Weird shop LED light issue

I've got a series of 8' long LED lights across the ceiling in my garage. They're plugged into ceiling mounted outlets and switched by the door.They work fine.


I moved one of them into my shop. It gets used for extra task lighting. There is a switched outlet mounted high on the wall for the window AC unit. A power strip is plugged into that and is mounted down near the floor. An extension cord runs from there to my bench where it powers that light. Nothing else is plugged into that circuit at this time. Even the window unit is unplugged.

I have not used that light in three days.

Tonight, I walked into the darkened shop and noticed a faint glow from the light. The factory installed switch on the light is turned off. The switched wall outlet is turned off. The light still glows.

Outlet on. Light on. Light is on.
Outlet on. Light off. Light is off.
Outlet off. Light on. Light is off.
Outlet off. Light off. Light glows dimly.

Any idea what is going on?

Outlet on. Light off.

Outlet off. Light off.

Someone posted a similar problem on here a few years back, and the overwhelming response I believe was led bulbs are hyper sensitive to voltage and will do this. The OP of the thread sort of confirmed it when he swapped to an incandescent for testing.

120VAC only switches one leg. There is enough leakage (and the bulbs are also usually 'cheap') that they will glow.

From an article:

Residual Electricity

When a low current level is still present within your LEDs diode, the bulb will pick it up and convert it into lighting.

This phenomenon is called residual electricity. LEDs are most likely to pick up residual electricity due to their high efficiency.

High-Resistance

Sometimes the wiring is at fault. If the neutral wire is not earthed or is at very high resistance, it can leak a small current to the bulb. This faintly powers the bulbs continuously.

Fancy Switches

Some switches have features like an indicator light, motion detection, timer, etc. These need some power to be on stand-by.

Due to the wiring, LEDs can draw on this small power and still stay on faintly even when you’ve flipped the switch off.

Operating Temperature

The filament of an incandescent bulb gets extremely hot to give off white-hot light.

When you turn off the power to the bulb, the filament takes a few seconds to start cooling down. So it continues to glow slightly as the filament is still quite hot for a few seconds.

This was quite common with early LEDs - ten years or so ago.

It's just our government run by aliens running surveillance on you.

Nothing to see here. Move along.

I had the same issue with some Christmas lights. I do the Christmas lights to music and had them plugged into some controllers. Everyone on the Christmas light forums said that it was a polarity issue for strings that could be plugged in either way. Plugged them in the other way and they quit doing the dimly lit thing.

It's picking up the unbalanced load running on the neutral.

I've seen 12V automotive ones do that on truck and trailer tail lights. Because it takes almost no power to get an LED lit, I just assume it's a bad ground on another circuit backfeeding or moisture in a junction conducting across pins. I have LED strobes on my float that you can see dimly flashing at night in the winter when the roads are wet with deicer slop. Power bleeds from the tailight pin to the center pin on the 7 wire when it gets dowsed with salt water. Turn off the tail lights and the strobes go ALL the way off.

Kevin

Some of the household bulbs we have replaced with LED's now give us 'nightlights' which is convenient for the kids..
- Art

i replaced all the four foot, four tube florescent bulb lights in my garage with two tube/strip LED lights, using the four tube light fixture tin work. [30 lights total]
it's like daylight now !
when i shut them off, they do "glow" slightly as has been mentioned.
i used 5k or 6k rated LEDs, i forget which. i want to replace the four tube fluorescent bulb fixture in the kitchen, which has a suspended ceiling. when i went shopping for a drop in replacement, i found lots of "warm white" units. what is the difference between "warm white" and the 5 or 6k units i have in the garage ?

How warm were those white units? Just kidding. The difference is the color/intensity

I know the ORANGE MAN dissed the LED stuff but I’m a fan !

The bulbs last FOREVER and use A FRACTION of wattage of regular ones

I don't have much in LED which is strange since I work with it all the time but I have a nightlight in my trailer that's LED and it will stay working long past the power being cut.

I posted here a couple years ago about a weird issue I had where a hall light started blinking off and on even though the switch was off. This was with an LED bulb.
I changed the light switch to a new one, no luck.
I finally gave up and put a incandescent bulb back in the fixture, and now it turns on when the switch is on, off when the switch is off. Fortunately I have a fairly good stock of incandescent bulbs stashed away as I have no desire to spend a bunch of money having an electrician trouble shoot and possibly have to rewire my 64 year old house!

I have an outside light on a grain bin that does that.
An electrician explained it like a previous poster, that it takes such a small amount of juice that it's running off what's bypassing the switch.
Since I don't use mine year round, I turn off the breaker.

I have 96 4' T8s on the ceiling of my shop. I'd like to go LED, but Holy $$$$, Batman.

Thought about doing half and half.