Does the team think - flicker lamps

The minimum level is (I assume) zero, so... no, they'll shut off.

As the strike voltage is higher than the sustain voltage, you should be able to turn down the dimmer a bit. However, I suspect the lamps won't get dimmer -- rather, less of the flame area will be illuminated.

The minimum level - of these dimmers - is pretty low, but not zero - I`m not sure what the volts across the lamps are at minimum. most neons strike around 90 volts I think, I dont know what the sustaining voltage would be.

I`m not interested in dimming them, just being able to make them strike with a rising voltage but does the voltage vary much on a domestic dimmer? Will it drop to below the neons sustaining voltage? There will be other normal filiament lamps in parallel with the flicker lamps.

I guess the answer is to suck it and see.

Ron

Going by the neon on my main bench ps (so AC driven) its flicker is highly dependent on whether the room is dark or room light on. Whether mains rectified (quasi?) DC driven flicker bulbs are light dependent, no knowledge.

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???

I'm not sure what you're talking about.

There are two types of dimmers. (Maybe more, but I only know of two.) One is a variable resistor (or better, a variable transformer) that actually changes the voltage across the load, either by introducing series resistance, or changing the source voltage itself. As these are bulky and not cheap, they are not generally found in homes.

The other type of dimmer -- of which the X10 is the best-known example -- uses an SCR or triac to vary the duty cycle of the AC. The SCR is "off" until the AC waveform reaches a certain level, which is set by the knob, slider, etc. The SCR remains "on" until the waveform drops to zero, at which point it shuts off. The later in the cycle the SCR turns on, the less energy is delivered to the load. * Incandescent lamps are sufficiently thermally sluggish to smooth out the variation, and there is little or no visible flickering.

In such a system, the peak voltage is _always_ the full line voltage, with the amount of energy delivered to the load controlled by how much of each cycle passes through the SCR.

Once you turn the knob to the point where the SCR triggers, you will always have a peak voltage of about 170V (on a 120V line), which, in principle, would make the neon lamp strike.

But how the lamps behave, and what you see, is not clear (to me). You're just going to have to try it and see.

• Don't put a dimmer on a tungsten-halogen lamp, unless you limit its use to setting the light at a low level. If you set it a bit below peak, the filament will be hot enough to burn out prematurely, but not hot enough for the halogen-recycling process to be effective. Yes, I've seen this happen.

99.9999999 percent of common dimmers use a triac to turn on the load at a point in both the positive and negative portions of the AC cycle determined by the brightness setting. It turns off when the current goes to zero.

For high brightness, it turns on early in the cycle. For low birghtness, it turns on late in the cycle.

However, with a gas discharge lamp, the load is an open circuit until it strikes and is a very high resistance load even when it is running. The dimmer is a two-wire device which depends on the load to draw some current at all times and provide internal power to the dimmer.

I would expect a neon lamp to work but for the dimmer to have little or no adjustment range.

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Then that`s exactly what I want, when the house lights go up, the flicker lamps strike, and when they go down, off they go. I`m just hoping that the voltage across the neons when the dimmer is on minimum is low enough for them to unstrike. There will be incandescant bulbs in parallel with the neons, so the dimmer sees a load anyway.

cheers

Ron

The loading of these type of lamps are quiet low and therefore you might find not sufficient to make the dimmer work, if its a triac device inside,

Word of warning if you ever try a energy saver lamp (florescent type) on a dimmer - they can explode !! :)

House lights ? is this for theatre use ?

In the UK the HSE & Electricity at work act will be mentioned in the insurance documents for the building and say that fixtures must be used in accordance with the manufactures guidelines - what you're proposing with the use of these lamps isn't in accordance with any manufactures guidelines they may well state the complete opposite with regard to using them with a dimmer and as such should harm come to body or property the insurance may not be in affect.

I speak from experience trying to get insurance authority to do something with a product of which it was not designed to do by the manufacture. Even the Theatre rules and guidelines which are quite relaxed didn't help me :(

GE (and possibly other companies) makes dimmable CFLs. I tried one with an X10, and it worked.

They are in parallel with incandescant lamps in the same fitting. I dont want them to dim, I want them to go out at minimum setting and strike at a greater than minimum setting, where in the dimmer curve doesnt matter.

I`m going to try it out on Monday, Maybe sooner if time allows

Ron(UK)