Why is the energy saving lamp flashing

There are situations when a lamp flashes in your apartment (house, cottage, garage, etc.). Moreover, a flashing lamp can be either an incandescent lamp or an energy-saving lamp or even a lamp daylight. Each flashing lamp has its own reasons, although there are a number of common violations leading to this defect.

However, to a greater extent this applies to fluorescent lamps and energy-saving lamps.

As for the latter, often when repairing electrical wiring, people are interested in why do they have energy-saving light bulbs flickering at night?

There are very specific reasons for this:

one of them is the presence of a backlit switch in the power supply circuit of an energy-saving lamp (it can break both phase and zero, although the latter is not true). The fact is that the backlight in the switch is nothing more than an LED. And we also know from school that a diode connected to an alternating current circuit is capable of passing through itself one half-cycle of this alternating current. The result is impulse current, due to it, the backlight in the switch glows (when it is turned off), but we have an energy-saving lamp in the same circuit and this small pulsed current also causes the gas in the lamp bulb to glow (this is especially clearly visible at night). I hope you understand that everything written above refers to the situation when the switch is in the off position. This defect can be eliminated by replacing the switch with backlight, with a switch without backlight (you can bite out the LED), or in the power supply circuit of the electric lamp there must be a switch that breaks both the phase and the neutral conductor. Fortunately, this effect does not always occur. main reason, as you understood in the backlight of the switch, and the backlight options are different;

another reason (why the lamp is flashing) may be that in the power supply circuit of the energy-saving lamp, the switch is set to break the neutral wire (which is not true in principle). In this situation, the phase potential approaches energy saving lamp without break, i.e. constantly, and the zero potential comes from the other side due to poor insulation of the wiring. This is especially true for old apartment buildings. In those distant (or not quite ...) times, electrical wiring was carried out with a two-wire aluminum wire in single insulation, which of course does not meet the current requirements of the electrical installation rules. I want to note that since 2001, the requirements of the rules for the installation of electrical installations in relation to residential and public buildings are only applied copper wires double insulated with protective conductor(the wire must be at least three-core).

As for the flashing of fluorescent lamps, there are also several reasons for this:

a faulty starter, if any, in the circuit;

insufficient mains voltage, as required by the lamp manufacturer;

low temperature in the room where the lamps are used;

malfunction of the lamp itself;

lack of reliable contact in the connections;

the presence of defects in the starting device (choke) can lead to instant failure of the fluorescent lamp.

For incandescent paws, everything is simple, their flickering (if I may say so) can occur due to:

voltage fluctuations in the supply network;

Home lighting is an important part. home interior. After all, a properly installed light can not only visually change the space, but also hide some flaws in the room. However, problems with lighting and electrical wiring are not uncommon. One of the first signs of problems with electrical wiring is the unstable glow of light bulbs, namely flickering or blinking. First of all, you need to determine in what period of time the light flickers and how often this happens.

Why are the lights flickering in the house?

There are several reasons why a light bulb may flicker. Ranging from incorrectly wired and connected wiring, to problems with the transformer. First of all, after detecting the flickering of light, you need to ask the neighbors if they have such a problem. If the flickering of light in the apartment is noticed not only by you, then the problem is not in your wiring, but in the common transformer. In this case, you need to contact the electricians, with a request to solve the problem.

If the light blinks, only in your apartment, you need to find out whether it blinks constantly or only for a while after pressing the switch, whether it blinks in all rooms or only in a few.

One of the reasons why the light blinks may be a decrease in voltage in the network, the control apparatus simply does not have enough power to turn on the light. If, when turned on, the light blinks for more than 10 seconds, it means that the power surge is caused by connecting a powerful device to the network, such as a welding machine.

Why is the fluorescent lamp blinking?

It happens that fluorescent lamps, after pressing the light on, do not turn on immediately, but blink for a while. There may be two reasons, firstly, it may be that the lamp has expired, so it starts to turn on unsteadily. The second reason is a faulty starter, this may be a factory defect if the new lamp blinked after installation, or the starter failed due to power surges. You can repair or replace the starter yourself if you have the necessary skills. In most cases, it is easier to replace a fluorescent lamp than to repair it without a guarantee that the repair will be successful.

Also, the reason for blinking fluorescent lamps can be a switch, most manufacturers of such lamps indicate in the instructions that the blinking of the lamp is possible when using a backlit switch. It is quite simple to eliminate the situation when the light is off and the light is blinking, for this you need to turn off the backlight of the switch by simply cutting the backlight wire.

The blinking of the light can also be a consequence of exposure to electromagnetic waves, for example, from a nearby radio station or a mobile operator's transmitter.

What to do if the lights flicker at home?

