Which 2way dimmer to operate 15 mains halogen spots?

[baldelectrician]

have my own personal opinion

1. Use ELV (12v) spots- longer lamp life- better light output.
2. Use Branded lamps- osram/philips/sylvania
3. Use 35W 12V lamps- better light output than 50W mains halogen (see 1&2)

Use decent trannys (I prefer JCC or Danic)

Split lights into 2 dimmers
use a good quality dimmer such as two of MK K1501 LV
http://www.mkelectric.co.uk/products/item.asp?itemid=3065&rangeid=1030

 

[toasty]

Ooops a bit late I know, but I use stage dimmers at home, and I've got some fairly hefty halogen circuits running off them.

Mine are 4 channel ones and I have conventional looking dimmers in each room to feed the dimmer a 0-10v dc control signal. They really aren't expensive either, I paid £50 for a 4 channel one.

Link here [url]http://cpc.farnell.com/jsp/endecaSearch/partDetail.jsp?SKU=DP27530&N=411 [/url]

Hope it's of some use.
-Dan

 

[Adam_151]

Interesting... where do you get 0-10v wall controls from? (or do you have to build them yourself out of normal dimmers?... least 0-10v would be a lot easier then DMX512)

Also, can you actually switch the lights off totally, when you send 0v don't the dimmers go to 'preheat' rather than off? (or is that usually handeled by the desk, like... 0v is off, but the lowest you can send is like 0.75v? )

(as a side point does anyone [rf?] know why some of the strand dimmers were 0v to -10v volts instead of the usual 0 to 10v ... "the good thing about standards is that there are so many to choose from"... )

 

[toasty]

Hi adam,

Not sure what the standard is, but when I send the dimmer 0v it appears to turn the ligtht off (i.e I see no voltage over the lamp) also there is a panel indicator on the dimmer which goes out if the signal is <.1v

Interesting you mention DMX as I do intend to eventually use this, these dimmers have a DMX interface too.

As for the dimmers in the room, I just use 1k linear pots wired as a potential divider, just feed them 10v and you get between 0 and 10v out depending on where the dial is, it works pretty well. I've got Cat5 to all my light switch boxes so I just send the 10v down that (I use a wall wart regulated supply here, the 9v setting with such a small load of approx 100ohms actually gives me 10v)

I've had the dimmers in for over a year now (I've got two, one for upstairs and one for downstairs) and they are working a treat.

 

[RF Lighting]

does anyone [rf?] know why some of the strand dimmers were 0v to -10v volts instead of the usual 0 to 10v

As far as I an aware all the strand gear used to run on +10V as standard and it was actually Furse gear that runs on the -10V control voltage (my furse dimmers do anyway). Furse were an inferior copy of strand and for some reason adopted the -10V control voltage. This makes it very arkward when you are trying to run 2 sets of dimmers off one demux unit.