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   Message 7,200 of 7,706   
   "William Gothberg" <"William to Clare Snyder   
   Re: Do switch mode power supplies flicke   
   26 Dec 18 22:25:06   
   
   XPost: alt.home.repair, uk.d-i-y   
   From: Gothberg"@internet.co.is   
      
   On Thu, 20 Dec 2018 03:54:10 -0000, Clare Snyder  wrote:   
      
   > On Wed, 19 Dec 2018 11:23:00 -0000, "William Gothberg" <"William   
   > Gothberg"@internet.co.is> wrote:   
   >   
   >> Do switch mode power supplies flicker in time with mains?  Specifically LED   
   power supplies in commercially available domestic lamps.  By in time, I don't   
   mean at the same 50/60Hz, but anchored to it.  I.e. if you have several such   
   lamps each with    
   their own built in supply, will they all flicker in time, using the mains   
   frequency to keep them in time, or will they be random, making the room   
   overall not flicker due to them all being random?  And is there any way I can   
   test this?  I tried taking    
   photos of them, but my camera only goes as fast as 1/2000th of a second, which   
   shows all the lights at the same brightness each time, I suspect the flicker   
   is above 2000Hz.   
   >  Leds (at least white ones) on a switch mode supply will not flicker   
   > because the persistance of the phosphor is longer than the period of   
   > the switching frequency which is more than 100kHz - typically 2 mhz.   
   >  The answer to the second part of the question is no, the switching is   
   > not syncronized to the mains frequency on MOST switch mode power   
   > supplies.   
      
   I'm definitely getting 100Hz flicker from it, I timed it using a slow camera   
   shot (1/10th of a second) while moving the LED across the camera's field of   
   vision.  There were exactly 10 bright spots, although they were only 8%   
   brighter than the dim spots.     
   The LEDs don't go off completely.  It's enough of a flicker for me to see with   
   my eyes if I scan past the light, and I can detect anomalies when watching   
   something rotating, like a drill chuck.  I've got an oscilloscope on order,   
   then I'll be able to    
   check the signal to the LEDs (and in other parts of the supply) accurately.   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)   

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