If you notice that the lights in your house have begun to blink, check if other appliances that are powered by the mains are working properly. Be sure to check every light bulb in the house for flickering. If not all the lights flicker, or only one, then the reason lies in your wiring. In this case, you need to invite the master who carried out the installation or repair of electrical wiring in your home. Before the arrival of an electrician, try not to turn on those lights in which the lights are flashing.

If you are checking for flashing lights and find that all of them are flashing, talk to your neighbors to see if they have the same problem. If the neighbors also have a problem, then this is either a power surge that arose either due to problems with the transformer distributor, or one of the users of your power line connected a powerful unit that is prohibited from connecting to the home electrical network.

Most often, the lights start blinking if there are malfunctions at the substation (transformer) or the main cable, in this case only an emergency utility call will help.

However, there can be many more real reasons for flashing lights at home. In houses of old construction, it can be a burnt-out, or already burnt-out neutral wire, both at the substation and at the house assembly and at storey shield(if the whole apartment house), a flow heater may have been installed or the power supply to the elevator has been incorrectly connected, due to which a power drawdown occurs. To identify the real cause, it is necessary to call a qualified electrician who, using special tools, will find the cause of the flashing light in the house or apartment network.

What to do if the reason for the blinking of the light in the house is found?

If the cause of the blinking light is a hardware malfunction, then you can get by with replacing the failed equipment, but if the problem lies in the incorrectly laid and distributed voltage load in the apartment, then of course you will have to dismantle all the electrical wiring. Therefore, before you do a major overhaul of your home, if you want to completely update the electrical wiring, you can draw up a project for future electrification in order to avoid problems later, and if it occurs, it will be easier to find a discrepancy with the technical requirements according to the project.

Sometimes, in order to eliminate the blinking of a light bulb that is connected to the outlet, it is enough to change the polarity, that is, turn the plug over when plugged into the outlet. If the problem is more global, then a qualified electrician, using special tools, can easily find the cause if it lies within your apartment or house.

Electrical wiring is often the cause of fire, so if even the slightest sign of a malfunction appears, it is necessary to find the cause and eliminate it as soon as possible in order to avoid more serious problems such as fire. Timely and high-quality replacement of wiring and power distribution equipment is a guarantee of your peace of mind and safety.

If the light bulb you just bought started flickering after turning off the power, do not rush to throw it away and complain about the breakdown. It could be the device itself. fluorescent lamps.

Fluorescent lamp, in essence, is an advanced analogue of an incandescent lamp. Ultraviolet radiation, caused by an electric discharge in gas vapor, affects the phosphor and is converted into visible light.

The luminous efficiency of such lamps is several times greater than conventional incandescent lamps. And the service life is not limited, but rather by the service life - how many by the number of on-off cycles. On average, a fluorescent lamp with a warranty period of 2 years has 3,500 switching cycles. That when calculating, no more than 4-6 inclusions per day come out.

With the advent of compact fluorescent lamps chambered for E27 and E14, lamps have become widespread in everyday life. At the same time, a number of problems arose. One such problem is flickering when the lights are off.

In addition to the detrimental effect on vision, such flickering also affects the life of the lamp. Constant flickering quickly develops a resource of work.

How to solve the problem of flickering fluorescent lamp. To begin with, it is worth determining what caused the flicker.

The most common cause is the use of a backlit switch on the same circuit as the fluorescent lamp. This is caused by the presence of a capacitor in the lamp control relay. The small currents flowing in the backlight switch are too small to turn on the lamp, but constantly recharge the capacitor. When the charge becomes sufficient, a discharge occurs into the network and the lamp turns on for a short time.

You can solve this problem by replacing the switch, or turning off the backlight. If several fluorescent lamps are used in the network, flickering can be eliminated by replacing one of the fluorescent lamps with an incandescent lamp. In this case, the backlight in the switch can be left.

For people who are more versed in electronics, more technologically advanced methods of solving the problem may be suitable.

In parallel with the lamp, connect a capacitor with a capacity of 0.33‑0.68 μF and a voltage of at least 400V to the network (the main thing is not to use an electrolytic capacitor).

Check the wire switching circuit in the switch, if switching off occurs by breaking the neutral wire. It is worth switching to a phase break.

If a switch is used LED backlight, doubling the resistance in the power circuit can remove the flicker effect.

When using a neon-lit switch, the problem is solved by setting a resistance of about 2 MΩ.

In most cases, this will help eliminate the flickering of fluorescent lamps. If the flickering continues, the cause may be faulty wiring or breakdowns in the switch itself. It is quite possible that when the light is turned off, the opening does not occur completely. In this case, the switch should be inspected and, if necessary, replaced with a new one.