In my kitchen I have 8 recessed fixtures that hold floodlight shaped bulbs. These bulbs are controlled by one switch which has a dimmer slider to the side of the switch.

All of these fixtures had GE Relax light bulbs in soft white / 2700K color temp bulbs. Pic of these bulbs is below;



I decided that I might want to change from the soft white to more of a daylight / true white type bulb, so one day while in Lowes I picked up a two pack of GE Reveal bulbs and installed them in 2 of the 8 fixtures. These bulbs are pictured below;



In the meantime I went about replacing all of the other bulbs in the house. Since the GE Refresh line was less expensive than the Reveal line, that is what I starting buying. I put them in bathrooms, bedrooms, living rooms, etc. Some of those rooms have dimmers, some do not. They worked fine everywhere.

Now back to the kitchen. I still had 6 fixtures with Relax soft white bulbs. So I bought a 6 pack of the Refresh line. I then went about installing them and even though I tried multiple bulbs, in multiple receptacles, I could not get a single bulb to light up. These bulbs are picture below;



A bit perplexed, and knowing that two Reveal bulbs were already working, I bought a 6 pack of Reveal bulbs and installed them and they all worked just fine.

I am now super confused. Why the heck would one LED bulb work just fine in a fixture, but another would not at all? The only difference in these three bulbs, as far as I can tell, is the color temperature.

Edited to add - Yes, the Refresh bulbs are dimmable. I have them in the rest of the house, and dim them regularly. And the Refresh floodlights that would not light in my kitchen fixtures, I did test them in other fixtures, with dimmer switches, and they worked just fine.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: holdem,

I would test each of the bulbs one by one in a known-good outlet.

Any that didn't work would get returned to the store as defective.

Are they dimmable?

You dimmer may be limiting the flow, even at full power, so bulbs don’t light up.

Some LED's will not work in the dimmer mode.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Yep. Look carefully at the package. It is in TINY print if that is the case.

GE markets all of the bulbs he mentioned as "dimmable", but, in my experience the brightness range is way less than can be obtained by standard bulbs. Not sure I've seen a LED bulb that has anywhere near the range of an incandescent. They go down to a certain level, and just cut off.

I would definitely test any bulbs that don't work on a circuit with a standard switch/without a dimmer.

From GE site:

To get the best dimming performance from your LED light bulbs and LED Fixtures we recommend the following:
Ensure that your dimmer is rated for LED or CFL loads and has a low-end trim or calibration. Follow the dimmer manufacturer’s instructions to set the low-end dimming.
Older Incandescent/Halogen TRIAC dimmers are not recommended for use with LED bulbs and LED Fixtures.
Ideally replace all LED bulbs controlled by a specific dimmer circuit at the same time and re-use bulbs in other locations; Bulb dimming performance is constantly being improved and older generations may have different low-end dimming characteristics.

Our kitchen range hood has two power settings for illumination, low and high. This hood was originally designed for use with halogen bulbs but due to our using this as a nightlight I’m not real comfortable with that heat buildup there.

I’ve bought two different LED bulbs that were both marked dimable and the first ones (requires two) flashed on low and functioned fine on high. Second pair flickered on low and again fine on high.

I’ve cut my losses and left the second pair in the hood and only use the lighting on high.

quote:

Originally posted by joel9507:
I would test each of the bulbs one by one in a known-good outlet.

The bulbs worked fine in other fixtures. And those fixtures had dimmer switches.

quote:

Originally posted by Patriot:
Are they dimmable?

Yes. Says so on the package, and I have the Refresh line throughout the rest of the house, on other dimmer switches. And the bulbs that would not work on my kitchen fixture, I tested them in other fixtures which have dimmer switches and they worked fine.

quote:

Originally posted by holdem:

quote:

Originally posted by Patriot:
Are they dimmable?

Yes. Says so on the package, and I have the Refresh line throughout the rest of the house, on other dimmer switches. And the bulbs that would not work on my kitchen fixture, I tested them in other fixtures which have dimmer switches and they worked fine.

It’s your dimmer switch…for sure

Due to mismatched Bulbs ? 2 of one type and 6 of another.

quote:

Originally posted by holdem:

quote:

Originally posted by joel9507:
I would test each of the bulbs one by one in a known-good outlet.

The bulbs worked fine in other fixtures. And those fixtures had dimmer switches.

Using the same dimmer for the kitchen that works in the rest of the house, or a different model of dimmer in the kitchen?

some of the LED BR-30s are an odd shape at the base and just don't screw in such that the center contact actually makes contact.

So, It might be "bottoming out" before contact is made.

happened to me with some bulbs a few years ago in can fixtures.

Not all dimmer switches are alike.

quote:

Originally posted by Some Shot:
Not all dimmer switches are alike.

See if you can find the same model dimmer the kitchen has somewhere else in the house and try the bulbs there. You see where this is going, right? If they don’t work on the other, same model, dimmer, then that dimmer is incompatible with the bulbs. If they do work, then it’s just a connection problem with the fixtures in the kitchen like radioman said.

This might sound stupid…but do you have them screwed in good and tight? I’ve heard of this happening before and it was the screw base not making good contact.

Because they are GE Bulbs, and they SUCK!

Seriously, I am the President of our HOA and we maintain Granite Post Mounted Light Fixtures at each property, as well as Light Fixtures the two entrances to our neighborhood...And yes, I can't wait to move out of the HOA! Anyway, we replaced 70 Post Light Fixtures last summer and installed new GE Bulbs in each. We had a 50% failure rate in less than ONE YEAR, so yeah, they SUCK! We changed to CREE Bulbs and have had ZERO issues since...Just Sayin'

Regarding your lighting application, I have over 30 recessed light fixtures on the first floor of my home (PAR-30 sized) and eventually ran out of the stash of Halogen PAR-30's I stocked up on when they were outlawed by the US.gov!

I have been installing the following Cree PAR30S-75W-P1-27K-40FL-E26-U1 Short Neck Indoor Floods in my recessed fixtures. They are 75W Equivalent Dimmable LED Bulbs w/ 2700K Soft White Color Temp.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07WHTKQQ3

I tried a number of bulbs and these CREE's are near identical in light output/color/quality and appearance to the Halogen PAR30'w I'm replacing.

quote:

Originally posted by Patriot:

It’s your dimmer switch…for sure

But the Relax and Reveal bulbs dim just fine on that switch. The Refresh do not come on at all, regardless of the dimmer setting.

quote:

Originally posted by TomV:
Due to mismatched Bulbs ? 2 of one type and 6 of another.

But that's what I currently have, 2 Reveal and 6 Relax. They work fine mixed. But when I try to insert a Refresh into any receptacle, it does not work. And they are all the same brand of LED, the only known difference is the color temperature of the bulb.