Dimmers on lights

Backlot Rebels

Backlot Rebels

Member
Hello all,

I have two 1K Arri lights, and a 500w Omni light. I was wondering if it would harm the lights by attaching dimmers to them (the kind you can get at Home Depot), as I would like to dim out the light in the room, but keep one light on something else.

Thanks for the help.
 
Dimmers won't harm the globes or fixtures at all. Just make certain that the dimmer you pick can handle both the inrush and sustained current of the load. A 1k driven from a 115 Volt mains requires sustained current of 8.7 Amps, with considerably higher inrush current. A 500 would require one half. Dimmers are fine for an effect like you describe, but to maintain the color characteristics for sustained use, scrims or ND is a better approach.
 
Dimmers are used quite often in lighting.
I own three of em'.

Just make sure you buy 1000 watt dimmers, and you ground them well.
If your not sure how to make one, you could buy one off of Ebay by a guy with the name Cinegear.



-BillP
 
What I want to do with the light is slowly fade it out. So all the lights in the room would fade out, with one light that remains on, so scrims and ND are out of the question for that type of shot.

Is the only thing that's going to happen is the color temp of the light changes if I don't have the sustained current? Nothing will happen to the light whatsoever? No damage? Sorry, but those lights are damn expensive so I really want to be sure.

Thanks again!
 
No "light" (globe or fixture) damage will occur. The color temperature will reduce (the look will warm up) as the dimming occurs, but for this type of effect, it should work just fine.
 
Backlot Rebels said:
What I want to do with the light is slowly fade it out. So all the lights in the room would fade out, with one light that remains on, so scrims and ND are out of the question for that type of shot.

Is the only thing that's going to happen is the color temp of the light changes if I don't have the sustained current? Nothing will happen to the light whatsoever? No damage? Sorry, but those lights are damn expensive so I really want to be sure.

Thanks again!
Click to expand...


No damage will happen to the lights you mentioned.

Just don't try to dim flourescents!

-BillP
 
Just bear in mind you don't want to dim lights very much, I only use dimmers to slow down a little, because when slow it down a lot it really goes way into the orange scale and you don't want that.

i prefer to use scrims or lower watt lights or back off the lights, these first options, dimmer is last.
 
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