Kitchen Light Mystery

[Sue J]

In 2019 we remodeled our kitchen and replaced our kitchen light. It went in the same spot on the ceiling and we used the same wiring, original to the house, built in 1955.

The new light is LED, 3 strips on each side, each side fed by a transformer. A few months ago one side of 3 strips went out. Soon after the other side was taking a long time to turn on. Flip the wall switch and nothing happens and then a few minutes of blinking, then it would turn on.

The fixture has a 5 year warranty so I contacted the company (through Home Depot) and the unit was replaced under warranty.

A few days ago DH installed the new replacement fixture. Looked great....for a day. DH said something smelled in the kitchen and one side (3 strips of LEDs) of the newly installed fixture is dead. The other side of 3 LED strips is fine.

We are quite perturbed.

My first guess is that this fixture is just as bad as the first one. The company will not replace one that has already been replaced under warranty. Time to move on and just get a new fixture from a different brand.

Or.....could this be an issue with the house wiring? Could a problem with the wiring cause one side to go out and the blinking that we had in the original one?

This is the item -

https://www.homedepot.com/p/ETi-49-...ylic-Lens-Kitchen-Lighting-54645142/311997216

And this is what the LED panel looks like. This is one end, the other end has another transformer to go to the other side of 3 LED strips.

 

[RunningBum]

I'm no electrician, amateur or pro, but 17 reviews all 4 or 5* tells me the problem is not likely to be with the manufacturer.

 

[Sunset]

Could it be that the fixture takes 3 wires (including ground), and your ground is non-existant, or bad ? ).

 

[Ronstar]

Get a different light. One without a transformer. Maybe first hook up a cheap single bulb light to it and see how that works just to verify that your wiring is ok

 

[zinger1457]

Are the lights on a dimmer switch? LED lights require a special dimmer switch.

 

[bjorn2bwild]

Led fixtures are sensitive to voltage fluctuations.

What else operates on the same circuit?
Any kind of surge load could cause problems.

 

[freedomatlast]

Likely another bad fixture. The reviews mean little to nothing. To test, check the voltage between the the white and black wire then the voltage between the black and ground wire. Both should be about 120V. That will rule out a wiring issue which is extremely unlikely given the description of the issue. If you don't feel comfortable working on live circuits, disregard checking the voltage.

 

[Palmtree]

Have you had any other electrical work done in the house recently? Even in a different part of the house. If so, it may share a circuit and something was changed that is affecting the light.

 

[ERD50]

Did this replace an older fluorescent fixture? Are you *sure* that you removed the old ballast transformer, and are connected directly to 120V wires?

+1 on dimmer - this says dim-able, but you do need an LED compatible dimmer.

-ERD50

 

[ERD50]

Get a different light. One without a transformer. Maybe first hook up a cheap single bulb light to it and see how that works just to verify that your wiring is ok

I don't think that's a transformer. LEDs use driver circuits, old fluorescent lights used transformers, or some low voltage lights.

Your suggestion of connecting a standard old light to it would be a good troubleshooting measure.

-ERD50

 

[ls99]

May not be relevant story. Worth the effort.
Some years ago a friends ceiling fan light went out. They replaced the bulb, blew out as soon as switch was turned on. Went through several bulbs, with same results, finally in exesperation asked me for help.
Suspecting a voltage issue, probed the socket with a voltmeter. Surprise, the VOM indicated 230 Volts AC. Told them to go to electrical supply house, buy 220 volt rated bulb. After some haggling with the counter man they got a 220 V rated bulb, screwed it in and all was well. Told them to go back and get a few more 220V bulbs to have for the future.
So......for laughs, Measure the voltage of the wires feeding the light fixture.

 

[Sue J]

Great comments, thank you.

It’s not on a dimmer. DH says there are 2 wires, a black and a white. No ground wire coming out of the ceiling. DH will check the voltage.

The previous fixture was fluorescent with ballasts and tubes. This is an all new fixture.

 

[JoeWras]

Get an affordable meter and check voltage first.

 

[isisdave]

A ground wire at every load has been standard since 1962.

If you can see up past the black and white wires, they might be coming out of a Romex-like cable that might have a ground wire in it. When sheathed cable started to be used with plastic boxes, it was necessary to provide a grounding conductor. If there is one, it's probably too recessed to use without some damage to the ceiling.

I suspect something about this light is unhappy without a ground. I'd try to find a different one, preferable one that says "ground not required," although you may have to ask at an electrical supply shop.

 

[MTB4me]

According to the installation manual from the manufacturer’s website for that fixture, a ground is required. If you aren’t supplying a ground wire, it could well be that it’s not a faulty fixture, just improper installation.

Also, if you choose to add a dimmer later, an older dimmer for incandescent lights will likely work, but your dimming range will be way off. That’s why most LED lights require new dimmers that can properly adjust the voltage range for this new lighting technology. To my knowledge, I don’t think an old dimmer will damage an LED light. It just won’t adjust across an acceptable range.

