2x 300W dimmers for 1x 500W light?
- Thread starter Ursa
- Start date
Barry_Green
Moderator
NO!
Instead, go to Harbor Freight Tools and pick up a "Router Speed Controller". I grabbed a few of these and they seem to work -- I've only toyed with 'em, haven't put 'em to any serious work, don't know why they wouldn't work though. They're $10 and they work on up to 1500 watts. It's not marketed as a "lighting dimmer" but it does the same job.
Instead, go to Harbor Freight Tools and pick up a "Router Speed Controller". I grabbed a few of these and they seem to work -- I've only toyed with 'em, haven't put 'em to any serious work, don't know why they wouldn't work though. They're $10 and they work on up to 1500 watts. It's not marketed as a "lighting dimmer" but it does the same job.
Cool Lights
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Lighting dimmers and motor speed controllers are practically the same circuit ;-). The best LED dimmers are based on motor speed controller designs in fact.
Barry_Green
Moderator
Glad to hear I won't run into any surprises then.
These have to be the all-time greatest deal in the history of dimmers then.
Go to www.harborfreight.com, and search for item "43060-1VGA".
I see that they're $19.99 each now; when I got 'em they were $9.99, so I guess they occasionally go on sale. But even so, at $19.99 for a 1500-watt dimmer, it's a screaming deal. Other people are offering homemade 1000w dimmers for $90 on ebay or elsewhere; I think I bought an ebay 2000w dimmer for something like $100. These little router speed controllers do basically the same job at 1/10th (on sale) or 1/5th the price.
These have to be the all-time greatest deal in the history of dimmers then.
Go to www.harborfreight.com, and search for item "43060-1VGA".
I see that they're $19.99 each now; when I got 'em they were $9.99, so I guess they occasionally go on sale. But even so, at $19.99 for a 1500-watt dimmer, it's a screaming deal. Other people are offering homemade 1000w dimmers for $90 on ebay or elsewhere; I think I bought an ebay 2000w dimmer for something like $100. These little router speed controllers do basically the same job at 1/10th (on sale) or 1/5th the price.
Cool Lights
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Yes that's right. I remember the $9.99 deal and wasn't able to take advantage of it at the time for some reason. It's an amazing deal though even at $19.99 and tungsten users should be snapping them up. If you wanted to build one yourself from Home Depot parts, you couldn't make one much over 600w capable and it would cost close to or more than $19.99. As I recall, HD doesn't even carry the 1000w capable dimmers--which to my mind are inferior to the motor speed controller circuit for dimming anyway.
Probably not necessary to mention but I'll say it anyway: It's absolutely no use for fluorescent and HMI users though as all ballast-oriented lighting requires special considerations in the ballast itself for dimming. Trying to dim most of the fluorescent or HMI ballasts out there with a line voltage dimmer of any kind is practically guaranteed to damage your ballasts. You can buy some dimming capable CFL bulbs from places like Ebay but they are terrible quality and unusable except for household use.
There's only one fluorescent dimming ballast in the world that I know of that will let you do line voltage dimming and it's made by Advance and called the "Mark 10". Not used very much in the studio lighting type fixtures because many are using DMX for studio control of on/off and dimming but an older line voltage dimming console would need something like a Mark 10 type ballast to work with it.
Probably not necessary to mention but I'll say it anyway: It's absolutely no use for fluorescent and HMI users though as all ballast-oriented lighting requires special considerations in the ballast itself for dimming. Trying to dim most of the fluorescent or HMI ballasts out there with a line voltage dimmer of any kind is practically guaranteed to damage your ballasts. You can buy some dimming capable CFL bulbs from places like Ebay but they are terrible quality and unusable except for household use.
There's only one fluorescent dimming ballast in the world that I know of that will let you do line voltage dimming and it's made by Advance and called the "Mark 10". Not used very much in the studio lighting type fixtures because many are using DMX for studio control of on/off and dimming but an older line voltage dimming console would need something like a Mark 10 type ballast to work with it.