Hi all, I'm trying to make a variable dimmer for a 6 volt, 5 amp incandescent lamp ( microscope illuminator). Tried regulated variable DC sources, but at 5 amps they're not very efficient , ..huge and hot heatsinks! Was wondering if it might be a little more efficient ( size and heat) to use a standard triac based lamp dimmer on the input of a
120:6.3V @ ~8A transformer? Does the chopped waveform have any adverse effects on the transformer? Does it need some sort of smoothing? I do have a huge variac, but again, I'm trying to keep this PSU as small as possible. Thanks in advance!