Dimmer does not turn off new rope lights

[RussellB]

Hi all,

A string of rope lights failed in my theater so I replaced the rope with the new one.  Now, when I turn them off at the dimmer they dim but don't go all the way out.

The switch is an LDZ-102.  When I pull the tab on the front the lights do go out, but when I put it back in they give off a low glow.

The reason I replaced them in the first place was because I believe they were incandescent bulbs.  I replaced with LEDs so that explains what's going on.  I have to check the wiring.

Russ

[thegreatheed]

You are not meeting the minimum load rating for the dimmer. I believe those are 25W. Under that rating and the lights will light up.

Plus, those LEDs may not be forward-phase dimming compatible. Better check the dimming compatibility of the rope lights (or you could burn up the lights, or the dimmer, or both).

[RussellB]

They are dimmable.  It's definitely due to the wiring.  I was able to fix the issue by adding a programmable timer in 'always on' mode inline with the rope and now they work as expected.

[Darkimedes]

@RussellB

I've seen this from Lutron countless times. The C4 dimmers always remain "on" in order to keep the radios and circuitry online. This ends up passing a very small amount of current on to the lights. In incandescent applications, this wasn't enough to make the filaments glow. LEDs being capacitive loads, as opposed to resistive loads like every other type of lighting, can still operate under this extremely small "bleed" of current from the dimmer. If you can source a Lutron LUT-MLC (shunt load capacitor), your problem will most likely be solved without the timer in line. As it stands now, the timer is acting as a resistor and bleeding off the micro current that is coming from the dimmer.