Re: low volt dimmer

Matt: As trial try operating the 24 volt lights from 12 volts; you could get the 12 volts from a battery charger which puts out 4 amps at approx. 12 volts DC. Or even for trial from the car battery. Each light will probably dim to something around one quarter (or less) brightness). Another way could be to put the four 24 volt lights in two pairs in series across the 24 volts, thus halving the voltage across each bulb, again obtaining approximately one quarter brightness. If that's satisfactory you could either leave the lights permanently wired up in pairs (dimmed all the time) or put in some switches for, A) Full bright B) Dimmed. using a small battery charger battery, a single switch could switch over from 24 volts AC to 12 volts DC. Again it is not continuously variable dimming; but only one stage. I'm sure that a capable amateur could design and build a suitable and continuous dimmer. I can think of a couple of ways of using a voltage bucking transformer, say. But do I understand that you want to dim the four lights without affecting; and this I'm not clear about, either a 230 or 24 volts supply to the pond equipment? Any help? Terry.

Reply to
Terry
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Ok, difficult to describe this but lets try. Start with a bridge rectifier, two transistors, npn and pnp and a 24V recified but unsmoothed 24V rail and a thyristor. Connect a resistor, and a potentiometer and a capacitor in series across the thyristor(-values later). Connect the emmiter of the PNP to the capacitor/resistor junction. Connect two resistors in series across the rail (values later). Connect the base of the pnp and the collector of the npn to this point. Connect the collector of the pnp to the base of the npn. Connect the emmitter of the npn to the gate of a suitable thyristor.( not triac) Connect the lamp load between the 24v+ and the anode of the triac. Connect the cathode of the triac to the 0V. Capacitor 0.1uF( not less), series resistor 2.2K( sets maximum conduction angle), pot 25K log if possible. Resistors, connected to thyristor anode-10K, to )v 1.5K. circuit operation, voltage on base/collector junction set by divider network. Capacitor charges to

this voltage. discharges thro tr1/2 into triac causing trigger. Circuit resets for

next half cycle. Not sure about the C/R values- it's late. Danger points.tr1 b/e junction rated at 5V, to exceed, add diode in series with emmitter of tr1. use 40V trs and some i/p transient suppression. IME some transformers can let through short

Reply to
Capitol

So remember to put the thing on a f***ing heatsink of course !!!

Reply to
G&M

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