Help: Grafik Eye Minimum Loads and LED lighting

[chirpychips]

I have a Lutron Grafik Eye 6 zone 3106 (UK/240V) dimmer. One of my proposed Grafik Eye lighting zones will be a "last on, last off" non dimmable (i.e switched) LED floor lighting zone. A 240V AC to 24V DC transformer feeds all the LED floor lights. The problem is that the total load only comes to 13.8 Watts and the minimum load for a Grafik Eye 3106 is 40 Watts.

I emailed Lutron and typically for Lutron got a response right away. The thing is I need some help understanding their advice please.

I basically have 2 options (quote):

1) Wire the Grafik Eye zone output to the primary side of a relay. The relay would be rated for 240V on the primary coil, and rated for your actual load on the secondary coil. Some relays can be "pre-loaded" with a small shunt resistor to provide at least 30 Watts of resistive load. Some relays are available in this pre-loaded state, or you can wire a shunt resistor across the primary coils (we would recommed something like a 6K Ohm or 30 Watt resistor). Such a resistor could even be wired across your minimal load without the relay at all, but a relay makes for a "cleaner" installation.

2) Alternatively the 6K Ohms resistor could be wired across the zone output, or across the primary side of the LED transformer.

Ideally I'd like to get in all the parts necessary for my electrician so that he doesn't have to mess around during the installation. Can someone advise me what parts I should get and where I can get them from. I looked on Maplin's web site but there are so many relays and resistors I didn't know where to begin!

I'd be interested to hear anyone's thoughts on this and any advice.

Chirpychips

Another alternative is to wire another bulb in series with the LED circuit out of site. As you are not dimming this wont break the rules about mixing loads.

[chirpychips]

Thanks for the suggestion. I think I will try wiring a 2K2 50 watt high power resistor across the transformer. I believe that a 2.2K Ohm resistor on 240V will dissipate about 27 Watts (Resistance = Voltage Squared / Power). I'll let you know how I get on! Apparently the triac in the dimmer can't get enough juice when the load is less that 40 watts.

I guess as LED lighting becomes more popular (what with GU10 LED bulbs already on the market, and LED rope lights) Lutron may lower the minimum load requirement as standard. The Grafik Eye Integrale can cope with LED lights as standard but it's very expensive and only seems to have 4 zones.