Dimming LED's with HAI 35A00-1 dimmers w firmware 1.04

[chasers03]

I have only one dimmer [has firmware 1.08 according to Upstart] which will dim my new SYLVANIA ULTRA SE 65W BR30 LED Light Bulb, Dimmable - 11W.
 
The other 30 HAI 35S00-1 dimmers have firmware 1.04 and I have not found an LED BR30 bulb which will dim the full range with them as the Halogen's do so well.
 
Is there any way possible to update a HAI 35A00-1 dimmer to 1.08 firmware?
 
I have my Omni Pro 2 set to HLC not UPB for all the dimmers.  I hate to think of replacing all these dimmers to enable LED bulbs.

 

[ano]

Hi:
 
I don't think your firmware is causing a problem.  Unfortunately you can't upgrade firmware.
 
Some dimmers just work better or worse with some bulbs. Its not really an exact science.  With incandescent bulbs, they just dimmed because a dimmer would just chop the sinewave and it was simple.  LED bulbs have their own power supply which don't always respond well to every dimmer.  And here is something funny. Leviton makes a UPB dimmer just for LED bulbs, BUT in my experience, its the WORSE one for LEDs. Their regular UPB dimmer works better.  You really do need to experiment. LED bulbs are cheap, so if one flickers then try others and stick with them.  Not a big deal.
 
You can program non-Leviton UPB switches to do HLC but I don't recommend that and its a bit of a pain. Stick with the Leviton dimmers. Simply Automated makes a 3-speed fan switch that Leviton doesn't, so that may be the exception.
 
Also are you using Room Controllers and House Controllers?  They work well with HLC.

 

[chasers03]

Ano you are such a good contributor and have helped me before. I'll keep trying different bulbs which hopefully may work with the 1.04 firmware. I have 2 x 6 button room controllers but no 8 button house controllers. What were you thinking?

 

[ano]

Ano you are such a good contributor and have helped me before. I'll keep trying different bulbs which hopefully may work with the 1.04 firmware. I have 2 x 6 button room controllers but no 8 button house controllers. What were you thinking?

Are you just installing these or are they installed already?  I retrofitted an existing house, but when we gutted it I added some boxes for the room controllers. We use those a lot and even the wife likes them. The house controller can be nice because it lets you see which rooms have lights on. They are handy. We rarely touch light switches anymore and just use the room controllers. (They are very overpriced, however.) 
 
Also, do your switches have a timer function?  I know some of these didn't work, so the firmware difference might be the newer ones have the timer function fixed. 

 

[chasers03]

UPDATE-----I have finally replaced all of my Halogen 75 watt floods with Philips 65 watt dimmable LEDs https://www.cnet.com/products/philips-br30-led-floodlight-2017/review/ which seem to dim exceptionally well with my Omni Pro II HAI HLC setup.  And my two room controllers work well with them.  All my switches are HAI 35A00-1 dimmers and have firmware 1.04.  I like the color tone of these floods. 
My switches/dimmers don't have timers other than thru programing via Dealer PC access.
 
I also called Philips and got registered for the 10 year warranty for these 100 plus LED floods

 

[ano]

I'm glad you got it working.  The crazy part is its less a technical problem than it is about money and patents.  LED bulbs are current sensitive and inherently don't work with AC dimmers that just chop the AC sine wave.  So how do they dim, you ask?  There is dimmer chips that "read" the dimmer setting and set the bulb to the dimmed amount, and several of these chips exist, but some of the ways of doing this are patented, so different bulbs use different dimmer chips, and this leads to some bulbs working better with some dimmers than others.  USUALLY, if one bulb from the company dims good, others from the same company might dim good also, BUT NOT ALWAYS. Unfortunately its still a bit of trial and error. If you have 100, buy a few spares.  I wouldn't trust a warranty. If they have discontinued the bulb when it fails, they may send you a different model. (Assuming they actually honor the warranty.)