• andrewta@lemmy.world
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    7 months ago

    The (for lack of a better phrase) flicker from led lights. For those that don’t know what I mean… Stand near a strobe light and move your hand in front of your face. You get basically a shutter effect.

    That’s what I see when I’m near led lights and there is movement . It’s hard as hell on the eyes.

    I wished every one saw it so it would get fixed.

    I should have bought a pallet of incandescent bulbs when I had the chance.

    • bastion@feddit.nl
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      7 months ago

      The kicker is, this isn’t even necessary. It’s not LED lights that are the issue, it’s poorly-implemented dimming of LED lights.

      In some cases (home lighting dimming), you can either buy a dimmable LED light or buy a dimmer made for LEDs.

      But sometimes, it’s just built in to the device, and there’s nothing you can do about it. All it technically takes is a really simple circuit that adds capacitance to the line.

      If you have a cheap strip of LEDs dimmed by a cheap PWM controller, you might even be able to just take the positive and wrap it through and around a ring magnet multiple times. I’m not sure that would work, but I’ve seen it done before for noise filtering, which this is, effectively.

      What that does is averages out the highs and lows, significantly reducing flicker. There are some devices out there that do the (small amount) of work that is required not to flicker. It’s just… …dimming by flicker is really easy, and if a manufacturer can save a few cents at the cost of quality, a lot of them will.

      • HessiaNerd@lemmy.world
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        7 months ago

        wrap it through and around a ring magnet multiple times

        You are describing an inductor not a capacitor. They can be basic low pass filters but I don’t think they will work in this case.

        • bastion@feddit.nl
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          7 months ago

          I wasn’t sure that, specifically, would work. But, the thing with the capacitor does work.

          • bastion@feddit.nl
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            7 months ago

            Looks like an inductor does work, but has to be fairly large, so isn’t worth it, particularly with cheap capacitor solutions available.

      • monsterpiece42@reddthat.com
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        7 months ago

        A variable resistor would do a perfect job and still be very low cost. Some high quality LED lights do this, but it is rare.

    • Syd@lemm.ee
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      7 months ago

      Fluorescent does this too. I do miss the light of incandescent bulbs but the more expensive led lights seem to flicker less. Some manufacturers make bulbs that are specifically flicker free too.

        • Syd@lemm.ee
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          7 months ago

          Phillips is the first that come to mind. You’re going to be looking at paying more on the realm of $15 a bulb. It’s a pretty big jump, if light quality bothers you though it’s a good investment.

    • Pilferjinx@lemmy.world
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      7 months ago

      Older lcd and plasma displays used to flash yellow when moving my eyes around the screen. People thought I was taking crazy pills.