LED lights radio interference

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May 31, 2009
4
2 35.5 Kilmarnock, VA
I recently installed several LED interior lights on my Hunter 35' sail boat to reduce power consumption. Things were going well during the daytime but as soon as I turned on the interior lights, the radio(s) (AM, FM and VHF)was overcome by static. Has anyone else experienced this problem? Is there any solution? So far, it seems like a very expensive solution gone wrong! Someone had suggested a power line filter but I think this is a broadcast situation by the LEDs.

Bill
 

txjim

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Sep 4, 2007
154
Hunter 170 Grapevine Lake, TX
I'm not an expert on the design of LED lights but I do spend a lot of time tracking down this sort of interference. Assuming the interference is caused by a switching power supply in the lights, your problem is most likely conducted noise through the power line and would be corrected by the filter. Radiated noise would typically interfere with specific channels rather than the wide spectrum you described.

Problem is, conducted noise can radiate out of the power lines so filters are typically located near the noise SOURCE rather than the device affected by the noise.

There are several easy ways to filter the power line at the source but these depend very much on the nature of the interfering signal. If the problem exists when just a single lamp is on, try the filter you mentioned above. It's possible it will work when installed at the breaker panel on power lines to your radios but it's most likely that you will need to place them at the LED lights themselves.

As Tim R stated, the cheap items would tend to cause more of a problem.
 
Jan 1, 2009
371
Atlantic 42 Honolulu
I recently installed several LED interior lights [and got a lot of RFI] Has anyone else experienced this problem?...
Bummer! Can you return the lights? RFI is a know problem with lights that use Pulse Width Modulation (PWM) to regulate the current to the LEDs. Orca Green was recommending adding ferrite beads as close to the light as possible when they were having RFI problems with some radios. Beads are cheap. But your probelm sounds very bad and I'd just send the lights back if I could.

--Tom.
 

txjim

.
Sep 4, 2007
154
Hunter 170 Grapevine Lake, TX
Bummer! Can you return the lights? RFI is a know problem with lights that use Pulse Width Modulation (PWM) to regulate the current to the LEDs. Orca Green was recommending adding ferrite beads as close to the light as possible when they were having RFI problems with some radios. Beads are cheap. But your probelm sounds very bad and I'd just send the lights back if I could.

--Tom.
Beads are only suitable if the interfering frequency is one that the beads can attenuate. The are just a chunk of metal otherwise.
 
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