Vacancy sensor leakage current and LED lights

[wws944]

Thanks to Californias Title 24, when we reconstructed our house a few years ago, we had to install some vacancy sensors in the bathrooms and laundry room. The ones chosen by our electrician were Leviton IPP15-1LW.

Recently I installed some LED bulbs that I bought from a Chinese ebay vendor, into some light fixtures controlled by the vacancy sensors. These use BA15D style bases, run at 120v, and draw about 3.2 watts. There are three of them in each fixture. The interesting thing is that there is apparently enough leakage current through the vacancy sensors that these bulbs make a fair night light. Other LED bulbs that I also use on the vacancy sensors do not have this side-effect. These include a Cree CR6, a TCP BR20, and a Ecosmart/LSC 7 watt (40 equivalent) bulb.

Curious if others have noticed this with other products. Also am now thinking I should measure the leakage current to see if I should replace several of them with real on/off switches. To save energy.

I must say I am pretty happy with the BA15D based bulbs. They were advertised as emitting 300 lumens. And they are almost as bright as the 50 watt xenon fill bulbs they replaced. Just a little cooler in color.

 

[SemiMan]

That is quite strange. If the bulbs have a driver, then I would be very surprised they would light up at all. Could just be a high voltage LED/LED string with a bridge which is why you are seeing light from the leakage current which I expect is quite low. I just hope the led board/electricals are properly isolated the the leakage is not getting into the LEDs from an unintended path.

Semiman

 

[wws944]

Here is a photo of what they look like. There are 30 LEDs in each one. I have no idea what kind of driver circuitry is in the base: