Home project

Ok goofing around with a idea, for something to experiment with at home. Is there a way to control lights with a anlog signal to act like a dimmer switch?

Are you looking to build something or purchase?

If looking to buy search for theatre or stage lighting controls, I had looked at that also but what I found was a little pricey for me.

If you want to build and have some knowledge of electronics do a search for dimmer schematics, shouldn't be hard to retrofit one to analog controls.

For what I was looking to do I decided that 2 levels of light was fine and was going to use one of 2 ideas. Both of which would use 2 digital outputs 1 for full light other for dimmed.

1.) A master high wattage dimmer preset to a level.
2.) A simple diode to provide a set lower level.

Never did get that far and now I moved to smaller house so I probably won't do any until I move again.

Drewcrew6

I once ran across a "Lite Touch" system that was similar to what you are describing. All the controls were on an input bus with programmable switches. All loads were driven from devices in a load center. The load center had different modules depending on what you wanted. There were dimmers, relays and triac's to choose from. If you need more than 1 load center, they can be networked as well. Here is the link to their site http://www.litetouch.com/


Any individual switch on the input side could be configured to any output. The one that I saw had a master on and a master off switch. I also saw one that lit up the path from the master bedroom to the bathroom. All in all, a pretty slick system.

If you want to buy something, check out the X10 system. Plenty of gadgets to use / build. You'll find more on http://www.smarthome.com/ or just to a google for X10.

Cheers
Borte

What you will need is an SCR that is phase angle triggered. Simple versions of these suitable for lighting control are available in an integrated unit from various manufacturers.

Here is one I have used successfully for controlling an industrail incandescent load. They are not very expensive, but you are looking at about double the cost of a conventional dimmer switch.

https://www.gavazzionline.com/images/RM1EAAdatasheet.pdf

I know you can get them from Newark Electronics, maybe Allied has them as well.

thank you Alaric, that looks like exactly what i am looking for...

Alaric said:

What you will need is an SCR that is phase angle triggered. Simple versions of these suitable for lighting control are available in an integrated unit from various manufacturers.

Here is one I have used successfully for controlling an industrail incandescent load. They are not very expensive, but you are looking at about double the cost of a conventional dimmer switch.

https://www.gavazzionline.com/images/RM1EAAdatasheet.pdf

I know you can get them from Newark Electronics, maybe Allied has them as well.

Click to expand...

Alaric,

The link is not working, any alternative? Thanks.

here is a pdf for it

Thanks for getting that PDF up pdelno.

They probably changed their website around since I originally posted the link. Try the gavazzionline home page and browse from there.