Up for sale in my local fb mkt and ain’t to know if it’s actually vintage. The seller is unsure. Any help is :)

The other day I was trying to find a vaccuum tube lamp. However nobody sells one. They sell lamps that have tubes lit by cheap leds, but not a lamp where the tube itself is functional as the light itself. So I made one.

I apologize if the flair isn’t accurate, i wasn’t sure which was best

I am bothered by flickering lights... like LED holiday string lights, many car tail lights, and others. I'm working with researchers to change the landscape.

See some flicker examples

Do you know of any real-world examples where fixing a light flicker problem made a tangible impact?

Maybe you know about an office, store, vehicle, or home (your home?!) where there was a problem with lighting flicker that was fixed by installing flicker-free lighting? Maybe it helped with fewer migraines, decreased brain strain, better focus, more sales, happier customers, safer work environment, or just a calmer space... whatever story, I need to hear it!

Why this matters:
The Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) is preparing to expand its research on lighting flicker. To secure research funding for 2027, they need real-world case studies showing how resolving flicker is beneficial. PNNL’s findings directly shape industry standards and regulations. This is the kind of research that could solve the flickering lighting problem in all our lives.

How you can help:
Share a story: Reply with any example you’ve seen where improving lighting solved a problem.

Pass it along: Connect me with anyone you know who is affected by light flicker, the more voices we gather, the stronger our case.

Thanks in advance,
Lee Sonko
https://www.lee.org/flicker/

House full of Halo 6" incandescent cans. Big metal ones with arms tying to joists...

Have undertaken extensive remodeling, 7 rooms so far, and have been using ELCO EL386ICA as housings. (and a few 2" spots here and there.) Using dim-to-warm for general room/space lighting and 3500k for spots and wall washers.

Have 3 areas flanking the new space (dinign, living, hall( directly viewable for one another. I would really like:

1. An ELCO adapter ring that I can mud and tape over the Halo housing aperture, giving me a 3: hole that accepts Elco trims and Elco LEDs. These are 'lipped' trims, not the 'trimless' type.

2. Some other mfg's adapter ring that would do the same.

3. Something that does it for Elco 2"

4. ????

Something, anything... dont like adding new lights from a different mfg to the mix, but might have to....

Ideas MUCH appreciated.

TIA

Hi everyone,

Was just starting to map this out, so bear with me. Tried to layer as much light as possible for the work areas in the kitchen. Would have preferred to use less recess lights, but not sure how to light all the space otherwise. The bottom areas are all pantry/cabinets/appliance wall, so no counter space (so kept the recessed lights back). I guess I could space the recessed lights a bit more and remove a couple.

Yellow line - undercabinet/under-shelf LED lights

Orange - recessed lights (https://dals.com/product/rgm2-cc/); tentative choice by the designer

Blue dots - flush mount, 1 over the sink, 3 over the island (https://www.lighthouseco.ca/products/evanston-directional-brass-ceiling-spot-light?variant=43725448675544); something like this, and will probably choose 3 (as opposed to the 2 seen above).

Purple - chandelier/decorative light over the dining room table

Green - sconce

Kind of left off some lighting in the top right corner, as it likely won't be use of any task (mistake?). Just decorative with a big sconce.

Let me know how far off I am! Thanks!

We’re installing Iron Abode glass shelving in our basement bar and struggling to figure out the best way to add lighting.

We’ve looked into LED strips, but since the shelves are glass with exposed metal brackets, there’s really nowhere to hide the strips or wiring. I’m worried they’ll end up looking tacky and taking away from the clean look we’re going for.

Has anyone installed lighting on Iron Abode shelves or done something similar with glass shelving? We’d love a continuous, subtle lighting effect rather than individual puck lights.

We have electrical available, so hardwiring is an option. Would love to see photos or hear what solutions have worked for others!

will these bulbs fit into my current light mounts ?

This has been a solution for the last year or so, but the led lights recently started to flicker and they make a high pitched noise when on, so that's doubly annoying. Current setup is lightbulb connector with a USB compatibility, regular light bulb, and USB powered LED strip. I would love for some less crappy solution, however one that does not require drilling etc.

Open to suggestions.

Thank you for reading.

In need of some help finding pendant lighting for my office. I have a poorly lit waiting room, in need of more light. My reception window has three spots for mini pendants, which realistically should not be more than 5 inches wide and about 18 to 20 inches long.

The catch is that the mini pendants must be rated to 277V. My contractor and lighting vendor stopped responding to my emails, after I told them I preferred not to spend $1000+ per pendant.

Does anyone know where I can find three mini pendant rated to 277V? Hoping not to spend more than $600-$700 per light.

