Don't you have an oscilloscope? A few minutes looking at actual operation of a dimmer will beat all the advice you get here.
I have used a dimmer with a transformer with no problem, but can not guarantee your dimmer is the same as mine. A transformer will tolerate a little unbalance in the voltage applied to it.
Check to see if there is a Habbitat for Humanity store near you. The last dimmer I bought at the local HHFH store cost me a buck. Sometimes they have some heavy duty ones for more money. While you are at it, see if they have all the stuff needed to make a short extension cord with a dimmer controlling the output. Handy for keeping a soldering iron warm and then turning it on full when soldering.
That comes after hearing at least one person say "I did it and it worked fine".
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http://www.wescottdesign.com
Cool, but where would you find a ceiling fan that looks like that?
Best regards, Spehro Pefhany
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** Transformers running on reduced primary voltage LOSE power rating PLUS if the wave form is chopped the rms current value goes way up. So the tranny may have to be oversize.
Triac dimmers come in many versions, but the cheapest "two wire" kind will not like a tolerate load that has a significant phase angle - more than 20 degrees is a worry.
A low cost, "split bobbin" transformer operating into overload is a prize example of the above - leakage reactance is in series with the load and the phase angle can reach 45 degrees. The result is that at some settings on the dimmer, there will be mis-triggering and a large DC component applied to the tranny.
It will growl loudly in protest - then let out smoke.
A 50 watt or more tranny will likely take out the triac if this happens too.
Well, IME you can dim a fluorescent with a standard (triac type) dimmer, it just doesn't work so well. And that is a fairly inductive load, and the lamp itself is horribly non-linear. That must have been about 45 years ago when triacs were kind of new. A transformer with a resistive load should look somewhat resistive.
I was talking about them being made to fit in an outlet box, in place of a standard light switch.
The "Tim Taylor" ceiling fan used a Chevy 283 engine, and the Amish have fans that run from compressed air. Neither of those will work with a light dimmer, so what's your point?
What good will warnings do? Idiots will find a way to do things wrong, no matter how large or verbose the warning. Like idiot newscasters insisting on setting up ENG vans under power lines, and being electrocuted in spite of multiple warning labels on the van, antenna and doors.
One can control the speed of an induction motor with a variac as well. It sorta works. But the motor is fighting you - it wants to run at a bit below synchronous speed, which depends on supply frequency more than supply voltage.
Many of cheap fan design depends on air passing over the motor in the hopes the hopes of cooling it down.
We have an application where we operate a 220 volt single phase cap run motor (not start) at 120 volts. We do this to obtain RPM but low torque. It works fine but we are using a rather standard sinusoidal power source.
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