I had to sleep in the living room due to the heat and went to turn down the dimming control since it was way to bright to sleep and it started flickering like mad. So I open it up...

Not only is the adjustment pot one of those closed in ones, but the solder on one of the joints was missing (either it was a cold joint and all fell off or I'm a dingus and forgot to solder it and it somehow still worked for months). I'm also going experiment with adding more resistance to the adjustment pot to increase brightness (have to be careful not to pop the LEDs though, I have no current limit resistor, could add one if it needs it though).
I should also make a schematic for you guys so you can build one (will be on project thread). It's a good project for tubes you have lying around. Main project thread:
https://www.eevblog.com/forum/projects/all-tube-automatic-led-lampnight-light/msg1008013/#msg1008013