Awning, porch and aisle lights dim or not working

Question

My dealer last week reattached a 4" section of my awning in the groove. Directly underneath is the LED awning lights. Now tonight They are very dim and only have half glowing. Also the porch light is very dim and the inside aisle light don't work at all. All the lights switches are in the step well and probably run in parallel. It's my guess the dealer serviceman unplugged the lights to reinsert the awning bead into the track and plugged it in backwards? I know from doing some led wiring that they have to be wire just right or they won't work,
We are out camping and have friends coming tomorrow for dinner and have no outside lights.
Any suggestions other than go on the roof and hope it's plugged in backwards?

westend · Answer

If you have LED lights and they are connected out of phase, you won't have any light. A dimming light is usually a lack of power or a faulty ground. #1 suspect for me would be the ground inside the porch light fixture.

jerseyjim · Answer

Bad ground is the #1 choice for me, too! g'luck!

midnightsadie · Answer

could the dealer have put a screw thru a wire?

das26miles · Answer

All are possible, going up to look in a few hours when dew have burned off the roof.  I do see they put a screw in to hold awning bead.  Hopefully removing it will brighten things up.

artum_snowbird · Answer

When you have a circuit that used to work properly, and now some things are dim and some not working at all what you likely have is a circuit that has reduced power available. The brightest lights formerly are still working dimly, because their filaments are very thick and easy to push current through in a parallel circuit. The normally dim lights have very thin filaments, and now in the power reduction from ?? the current through them is very little, hence you don't see them at all.

Circuits have parallel loads, so to troubleshoot this you have to determine whether it is the positive feed having the problem, or the negative return line. Either line would cause the same problem.

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Awning, porch and aisle lights dim or not working

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