I need help to get a dimmer to work with in ceiling lights

17 years ago

I have installed 6 in ceiling lights in a basement study. It has a drop ceiling. I used the Home Depot 3" recessed lighting kit from Commercial Electric, model K26. It uses 50 W GU10 bulbs.

I have a normal incandescent Lutron dimmer installed. The power supply wire and the dimmer wire were already installed in the house and running a single, large in ceiling light previously. The dimmer was installed by me previously and was able to dim the old light.

I have drawn up a schematic of the wiring. As of right now, the switch will turn the lights on and off but will not dim them.

The wires are labeled black and white. The triangles represent wire nuts.

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Comments (5)

dim4fun
17 years ago
A common dimmer failure mode is on/off but no dimming.
old_skool
Original Author
17 years ago
Now that I think about it, I had one wire in the wrong place initially, and when I went to dim the lights, the circuit tripped. I guess this could have killed the dimmer.
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old_skool
Original Author
17 years ago
I installed a new dimmer switch, but I had the same problem: off and on work fine but the dimming does nothing.

Even though I called the company and they said it could be dimmed with a normal dimmer, is it possible they were wrong?

Also, does my wiring look correct?
old_skool
Original Author
17 years ago
Anyone else have input?
tblake10
17 years ago
I have the same problem and at first I wired incorrectly as well and when I turned off the lights it tripped the breaker. I had wired the dimmer to both the black and the neutral wires instead of black in and separate black out.
Will this fry the dimmer? I know that I have the wiring in place now.