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Montrell Copeland photo
Austria, Vienna
1 Level
712 Review
43 Karma

Review on Illuminate your space with Armacost Lighting 860600 Universal Dimmable: A Versatile and Dimmable Lighting Solution by Montrell Copeland

Revainrating 3 out of 5

Doesn't black out pucks very well.

My setup consists of an 820200 dimmable LED driver, three 213413 Puck LED lights, and a Lutron RRD-PRO RadioRA2 dimmer set to direct phase and clipped to 1%-100% . The problem I see is that with a dimmer there is a very small difference in brightness between 100% and 5%. In my estimation, the light level looks from 100% to 85% and then. If I instead leave the Lutron dimmer at 100% and connect the Armacost dimmer 511120 to the DC terminals of the 820200 driver, the dimmer with the knob on the dimmer 511120 dims the washers nice and linearly from 0 to 100%. I measured direct current. Voltage across the LED driver (no dimmer 511120) and when Lutron was increased from 1% to 100% the DC voltage at the DC terminals increased from 1.5V to 12.3V while driving a 3-puck load . It looked good as it compared very closely to the same measurements made on the DC terminals of the 511120 dimmer when I turned the knob from left to right. So if the voltage sensed by the shims is the same for both drivers, it means that the 820200 LED driver is not properly limiting the current fed to the shims during dimming. I tried to contact the company but after a week nothing came from them. I'm thinking of just using a Lutron dimmer as a switch and leaving the 511120 as a manual dimmer. Either way, I can level the stage to whatever level I want on these art show pucks. Not perfect, but it works. Just wondering if my LED driver is faulty or if they all work like that. Others seem to get good dimming performance from them? UPDATE 3/20/21: I have replaced the 820200 dimmable LED driver with a HitLights 25W dimmable LED driver, an electric LED driver, and the dimming works great. The Lutron dimmer works great in combination with this new HitLights 25w driver and Armacost puck lights. I suspect that Armacost's 820200 is an "old" version of their driver/dimmer and just doesn't work that well. Other newer Armacost releases get good dimming ratings. I just played it safe and went with another brand. I should also note that I have never heard a response from the company's customer service.

Pros
  • Absolutely amazing!
Cons
  • Not bad, but...