Low voltage Trac light question

Hi, Went to Home Depot yesterday looking to replace an existing 120v, 2' trac light setup in my kitchen. The existing heads didn't throw much light and I thought replacing the trac with a 4' piece and adding heads would be nice. I saw the all in one kits that included 44" of trac and 4 heads but they were not very attractive. I really liked the low voltage pendants. These work in a 120 volt trac and each has its own transformer. I asked about dimming these and the guy said that it could be done but Home Depot does not sell the dimmer. I replaced the 2' trac with a new 4' 120 volt trac. Snapped in the new pendants and voila! nice bright light; really bright light; too much light. So I went to my trusted computer and looked up low voltage dimmers, and WOW they are very expensive! And now I'm not sure if they will work. Are the electronic low voltage dimmers designed to replace my existing 120v switch? Will one dimmer control the transformers in each pendant? Or will they only work on a 12v trac that has just one main transformer? Thanks, Jeff

Reply to
Jeff Guay
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Jeff,

I am not an electrician (just a plumber) but I don't think that the low voltage dimmer will work because you have a 120 volts at the switch. I think they may be set up if you have 12 v at the switch and it would control the main transformer.

I would try a regular dimmer switch on it. I would also wait until one of the electric gurus to answer you as I am not totally sure of myself.

rik

Reply to
RikC

Reply to
Art Todesco

Go to an electrical supply house. You can buy a dimmer rated for your application and it shouldn't be much more than a designer dimmer would cost. It will replace your existing wall switch.

Why don't you just put in lower wattage bulbs and save some heat and electricity? When you dim a bulb using a dimmer the color temperature of the bulb changes. The bulb will begin to glow with a warm orange tone as you lower the dimmer setting. That may not be the look that you want in your kitchen.

Reply to
John Grabowski

Try a regular dimmer, I have had no problem with the lights you refer to.

Reply to
mark Ransley

So you're running low-voltage lamps using a 120v track. Each light has a transformer that steps down the voltage to 12v. I don't see how you can connect a low-voltage dimmer switch to a 120v line. Have you thought about using the 120v pendants and increasing the wattage of the bulbs? Or replacing the bulbs with a reflector flood or something similar. Surely that would throw more light than a low-voltage lamp.

Reply to
fatman985

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