MFG website link:
https://www.etissl.com/product/1-5-x-4-traditional-linear-ceiling/

Installation manual:
https://www.etissl.com/wp-content/u...48142-54647142-54649142-54644142-54645142.pdf

 

[Sunset]

Great comments, thank you.

It’s not on a dimmer. DH says there are 2 wires, a black and a white. No ground wire coming out of the ceiling. DH will check the voltage.

...

The ceiling box is it metal , and the wires leading into the box are they in a metal conduit ?

If so I believe you can fasten the ground to the box itself if there is no ground wire. (Electricians here feel free to correct me if I'm wrong).

 

[427Vette]

These are all good suggestions above. The only other thing that I can think of is to check the polarity of the wires in your light box. You want the black to be the hot, white to be the neutral. It’s not uncommon for someone to have changed out an outlet upstream from the light and inadvertently reversed the polarity to the rest of the circuit. The simplest way to do this is with a glow type tester that glows when you touch it to a hot wire. You can check it with a meter if you can reach something grounded with your test leads like the kitchen sink, stove, frig etc. Or plug an extension cord into a grounded outlet and use the extension cords ground to do the test. Like mentioned above LED’s can be incredibly finicky with ground and neutral issues. Let us know what you find.

 

[Lakewood90712]

You may have a wiring problem. If you have a loose neutral connection ( white wire), depending on the house wiring , with shared neutral line, that can cause 230 volts to be sent to the fixture. Most LED fixture power supplies will tolerate overvoltage for a while before something fails, and the device will seem normal until that happens.

 

[JoeWras]

A few thoughts.

- Ground may be important, but it is more likely that the light requires ground in order to obtain "damp rating"
- If you live in Chicago area, or one of the few other areas in USA with metal conduit, your metal box is the ground. Pigtail a wire to the box for ground. Most of the rest of USA has romex wires.
- Bad, floating or backfed neutral is indeed possible
- A shared neutral with a receptacle using a blender or microwave could cause issues on sensitive lights

I've shared here before that I am a product reviewer for Home Depot and Amazon. I've installed over 100 lights. I've never had one do this kind of burn out, ever. Something is weird.

BTW, Home Depot still tries to source quality goods even if made in China. They always have UL or ETL certifications. Amazon fixtures can be really sketchy. I stopped requesting them because I'm so concerned about their safety. I also will not request plumbing from Amazon. Too many problems.

One last thing. I've never seen an ETi light on the HD review program. So I have no experience with ETi. For your light, I see that is consistent as there are no "seeds" reviews. Seeds reviews are good and bad. The good is we have a lot of reviewers who write very good, honest, comprehensive reviews. I hope I do that 90% of the time I review. The bad is that some reviewers mail it in and cheat. HD also puts time pressure on our reviews so 10% of the time I rush mine. There is also a psychological aspect of not wanting to give a bad review for a compensated product. I'm over that. I give out 1's and 2's and have not been terminated from the program.

 

[ncbill]

Probably just another bad fixture.

That's why I went with 4' LED tubes instead of a fixture when replacing the standard 4' fluorescent tubes in my main kitchen light.

That did require bypassing the ballast & wiring line voltage directly to the tombstones.

There were simply too many bad reviews of fixtures with built-in LED strips failing prematurely at the time I did the above conversion.

Not just on Amazon, but also on Home Depot & Lowe's websites.

Plus the LED tubes were much less expensive than a fixture swap.

LED tubes still working for over 3 years now...before I was only getting about a year out of the fluorescent tubes.

 

[EastWest Gal]

I vote for a wiring issue-no ground.

We bought the same light from HD in 2020 to replace our fluorescent overhead kitchen light that had a plastic cloud diffuser over it. We have a ground wire there though, as our house was built in 1996. We've had no problems. I doubt it is a bad fixture, but then, my sample size is one.

 

[JoeWras]

Probably just another bad fixture.

That's why I went with 4' LED tubes instead of a fixture when replacing the standard 4' fluorescent tubes in my main kitchen light.

That did require bypassing the ballast & wiring line voltage directly to the tombstones.

There were simply too many bad reviews of fixtures with built-in LED strips failing prematurely at the time I did the above conversion.

Not just on Amazon, but also on Home Depot & Lowe's websites.

Plus the LED tubes were much less expensive than a fixture swap.

LED tubes still working for over 3 years now...before I was only getting about a year out of the fluorescent tubes.

What's interesting is that those LED tubes consist of a little inverter/driver at the end connected to exactly one of those strips inside the tube.

I must be very lucky. I installed a variety of LED fixtures in my home from 2015 through 2017 and haven't had a failure yet. I installed:
- 12 "can light" conversions
- 2 full panel troffers (has those strips)
- 12 LED tubes in place of the old florescents
- 4 strip lights (look like old tubes, but have LED tubes)
- 6 round lights (not strips, but plates of LEDs)

The only impact of this was a drop in my electric consumption of about 25%. No failures so far. I am touching wood as I type this.

I don't have many LED bulbs. I did have one fail, and my non-profit had many bulb failures. I chalk that up to the fact the inverter/driver is jammed into a tight space that gets hot.