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I replaced the two incandescent light bulbs in my Hunter model 28679 ceiling fan with 3000k 7w LEDs. All works fine but I want them to be brighter and to be a different color/hue of light. So I replaced the 7w with 6000k 15w LED bulbs. The 15W bulbs do not work.

However, if I use the 15W bulbs in a different fan (Hunter fan 23902) they work fine.

Neither light has a dimmer and I've even tried different combinations of just one new LED and one old LED bulb and one LED with one incandescent.

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  • What's the maximum wattage listed on the 28679 fan? Maybe your 15w bulbs exceed that.
    – FreeMan
    Dec 7, 2020 at 16:42
  • Could be, but I've never heard of a light kit only rated for LED wattages.
    – isherwood
    Dec 7, 2020 at 17:14
  • Hence a comment, not an answer...
    – FreeMan
    Dec 7, 2020 at 17:19
  • Per the owner's manual under troubleshooting - Do the light bulbs meet the watt and type specifications for the fan as indicated on the fan's label?
    – HoneyDo
    Dec 7, 2020 at 18:04
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    Some lamps won’t screw all the way in I have had this happen with CFl lamps. The other possibility is a non dim-able lamp in a fixture that has a dimmer even on full on most block 1/2 the waveform and this could be the 1/2 the lamp needs.
    – Ed Beal
    Dec 7, 2020 at 19:37

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So Ed Beal suggested something that made me pause and wonder if the thread length was different. To the naked eye it seemed as if the 15-watt bulbs were the same size, perhaps a hair shorter than the other bulbs, but not enough to make a difference...or was it?

So I pulled out my digital caliper micrometer and it turned out that the 15-watt bulbs were 3/32" shorter in length. So I soldered a small bead of solder to the end of the bulb and it was enough to cause the bulb to make contact and I now have the 15-watt bulbs operating perfectly in my ceiling fan light fixture.

Thanks Ed!!! And thanks to everyone else for your input and suggestions.

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Because of the way LED lamps function they are often incompatible with incandescent lamps in the same fixture. LEDs are small electronic components that work off of 3-5VDC, but are usually in series strings that take 12-24VDC. So in the base of each LED lamp, you have a printed circuit board called a "driver" that is basically an AC to DC power supply for the LEDs. Depending on the design of the LED string inside of the bulb, some types of drivers can be affected by being on the same circuit as incandescent lamps because the LED driver has a higher impedance than the incandescent filament.

So although I have seen several websites saying it's fine to mix them, that is incorrect, you should go all one way or all the other. In fact even if you have all LEDs, the drivers in each different brand are different and can be affected by each other, so it's best to use all of the same brand on a fixture.

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  • 2 fans with light fixtures. Fan number one works with 2 60-watt incandescent or 2 7-watt LED or 2 15-watt LEDs. Fan number 2 does not work with the 2 15-watt LEDs but does work with 2 60-watt incandescent or 2 7-watt LED. Makes no sense to me why the second fan will support 2 60-watt bulbs or 2 7-watt bulbs but not 2 15-watt bulbs. The same light bulbs are used in both fans,
    – Ken F
    Dec 7, 2020 at 19:18
  • Thanks - I think this is happening to me.
    – probably at the beach
    Dec 20, 2020 at 0:51

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