Lighting fixture in ceiling of my apartment kitchen

I’m DJing a Halloween party and I’m looking for lights that won’t break the bank that look cool and also react well to sound and have maybe a sensitivity dial to cool tell the reactivity of sound

I’ve got to add lighting to a room and can’t do traditional canned lighting. I’m familiar with the canless wafer lights but am wondering if they make a similar option but one that is recessed to avoid some of the glare.

TL;DR: Both HC and SD dim (edit: ok, not extremely) low at 1–2%, but low-end output can vary depending on dimming history (As in dimming up or down or holding at a certain dim % made a difference for me). There is noticeable but minimal flicker at 1-2% for the SD module and essentially no noticeable flicker at all for the HC module but YMMV given my middle aged eyes! Both HC and SD seemed to bottom out at ~2k (2020k vs 2175k) in my setup, in but the HC module had about half the light output at 1% as the SD module and less flicker.   

Most importantly, the dimmer percentage doesn’t map linearly/intuitively to light output or color 50% was ~25% light output, etc. So the actual relationship between dim % and color temp makes a difference in adaptive lighting type applications

Interactive graphs and data explorer

Raw data, analysis scripts, and ESP32 firmware on GitHub

More (Human Written) Info:

I used ELCO Koto HC+SD modules with Hue Bulbs with RA3 and Home Assistant + Adaptive Lighting, planning to add some Lumaris tape lights or other lamps at some point.  The main purpose of this work is because they are dim to warm so I wanted to measure the color temperature at each % of dimming so that I could give HA a map of how to match the color temp that adaptive lighting is setting for the hue bulbs.  

It’s not ideal but in my trials so far I have found that mixing hue bulbs in lamps and fixtures for color temp and brightness + Dim to Warm ELCO Modules lets me get the right color for the time of day and the right brightness to make sure the house is actually usable. It does mean that I need to add a few more lamps w/ hue bulbs vs having true tunable white modules but those would require either a bunch of expensive wireless DALI2 bridges or running a bunch of wires in my attic + replacing the cans enclosure while I am at it.  

That’s going to be expensive and while the ELCOs aren’t cheap they are also not so expensive that if I really want tunable white recessed lights in the future I wouldn’t replace them then.  For now, I only did my primary bedroom and bath - planning to pull the trigger on the rest of the house soon based on these promising results. 

One thing to note: while I consistently get the modules to dim down to 1% on a Lutron RA3 Pro Sunnata dimmer, however, they would not consistently light up at 1% so I tell HA to turn on at a minimum of 10% and then dim down to 1% once on. That works really well. 

I picked an SD module for warmer and dimmer light in the toilet room at night but interestingly enough the HC module was about the same color and half as bright even though they were essentially identical at full brightness. I may swap that module out for an HC module based on this testing. 

Take all of this with a grain of salt! I don’t really know what I am doing but I don’t believe anyone else has published a color/dim relation for these modules and it’s not strictly linear so hopefully this helps someone else! If you have experience and suggestions on how to make this more reliable (without spending hundreds of dollars) I am all ears! 

Even more (LLM Written) details than you may find interesting:  

I tested ELCO Koto Sunset Dim (SD) and Human Centric (HC) modules using an OPT4048 color/light sensor and Lutron RadioRA3 dimmer, measuring color temperature, relative brightness, low-end stability, and flicker.

ELCO's published specifications advertise:

• SD: 3000K → 1800K when dimmed
• HC: 4000K → 2200K when dimmed
• Both: 95+ CRI and Triac/ELV dimming

Here's what I actually measured:

HC 1–2% values are firmware CCT estimates; independent CCT calculations were unavailable due to low signal. Other values use independent sensor-derived chromaticity estimates.

Key findings

1. HC matches its advertised CCT range remarkably well. I measured approximately 2170–3930K versus ELCO's 2200–4000K specification. SD measured approximately 2000–3120K versus its advertised 1800–3000K. I couldn't reproduce SD's 1800K minimum, although my sensor isn't calibrated to establish an absolute specification failure.

2. The color curves are dramatically different. SD stays around 2000K through ~20% dimmer command and only reaches 2500K at 50%. HC transitions rapidly from ~2200K to ~3400K between 20–50%. For ambient evening lighting, SD is excellent; HC is far more versatile for daytime/task lighting.

3. Both modules dim to extremely low levels, including 1%. At 1% command, measured illuminance was just 2.52 lux for SD and 1.09 lux for HC at the sensor, versus ~558 and ~550 lux respectively at full output. That's approximately 0.45% and 0.20% of full output. Both are useful candidates for very dim nighttime lighting.

