Desert Rat
Well Known Member
I ran across something that was new to me and thought I'd throw it out there in case anybody else runs into the same issue;
My cabin lighting is 3 of the LED strips that Steinair sells, run through the 3 knob dimmers to the GAD27.
I hooked up the first one and it was great!
Hooked up the other two and suddenly all 3 of them were only about 1/2 as bright. What the heck?
Got into the book and discovered the lighting outputs for the GAD27 are only 500 millliamps and the strips are approx 800 milliamps per meter.
Ahah! I reasoned that I was pulling too many amps and chopped off the appropriate amount from each strip to get them under 500 milliamps each. Now we're cooking, right?
Nope, still only about 1/2 as bright as before. Again, what the heck? I thought maybe I'd fried something in the lighting circuit on the GAD, but garmin swapped it out with a loaner and nope, still the same thing.
Long story short, I put this on the back burner for a while and only got back to it yesterday; but when all was said and done, the resolution turned out to be simple.
When I originally hooked up all 3, I popped the fuse to the lighting circuit. You would think that if that happened, they would go dark and stay that way, but there was still enough residual current coming through the GAD (?) that they were lighting up, just at about 1/2 of the brightness. I'll be the first to admit that have no explanation for why it works this way, but it does.
So, the moral of the story is that when you're troubleshooting, even if you think theres' no way its causing your issue, start with the simple stuff first
My cabin lighting is 3 of the LED strips that Steinair sells, run through the 3 knob dimmers to the GAD27.
I hooked up the first one and it was great!
Hooked up the other two and suddenly all 3 of them were only about 1/2 as bright. What the heck?
Got into the book and discovered the lighting outputs for the GAD27 are only 500 millliamps and the strips are approx 800 milliamps per meter.
Ahah! I reasoned that I was pulling too many amps and chopped off the appropriate amount from each strip to get them under 500 milliamps each. Now we're cooking, right?
Nope, still only about 1/2 as bright as before. Again, what the heck? I thought maybe I'd fried something in the lighting circuit on the GAD, but garmin swapped it out with a loaner and nope, still the same thing.
Long story short, I put this on the back burner for a while and only got back to it yesterday; but when all was said and done, the resolution turned out to be simple.
When I originally hooked up all 3, I popped the fuse to the lighting circuit. You would think that if that happened, they would go dark and stay that way, but there was still enough residual current coming through the GAD (?) that they were lighting up, just at about 1/2 of the brightness. I'll be the first to admit that have no explanation for why it works this way, but it does.
So, the moral of the story is that when you're troubleshooting, even if you think theres' no way its causing your issue, start with the simple stuff first