds like your culprit is the landscape lighting.

On 9/18/2014 8:30 PM, Phil Allison wrote:
> Joel Koltner wrote:
>> "John Larkin"
>>
>>> CFs don't work in cold locations, and most can't be dimmed, and most
>>> won't work with 2-wire motion sensors.
>>
>> This is a fair statement, but...
>>
>> Dimmable CFLs vs. non-dimmable one is primarily a cost issue today; you can
>> readily find dimmable ones at a Home Depot or similarly well-stocked store,
>> but you end up paying a couple bucks more per each.
>
>
> ** The terms "dimmable" and "non-dimmable" are applied by marketing pukes to CFL lamps and packaging. What they refer to is using a regular triac dimmer intended for incandescent lamps to dim the CFL.
>
> If you use a trailing edge IGBT dimmer, most CFLs work fine.
>
> Every CFL I have ever seen will dim nicely if you use a Variac.

I haven't tried using different dimmer types with different bulbs, but I 
have tried multiple devices of both types labeled "works with most 
dimmers" or "works with most CFL/LED dimmable bulbs".  None worked 
properly.

I even bought an LED recessed lamp that said it worked with specific 
models of dimmers and bought one of those.  It didn't work correctly, 
staying off until half the control range then coming on more than 
gradually.  They also had an irregularity in lighting at dim levels, 
almost flickering a bit.  Unfortunately this dimmer has a neon bulb in 
the switch to find it in the dark which is *more* than enough current to 
turn the LED into a night light. lol

I even wrote to both companies about the discrepancy and received 
nothing but recommendations for other units.

-- 

Rick