dimming HAlogen work lamps

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pj101991

Member
I was wondering if anyone knows if it is possible to hook-up a dimmer switch to a one of those 500 watt workman's lamps.
 
If you can find one rated for 500 watts. I'm not exactly sure what will happen if you try to use a household one, but it will be bad....and dangerous. You might be able to build one (there are plans somewhere on this board, probably by Walter Graff). THe one thing to remember is that by dimming the light, you are changing the color temp. It shouldn't be a problem if all of your lights are dimmed about the same, or if you are using one light and a bounce board. Just do a manual white balance before you shoot.
 
Household dimmers can work out fine. think about it, they're designed to go into a house which cost big $ and flawlessly operate for many years. The company that mfg.s these items is at risk if they fail...that could be a large suit, if the place burns down, people die, etc. I have a 600 watt rated dimmer right in front of me as I write that I built a few years back...works like a champ. Use it on anything 600 watts and below. For color temp you can use CTB 1/4, 1/2, 3/4... you lose fc as the CTb increases.


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10s said:
Household dimmers can work out fine. think about it, they're designed to go into a house which cost big $ and flawlessly operate for many years. The company that mfg.s these items is at risk if they fail...that could be a large suit, if the place burns down, people die, etc. I have a 600 watt rated dimmer right in front of me as I write that I built a few years back...works like a champ. Use it on anything 600 watts and below. For color temp you can use CTB 1/4, 1/2, 3/4... you lose fc as the CTb increases.


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I'm just suggesting caution. Not all household dimmers are rated that high. I have a few rated for 300w.
 
thanks for the response. Hey 10S, any chance of getting a pic or two of the dimmer you built. I bought two 600 watt dimmers at home depot and I just need some ideas on how to put them in a box.
 
Lutron has a number of 600w and a few 1kw dimmers that would work for this application. If you read up on dimmers, you might notice that a number of them talk about "derating" a dimmer to be used with a halogen source. This is refering to low-voltage halogen lighting, not line-level 120 halogen lamps.

I thought walter had a tutorial on his site, but I can't find it now. I've also got one onthe filmmakersunion.org as to how I built my dimmers. There will be more pictures as I find time to update the tutorial.

http://www.filmmakersunion.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php?n=Lighting.Dimmer
 
Yes I do have an article or at least did. about a month ago while cleaning up old files I accidentally deleted it. I have been meaning to rewrite it but haven't had the time. Check my web page every now and then and eventually it will be p. Now that I read that horribly written article you pointed to, I need to get mine back on line. That one is confusing and I would think that folks who aren't handy would have more trouble with it than success.
 
These are really simple to build.

I put 600 watt Lutrons in the silver metal boxes and metal tops you find at Home depot electrical section (the type for wall outlets) put cable reliefs on and bought an extension cord, and chopped it up. Put plugs on and .... there ya go! I labeled them for wattage & warnings, it might be nice to make sure they keep out water by sealing any open areas with silicon on the bottom for the 4 holes. You can use them for lighting and fending off mobs trying to get your autograph!
 
Walt, never short on opinions, are you? Yes, it was a rough first attempt that I drafted specifically for DanielRunyon here who'd been politely bugging me to tell him how I built mine.

I'll be rewriting parts of the article today and adding in pictures of a generic dimmer to illustrate some of the steps. I thought it was a tad bit wordy, but I didn't realize that anyone would find it confusing.

10s, there are great solid steel exterior-style boxes out there that are perfect for this application, but I've been having trouble finding a vendor for them online. I always bought them at a little electric store on the west side of NYC, but I can't seem to find anything online that's similar.
 
"Walt, never short on opinions, are you? Yes, it was a rough first attempt that I drafted specifically for DanielRunyon here who'd been politely bugging me to tell him how I built mine."

Didn't know you wrote it and that isn't the point for me. I don't care who wrote it. Put the egos to bed. When it comes to safety, you bet I'm gonna say something. That article needs to be written in a clearer fashion. God forbid someone attempts what you wrote and gets injured or electrocuted. And guess what? Regardless of a disclaimer, you can be sued in civil court. Worse off if someone dies from your article, you can find yourself in trouble. It's already precedent in court related to an article on the web where someone got hurt attempting what the author wrote. You fail to ground your box in your article (a requirement of the NEC). So take what I said with a grain of salt and write a clearer article. When I have difficulty understanding it, others are going to have difficulty too.
 
Walter_Graff said:
"Walt, never short on opinions, are you? Yes, it was a rough first attempt that I drafted specifically for DanielRunyon here who'd been politely bugging me to tell him how I built mine."

Didn't know you wrote it and that isn't the point for me. I don't care who wrote it. Put the egos to bed. When it comes to safety, you bet I'm gonna say something. That article needs to be written in a clearer fashion. God forbid someone attempts what you wrote and gets injured or electrocuted. And guess what? Regardless of a disclaimer, you can be sued in civil court. Worse off if someone dies from your article, you can find yourself in trouble. It's already precedent in court related to an article on the web where someone got hurt attempting what the author wrote. You fail to ground your box in your article (a requirement of the NEC). So take what I said with a grain of salt and write a clearer article. When I have difficulty understanding it, others are going to have difficulty too.
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Big walt, it was a joke. I did take what you said with a grain of salt and I am rewriting it to be clearer. No egos in play here, never were.
 
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