[Atheist]

How's that for a provocative title! I recently bought a new LED light fixture that turned out to be way too bright. As a dining room fixture it was unusable. The glare was awful when sitting at the table. I came up with the bright idea of covering some of the diodes to make it dimmer. The fixture itself cannot be used with a dimmer switch. My solution is working beautifully but I'm concerned something could go wrong. Heat doesn't seem to be an issue but I know nothing about LEDs. What do you think?

[subego]

It's probably not good for them. The engineering challenge with LEDs is heat dissipation.

That said, the heat is going up, and your covers are on the bottom. I assume they're not flammable.

[andi*pandi]

looking at your solution would bother me, and I would be concerned about fire. I know someone who set fire to a lamp by draping a scarf over the top of a halogen.

my solution: trace outline of light fixture, get tinted plexiglass that size, put on end of light. or thick plastic that won't melt (not saran wrap). hot glue it to hold it in.

I would also surmise that this type of lamp is meant to be aimed upwards, diffusing the strong light.

[Atheist]

It's a pendant lamp so the lights are pointing down with plexiglass covers. After leaving the light on for an hour I removed the cover and the diodes are warm but not hot. For now I'm sticking with it but will continue to monitor for problems.

[subego]

How much did the lamp cost? If it's wired in parallel, you can just snip the diodes you don't want.

[Atheist]

The lamp was only 50 bucks. I ordered it sight unseen at my new favorite Chinese online store LightInTheBox. It's surprisingly very good quality. I'm not sure about how it's wired so I'm not comfortable with snipping the wires on the diodes.

[turtle777]

You could use a sharpie to paint some diodes black. Not sure how much reduction of brightness you'd get.

But at least, it's less of a fire hazard.

-t

[ghporter]

The amount of heat those big LEDs produce is minimal, and if the body of the lamp is metal, as it seems, you have a substantial heatsink to handle the tiny extra heat generated.

There are a couple of other ways to do this which would make the light softer at the same time. Depending on the diameter of the bottom of that lamp, you could start out with a basket-type coffee filter. Photographers use these to soften flashes, and it works well. You probably don't want to try anything that has any weight to it, but if the filter paper does the job, the next step would be a light, neutral-colored fabric. Hold a square of your fabric on the end of the lamp with a rubber band. It can be decorative, and it won't give you any problems.

[Amber Neely]

Originally Posted by subego 

It's probably not good for them. The engineering challenge with LEDs is heat dissipation.

That would be my biggest concern, too. I don't think you're going to burn your house down by any means - I really don't. I do think that you'll likely shorten the lifespan of your LEDs, though.

I guess my solution would be to find a frosted or semi-translucent white plexiglass sheet, cut out a circle that would fit between the LEDs and the glass, and use that as a diffuser. Without physically getting my mitts on your light though (though I did look it up on the store page) I can't offer any crazy useful solutions. As others have said, because your light is metal, I assume that it probably works sufficiently as a heatsink to diffuse any extremely excessive amounts of heat.