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I recently installed a couple of LED floods (seeming nice Costco deal on them) and have now released an RF monster in our kitchen. Turns out they produce a fair amount of noise that needs suppressing. Of course I could remove them and go back to the weird color CFLs we have used. But I would prefer to keep and suppress.
Some Googling suggest a variety of RF cores might do the trick. Some Ham sites suggest more sophisticated--and very expensive--solutions. I will probably try the RF core route. But I thought I would run the problem by our very sophisticated RF engineering crew on MRF....
Suggestions? Are all ferrite cores alike?
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The best solution is to return them. Household appliances are NOT supposed to radiate at that power level in the commercial radio spectrum. They are defective. AND illegal.
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what exactly do you see, do you have other appliances that are not working properly?
are these on a dimmer and if so, are they dimmable, and futhermore are they compatible with the dimmer? I recently installed a Lutron dimmer and they have a list of compatible LED bulbs on their web site, and although the CREE lamps from home depot are not listed, they seem to work fine. But it seems that not every dimmable LED is compatible with every dimmer out there.
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What RF are you getting in the kitchen? Bad wifi? Bad cordless telephone?
I installed the Cree 6 inch LED all over my house and I haven't noticed any loss of wifi in the house...
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They are Feit LED dimmable floods (but no dimmer switch). The worst interference is on FM radio. Some in the 5Ghz cordless phone band. I have not noticed Wifi (2.4) issues, but I did not test.
Some Ham sites I looked at said that all LED radiate a bit, caused by the power supplies in the bulb.
But cbelt has a point. Maybe they are just beyond acceptable. I have not had this problem with other LEDs I have installed.
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A quick bit of research on Google would tell you how many others users have experienced this problem and would provide some insight as to the extent of the problem.
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I'd return them, especially if other LEDs haven't been a problem for you. Probably cheap Chinese junk.
Regarding your other question about a ferrite choke, I don't know how effective they'd be, wrapped around the romex that runs to each light. If the lights were on a dedicated circuit you might have an easier time of it, because the radio might be picking up the noise from the A/C line and not through the air.
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You can try things like the already suggested ferrite core etc. but I go along with the others who say return. Try another set and see if the problem persists.
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Ferrite's good for choking a tiny bit of RF that might cause a modest hum on a long unbalanced audio cable or keeping your FM radio safe from a cheap USB 1.0 cable that someone relabeled for USB 2.0.
If they're trampling WiFi, get those lamps the heck out of your house.
