What’s with the 1W on the bypass module? So if I’m looking at the diagrams correctly, the load will travel (be placed on) through the bypass module, correct?
After about 7 months now all the sudden something seems to have changed and in several of my rooms my lights have started to flicker. I figured I would throw these modules in, but that’s when I noticed the 1W on the box itself. Most of the rooms with a problem are ceiling fans using 4 LED bulbs (dimmable LEDs).
Great question! The confusion here is very common, and the “1W” marking is easy to misinterpret.
The 1W printed on the ZAC92 isn’t a maximum load rating, and doesn’t mean your light fixture needs to stay under 1 watt.
The ZAC92 is wired in parallel between load and neutral at the fixture. It doesn’t carry the lamp current. Instead, it provides a small, stable resistive path that allows the dimmer’s standby/leakage current to flow and helps stabilize LED drivers. The bypass itself only consumes about 1 watt of power to do this.
Because it’s a parallel device:
• Your fixture can be 10W, 40W, or much higher — the bypass doesn’t limit this
• The full lighting load still flows normally from line to load
• The 1W number only refers to the bypass’s own power consumption
Ceiling fans with multiple dimmable LED bulbs are one of the most common scenarios where a bypass becomes necessary. Even if a setup worked fine for months, LED drivers can change behavior over time, and fan assemblies can add electrical noise. That can eventually lead to flickering, ghosting, or unstable dimming, especially with low total wattage loads.
Adding a bypass in these situations is normal and is exactly what the ZAC92 is designed to address.
Hopefully that helps clear up what the 1W marking actually means and why your fixtures exceeding 1W is completely expected
Thank you! So I wired it correctly (in parallel). Still had an issue, so I looked at the diagram again and started over thinking it, and apparently looked at it wrong the second time.
Oh well time to look deeper into what’s going on I guess.
