Am radio interference question.

[solarvic]

I have a completely blind friend that see/s complete darkness. So he listens to his AM FM radio to be connected with the world. His brother installed a led ceiling light in his kitchen and now he can,t get the local am stations when the light is turned on. The radio is a portable sony am fm cassette radio. So am asking if anyone knows how to solve the interference problem or if there is some kind of filter to get for him. As long as the light is turned off the radio works fine. The only way he knows if the light is on is feeling the switch position.

 

[Radioguy41]

He's getting RFI off of the built in switching power supply. The only way to get rid of it is to get a better LED light (or go back to an incandescent light fixture).

 

[KE4EST]

Agreed, these things are nice, but can cause grief.

 

[solarvic]

I guess the lite had the old florescent tubes in it. His brother removed the ballast and installed led tubes in the same fixture. I will go look at his light to be sure. Thanks for the reply,s.

 

[KE4EST]

I guess the lite had the old florescent tubes in it. His brother removed the ballast and installed led tubes in the same fixture. I will go look at his light to be sure. Thanks for the reply,s.

Have done this to a couple of mine. Didn't have to remove the ballast, these tubes were designed to use existing hardware.

 

[arlo]

Those LED simple swap tubes are going to cause a ton of RFI.
What you really need is a conversion kit with a separate power supply. That's what I did with the 24" fluorescent's in my kitchen.
It requires a bit of wiring but not too difficult. My buddy has a garage full of LED's that you just slap in and go. One by one they fail.
Tore a few down to see if there is a fix. They have a cheap current limiter pc board about as big as a half stick of chewing gum.
His AM radio that gets the local radio station is obliterated with static and buzzing.
Just for giggles I turned on an AM radio in my kitchen (don't really listen to it at all) and flipped on the lights. No buzz or static.

 

[KE4EST]

One by one they fail.

Yep, I found that out! I was skeptical, but tried them anyway.
I just got spur of the moment while in Home Depot to try them out. They sure have a long way to go on those things.

 

[Radioguy41]

I've installed some of the complete LED fixtures and those seem to be OK, I'm not getting any RFI from them. Even some of the inexpensive single and double fixtures from Walmart have worked out OK for me down in the tractor shed. Yeah, those replacement FL to LED bulbs just cause havoc and don't last.

 

[arlo]

These are the kind I used. 2 years strong no issues. The magnets are kind of 'hinky' so i used a dab of 5 minute epoxy on them too.

20w Magnetic LED Troffer Retrofit Kit 2x2 5000K T8 T12 Fluorescent Replacement | eBay

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[Radioguy41]

You can buy a whole fixture for less. Here are a couple of examples.

LED fixture

LED flush mount

 

[arlo]

You can buy a whole fixture for less. Here are a couple of examples.

LED fixture

LED flush mount

Saw those. Beware of in-the-bulb current regulators I mentioned. For least noise you need a setup with an external "brick" regulator.

 

[Radioguy41]

All mine are internal and none generate noise. What's giving these things a bad rep are the conversion kits. While some may last the biggest complaint I see are those external regulators going bad prematurely. We've had multiple people over on another forum asking where to buy just the regs, and if it was worth it, because theirs failed.

 

[raoul5788]

I have a completely blind friend that see/s complete darkness. So he listens to his AM FM radio to be connected with the world. His brother installed a led ceiling light in his kitchen and now he can,t get the local am stations when the light is turned on. The radio is a portable sony am fm cassette radio. So am asking if anyone knows how to solve the interference problem or if there is some kind of filter to get for him. As long as the light is turned off the radio works fine. The only way he knows if the light is on is feeling the switch position.

If your friend sees nothing at all, he certainly doesn't need the light on. Is it just for his brother to be able to see?

 

[solarvic]

He lives by himself but Likes to have the light on so his house doesn,t look abandoned. Guess he likes the light on when friends that have vision come to visit.or take him places. He does turn off the light in the daytime so he can use the radio.