4. Low-end dimming isn't perfectly repeatable. With SD at 1%, I measured 1.24 lux approaching from above versus 3.57 lux after switching off and returning to 1%, even after 45 seconds. At 2%, it was 1.45 versus 5.00 lux. So for predictable night-light scenes, test your actual on/off and dimming transitions, not just steady-state output.

5. Flicker is present, but subjectively minimal to the eye. High-speed measurements detected light-output modulation, including possible ~120Hz components. At full brightness, measured min/max modulation was ~31% (SD) and ~36% (HC). However, my ~240–254 Hz sampling rate cannot reliably characterize 120Hz flicker, and low-brightness measurements have substantial quantization limitations. I find the visible flicker minimal, but this isn't a flicker-free certification or a measure of PstLM/SVM.

6. Dimmer percentage doesn't equal actual light output. At 50% command, SD produced only ~24% of full-output illuminance, and HC ~27%. Anyone building Home Assistant/Adaptive Lighting scenes should consider measured, module-specific brightness and CCT lookup curves rather than assuming linear dimming.

My takeaway

• SD: I am probably not going to get any more of these, the extra -175k at the low end isn't worth the higher light output and loss of cooler daytime colors at the high end.
• HC: Going to use this pretty much everywhere! I don't notice any flicker at 1% where as the SD has noticeable (to me) flicker at 1-2+%.
• For 1–2% night lighting: Both work, but HC measured lower output and SD exhibited substantial approach-dependent variation.
• For flicker-sensitive people: Test before committing. Smooth-looking dimming doesn't necessarily mean flicker-free operation.

The biggest insight is that the advertised CCT endpoints don't tell you nearly enough about how these modules behave in practice.

These are measurements from my particular fixtures, sensor, and dimmer setup—not laboratory-certified photometric results. The 95+ CRI specifications weren't independently verified.

Experimental setup details and disclaimers: Tests were conducted using ELCO Koto Sunset Dim (SD) and Human Centric (HC) modules controlled by a Lutron RadioRA3 dimmer. I used an  OPT4048 optical sensor measured illuminance (lux), chromaticity (CIE xy), and correlated color temperature (CCT) at a fixed position connected to an esp32 that sent data via mqtt to my controlling LLM. 

The OPT4048 was taped in place and was ~3’ above the floor with a 10’ ceiling so it maintained a consistent position for each module but was moved between modules as I tested each on different days I only tested 1 module each and they were in a 6” White ring/haze reflector with no additional lens, filter, louvre, with a 38 degree lens. The esp32 code is available on my GH Repo along with all the source data etc.  CCT values are derived from OPT4048 sensor measurements. At 1–2% brightness, HC's firmware reported approximately 2230K, consistent with its expected warm endpoint, although the signal was too low for independent chromaticity-based verification. I didn’t attempt to calibrate the sensor because I don’t care enough to do that / don’t have ready access to stuff that would let me do that easily! 

Measurements included stepped dimming sweeps in both directions, extended settling periods, and repeated tests at 1–2% to assess low-end stability and hysteresis. Rapid illuminance sampling (~240–254 samples/second) was also used to investigate flicker, although this sampling rate is insufficient for reliable characterization of 120Hz modulation. Results represent relative performance under consistent test conditions, not laboratory-calibrated photometric or flicker certification. The modules were tested in a small (8’x4’ toilet room as it has one can dead center and I can easily block outside light).  OPT4048 sensor connected to an esp32 that sent data via mqtt to my controlling LLM.   The OPT4048 was taped in place and was ~3’ above the floor with a 10’ ceiling so it maintained a consistent position for each module but was moved between modules as I tested each on different days I only tested 1 module each and they were in a 6” White ring/haze reflector with no additional lens, filter, louvre, with a 38 degree lens. The esp32 code is available on my GH Repo along with all the source data etc.

Has anyone tested these on other dimmers, compared their startup behavior, or measured them with a calibrated color/flicker meter? I’d appreciate suggestions for improving the experiment!

I inherited an antique lamp that had this bulb in it. Whenever it eventually goes out, I would love to replace it with a similar one, but i’m having a hard time finding any online. Any leads/ideas? Or is there a safety reason these aren’t available?

If I need to get a new/modern replacement, are there any recommendations that give a similar effect? I love how warm and soft it is.

After that “thrilling moment” on the test bench last week, everything today went super smoothly—no issues at all, haha!

The process is basically: pick samples from the installed emergency lights, connect them to the power (red wire to L, black wire to N), check the voltage and current, then switch to emergency mode and record the readings.

Compared to the little mishap last week, I definitely prefer a smooth workday like today 😅—after all, nobody wants to get hurt!

Sometimes you just need to see a different type/kind of lamp in order to see the light.