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My light controller works by replacing
the rotary variable resistor in a standard house lighting dimmer with a
light sensitive resistor. I then use squares of light on a computer
monitor to control the dimmers. It uses 100 steps of gray scale to
control the dimming. 4-port controller box
24 port controller box
Inside the 24 port box
Plexiglas screen with light sensitive resistors
Laptop with sensor screen attached using velcro
Currently I have 72 circuits.
1x 24c box
2x 8c box
8x 4c box The length of the wire you can use from the dimmer
to the sensor screen seems to be limited to around 100 ft. I would start
having problems with lights not working or not reaching full brightness
at around 100+ ft. Due to some unavoidable
(at least for these cheap dimmers) interaction between the load and the
line, there is some hysteresis with respect to the dimmest setting: It
will be necessary to turn up the control a little beyond the point where
it turns fully off to get the light to come back on again.
Now can I dim up the lights smoothly ?
With many cheap dimmers, the lights "Pop On" rather than dim up
smoothly. This problem is usually related to the construction of the
dimmer electronics. One technique used in some cheap dimmers to allow
dimming up smoothly is to place another potentiometer (trimmer) across
the control potentiometer. That trimmer potentiometer is set so that the
dimmer works smoothly:
- a)Set "Control" to Minimum light level.
- b)Adjust "Trimmer" to filaments JUST "glow"
- c)Turn off dimmer
- d)Turn on dimmer to see if filaments "glow". IF not... set trimmer
up a snit.... go to c)
Continue until minimum voltage/current is supplied to lamps (filaments
do not seem to glow at all). When everything is properly adjusted, the
dimmer circuit will nicely dim up from the lowest setting up to maximum
brightness.
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