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With «green» electricity bills amounting to ever more greenbacks, I am in the process of gradually replacing my incandescent light bulbs with LED light bulbs.

However, my efforts met with mixed results in terms of radio frequency interference (RFI) caused by certain LED bulb models—brands. This made me cautious to the point of buying only one unit at a time of any unknown brand—model and testing these first.

Still, this leaves me with money wasted on unusable LED bulb models. This made me wonder whether there is some online database where amateur radio operators can share their RFI experience with certain LED bulb models?

P.S.: We are not supposed to make any shopping recommendations on Stack Exchange!

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I have faced the same, how to know before you purchase, and even if you would know, you could end up with RFI from LED bulbs.

One method I have used with reasonable success is to repress RFI right at (or very close to) the bulb on the mains wiring. While RFI is still generated by the bulb, at least the mains wiring is not used as a distribution medium or antenna.

HTH.

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  • $\begingroup$ Could you share some component details of how exactly you did that? Cheers! $\endgroup$
    – on4aa
    May 3 '16 at 7:58
  • $\begingroup$ I used commercially available filters, can't name brand, nor shop due to policies here... I am sure you can find some... $\endgroup$
    – Edwin van Mierlo
    May 3 '16 at 9:21
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    $\begingroup$ FYI, there is no policy against naming or even recommending products. If someone presents a problem and you can recommend something that would solve it and say how to use it, that's a good answer. The case we have a policy against is “What's the best X to buy?” which gets answers like “I like [Product A]!” “[Product B] is perfect for beginners.” “[Product that isn't sold any more] is the best available.” et cetera. It's a popularity contest and it doesn't age well. $\endgroup$
    – Kevin Reid AG6YO ♦
    May 3 '16 at 20:28
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    $\begingroup$ I used these filters YMMV $\endgroup$
    – Edwin van Mierlo
    May 4 '16 at 6:23
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One trick I learned so far is to check for a big series capacitor when the base is transparent. Series capacitor fed LED bulbs tend to cause very little RFI if any at all.

Unfortunately, this trick only applies to low power LED light bulbs. Almost all high power LED light bulbs tend to have a switched power supply in a white plastic base. It is here where there seems to be a lot of disparity in RFI suppression between different LED bulb models, even within the same brand! You never know into what RFI suppression quality you are buying...

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