ESP8266 + Universal AC MAINS Dimmer Unit

Other Hardware Home Automation
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A new version of AC MAINS Dimmer drivers that have some unique characteristics as:

  • all the required functions onboard, for a smooth AC Dimming experience (Phase control, Zero Crossing detection, isolated MAINS, isolated Phase detection

AND

in the same time is reducing down to zero the added overhead on your Arduino/ESP/whaterver MCU/application processor by the time/resources consuming intensive phrase control and Zero crossing detection functions.

  • it is voltage control unit, so you can drive it with you Arduino, ESP, STM32 MCU, PWM, DAC, etc even a simple voltage divider with a 10k potentiometer on the VCNT input pin is enough to drive it!

A short example of how easy is to build a WIFI Dimmer unit with a ESP8266 Module and a Universal AC MAINS Dimmer Driver like the MPDMv4:

And the realated articles, explaining in more details about:

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Arduino IDE code example (yes, it is THAT simple!), using Serial Input for reading Brightness values and PWM with a simple RC filter for VCNT:

int VCNT = 3;    // MPDMv4 Voltage Control Pin (VCNT) connected to Arduino PIN3

void setup()
{
  // initialize the serial communication:
  Serial.begin(9600);
  // initialize the VCNT pin as an output:
  pinMode(VCNT, OUTPUT);
}

void loop() {
  byte brightness;

  // check if data has been sent from the computer:
  if (Serial.available()) {
    // read the most recent byte -> range from 0 to 190 : MPDMv4 Calibrated range
    brightness = Serial.parseInt();
    Serial.print("Command received : ");
    Serial.println(brightness);    
    // set the brightness -> range from 0 to 190 : MPDMv4 Calibrated range

    analogWrite(VCNT, brightness);
  }
}

GitHUB Link : MPDMv4 Examples

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Youtube Video Tutorial: how to drive a MPDMv4 AC Dimmer Board with your Arduino: