Jump to content
Electronics-Lab.com Community

Turn the lamp On & Off gradually...


Recommended Posts


Changing the frequency of the AC feeding a lightbulb won't change the brightness one bit. Just like the variable frequency DC motor speed control project that we have that doesn't work.
A transistor doesn't work with AC that has ground as a center voltage.

You need a huge variable resistor in series with the lightbulb, or use a small variable Pulse Width Modulation circuit just like in a common light dimmer. Getting a dimmer circuit to slowly change its phase shift would be very difficult. It would probably be easier to rectify and filter the mains, and modulate the resulting DC with a slowly changing PWM circuit.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hi Suraj,
Getting the externally generated PWM frequency sync'd to the mains frequency would be difficult and would need more isolation.
Forget having any mains isolation, nobody is going to touch the circuit.

I know what you mean but the PWM isn't a triangle wave, it is produced by the output of a comparator that switches at the coordinates of a triangle wave and a DC voltage.

How about using a light dimmer with its phase-control pot replaced by an LDR? A slowly dimming LED would control it nicely.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 6 months later...

Why don't you use a bridge rectifier, and run the lamp off the unfiltered DC, a MOSFET could be used to switch the lamp, and a standard PWM circuit could control the MOSFET. ;D

Link to comment
Share on other sites

hi audioguru!
i guess changing the frequency ideally wont have effect on the brightness but practically would have. I guess all of us know that on a 50 Hz mains supply a bulb turns on and off 50 times a second.it would turn of once a second if it were 1Hz.and turning on and off once a second cant be sudden!isnt it?
another approach would be to use a waveform which changes firing angle of a thyristor in every second,this way it would dissipate varying power in each cycle and hence glow with a varying intensity.
or a microcontroller controlled motor rotating a variac supplying the power to the bulb!
hey which one seems best?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Sorry Prateek,
A lightbulb turns-on at 100Hz on a 50Hz mains. It is trying to reach full brightness at each of the two peaks of the AC voltage, for each cycle.

An ordinary lamp dimmer changes the firing angle of a full-wave thyristor (triac) in each half cycle not each second. Early for full brightness and late for dimmed.

You wouldn't want a motor-controlled variac for dimming anymore. A thyristor dimmer circuit is smaller, lighter and operates cooler.
Have you ever seen the huge variable resistors used for dimming in old stage shows? Later they used huge manual variacs. Now they are all thyristors. ;D

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

Loading...
×
  • Create New...