Dimmers and fluorescents

[nmm1]

We have some dimmers and are running out of incandescent bulbs. I know that some dimmers claim to be safe with 'energy saving' bulbs, but don't trust that not to mean just halogen. If any do work with the mini-fluorescents, my suspicion is that both the dimmer and fluorescent will need to be designed for that.

Can anyone clarify?

Thanks, Nick Maclaren.

[John Rumm]

Unless the bulb claims to be dimmable, then it won't dim - nothing you can do about that from the dimmer.

If the bulb is dimmable, then they tend to work best with electronic dimmers, but may also work on others. Things to watch include issues like minimum loads on the dimmer - some need a certain amount of watts of load to work correctly. Sometimes in multi lamp fittings a combination of low energy and a normal bulb or two will give best results.

Of the dimmable lamps, a common weakness is the dimmable range is usually a bit less - they won't go as low. Also they don't look right since the colour temperature does not fall as they dim.

[nmm1]

Thanks for the confirmation.

Thanks for that.

Regards, Nick Maclaren.

[Brian Gaff]

Yes, the problem is that the electonic ones need the full voltage as they are basically switch mode psus. In the case of the older type then they have issues due to the choke and capacitor in the system and phase issues for the dimmer. Brian

[meow2222]

Of course one of the features of smpsus is that they inherently run off a wide range of voltage. And one of the features of triac dimmers is that they don't reduce peak voltage. Other than that :) Its Brian again.

NT