How Dimmer Switches Work ?
Dimmer switches help in creating a good environment in dinning room or home theater as per your choice. They are not so difficult to install. Once you decide to buy these dimmer switches for your home, have good knowledge about them.
You can use 120V incandescent bulbs and halogen bulbs along with these dimmer switches but you can’t use fluorescent bulbs and most compact fluorescent bulbs.
Commonly, dimmer switches work with those bulbs that have wire filaments like 120V incandescent and halogen bulbs have. But when we talk about fluorescent bulbs and compact fluorescent bulbs, they usually work with a gas and they also need voltage for their functioning. If you are purchasing halogen bulbs having very low voltage then you need to purchase special kind of dimmer switches.
Two different kinds of dimmer switches are: single pole and 3-way dimmer switches. A single pole dimmer switch can be operated from a single location or single switch. A 3-way dimmer switch can be operated from two different switches located at different locations but out of two, only one is dimmer switch.
Years back, dimmer switches work on concept of varying voltage of light fixture like when you move down the dimmer switch voltage also go down and when you move up the dimmer switch, voltage also go up. This was generally handled by a rheostat that was considered to be energy inefficient.
But now, TRIAC are used to operate the dimmer switches. TRIAC can efficiently and quickly power on or power off a light bulb. This frequency is so high that no one can detect when the bulb was off.
As the light bulbs used with dimmer switches are turned off in between its course, they save a lot of electric unit from your monthly electricity bills and the life time of such bulbs also increases. By dimming a light to nearly half of its normal output, you can conserve 40% power and can enhance the life span of that bulb by 5-20 times.
Dimmer switches are one among the excellent accessories that can beautify your dining room, living room and especially a home theater room.
Scott Rodgers is an author with great experience in electricians work all over the country. His exemplary guidance has generated business opportunities for a lot many Grove City Electricians (Need one? click here!) and Fort Washington Electricians (Need one? click here!).
