OK - let me explain.....

I have the magnificent beast known as the Retro Roadshow.....16 feet of light screens burning just shy of 3Kw of incandescent lamps. It gets HOT, and occasionally smells a little "too" hot (some of the chipboard actually shows signs of charring in one of the screens).

So....a good idea methinks.....replace the 25w filaments with 4w LEDs - what could be wrong with that?

In theory....absolutely nothing. The LED units are these

On the surface, a simple replacement (well they work in a standard ceiling fitting anyway in that they turn on and off as expected!).

However....I've spent this evening going out of my tiny little mind.....to the extent I've actually ripped ALL wiring out of one of the light screens bar one lamp....just to prove a point!

A great quantity of Rioja isn't helping I might add (don't worry - I stopped doing practical and switched to theory once I'd uncorked the bottle for those who are concerned!)

Once the electricity is applied via a bulgin 8 pin connector....the lamp lights.....even with the controller TURNED OFF! (and I've tried this with multiple controllers including a switch pack with a Frankenstein bulgin connector), and multiple cables.

Start a chase, and it burns brighter when it's "On", and then returns to a dimmer light when it's "Off"....even though these LED lamps aren't actually dimmable

Replace the LED bulb with a standard 25w filament...no problem.

Now - here's where it gets REALLY weird!

Reconnect the chain and replace just ONE lamp in the chain with a filament instead of an LED (keeping the rest of the chain LED)...and it works! How is this possible?


I'm totally confused. I'd like to convert to LED for sheer sanity (they're brighter and obviously run a lot cooler.....plus less of a fire hazard).
I have absolutely no problem with proper electricity (i.e. filament lamps), but LED obviously goes into the dark side of "electronics"...and I'm not even a novice in that field.

Any ideas?

* Do I need to rewire in a different way to live one side and neutral on the other? (I've tried reversing the polarity by the way)
* Do I need a completely different type of controller? I'm currently using a QTX dimmer pack as the main controller (with 4xIEC fudged into an 8 pin bulgin via a Frankenstein lead...although my PAT tester OK'd this on Saturday as being safe). The secondary controller is an old Transcension CC4....same results for both (using different leads)
* Do I absolutely HAVE to keep a single filament in the chain just to make it work or do I need something like a resistor to make it behave?