Wafer lights strobing randomly, how to narrow it down?

[TitanBionis]

I’ve got a weird one and it’s making me feel like I’m missing something obvious. I have recessed LED wafer lights in a hallway and they started strobing randomly the other night when I flipped the switch. I turned them off, turned them back on, they were fine, then two days later it did it again and my brain immediately went to “is this a wiring issue.”

If you were called to a house for this, what’s your first move to narrow it down without swapping the whole run. Do you start at the switch and connections, check for a loose neutral upstream, isolate one wafer at a time, or suspect the dimmer or driver first. I’m not looking to do anything unsafe, I just want a sane checklist before I start replacing perfectly good lights.

 

[Ortega_Aliahan]

First thing I would do is confirm if there is a dimmer on those wafer lights and what kind it is. A lot of random strobing ends up being dimmer compatibility or a flaky driver. If it is a plain switch, then I would check the switch box connections and neutrals first before chasing the whole run.

 

[Wanderingfree]

Having checked the dimmer, sometimes they can be right on the edge on the low setting.

 

[Alan]

Random strobing on wafer LEDs is one of those “could be simple, could be serious” calls. First move is always rule out a loose connection, especially a loose neutral, because that can get unsafe fast. If you are not comfortable opening boxes, this is the point where a pro visit is worth it.