Re: UK Wall dimmer reliability

[Raymond <Reb.barnett@xxxxxxx>]

What measurements do you want? Mine is very accessible because wiring it
up and playing with it was more fun than boxing it up and hiding the
exposed live contacts :-(

Mine worked fine for quite some time before becoming dodgy. It would
sometimes go for a week or more without a hitch, then play havoc -
presumably because I only occasionaly hit the critical dim level that
really stressed it. The module seems fine enough now and is in active
service operating a 60W table lamp, although I only ever run it at off
or 100%...

Wasn't there some talk a while ago about universal modules being
unreliable with high loads - something to do with arcing across the
contacts causing them to fuse together?

Ray.

> -----Original Message-----
> From: timmorris@xxxxxxx [mailto:timmorris@xxxxxxx]
> Sent: 19 July 1999 15:12
> To: REB.Barnett@xxxxxxx
> Subject: [ukha_d] Re: UK Wall dimmer reliability
>
>
> The interesting thing is, that for the first week of
> operation all of them
> worked fine. I have one controlling 200W that has failed, but another
> which is controlling 300W which is (at the moment) working
> fine. I wonder
> whether the heat is affecting the soldering on the board. Although I'm
> happy working on the low-voltage side of things, I dont trust
> myself to
> work on the mains side, so I haven't opened them up. The
> suggestion of a
> Din rail dimmer seems to be the solution, does anyone have one that is
> accessible so the can provide accurate measurements?
>
> I also have a particularly un reliable universal module - seems like
> manufacturing tolerance is not what it could be.
>
> Tim.
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Keith Doxey [mailto:keith.doxey@xxxxxxx]
> Sent: 19 July 1999 12:20
> To: 'ukha_d@xxxxxxx'
> Subject: [ukha_d] Re: UK Wall dimmer reliability
>
>
> Hi Tim,
>
> I would imagine that the poor little X10 chip inside the
> switch is getting
> cooked so much by the heat coming from the triac that it just stops
> responding. Once cooled it will work OK until the next time.
>
> I personally dont like running ANYTHING at 100% load. Its
> much better to
> have a good safety margin.
> If I want 500W of lighting I use a 1kW dimmer.
> If I want 50 watts of audio playing I use a 200W amp with
> speakers rated
> at
> 3-400W
>
>
>
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