I am setting up project, in which I use Arduino to control the wall outlets in my room, after closer examination of digital potentiometers, they cant handle anything near to my MAX voltage (240v), and looking at voltage regulators, I can only find the TL783, I hoped I could find a regulator that is tolerant to higher voltages, and if I found one, how would I go about automating it?
I am just looking for suggestions to control higher voltages (using analog).
Read up on how light dimmers work.
Line voltage and currents are very dangerous. No offense meant, but it is clear from your questions that you have very little knowledge of electronics. Perhaps it would be wise to first learn with projects that are not easily fatal.
Hi, how do you want to control the High Voltage, is it DC or AC.
If you want to just control AC mains appliances and lights, then you will need opto coupling triac controllers, not voltage regulators.
Try this section of the forum, dedicated to home automation if that is what you are trying to do.
http://forum.arduino.cc/index.php?board=16.0
Hope this helps.
Tom......... 
When you say "Control the outlets in my room" What do you mean to do with them? Turn them on and off? Adjust the voltage coming out of them? Regulation implies that you are controlling the voltage coming out of them, and I am wondering why you are doing that. Also, you wouldn't use resistors to do this, as they are terribly inefficient or would require very large resistors.
That all being said, if you just want to be able to turn your sockets on and off, there are fairly safe relay setups (See Power SwitchTail Information.com People Search | Free People Finder & White Pages - Locate Anyone) and that actually would be fairly safe, since you wouldn't be directly accessing the mains voltage at any point.
Comrade_Oscar:
I am setting up project, in which I use Arduino to control the wall outlets in my room, after closer examination of digital potentiometers, they cant handle anything near to my MAX voltage (240v), and looking at voltage regulators, I can only find the TL783, I hoped I could find a regulator that is tolerant to higher voltages, and if I found one, how would I go about automating it?I am just looking for suggestions to control higher voltages (using analog).
Seriously: If you're asking these questions, you shouldn't be doing it. Houses burn down.
What devices do you want to control? Maybe there's replacement devices with built in PWM controllers that could connect directly to an Arduino, etc.
Comrade_Oscar:
they cant handle anything near to my MAX voltage (240v),
Sounds like you're talking about AC. As others have commented, if you aren't experienced with AC line voltages, you probably shouldn't be playing it.
AC control circuits are very different from DC control circuits.
To all who have concerns with my inexperience, I can assure you, that I am not only taking precautions, but that I have used Solid State Relays before, and have worked with AC, and I guess their is a way I could simplify what I said in my opening statement, I am basically looking, to be able to dim my lights through my PC, rather than using a typical dimmer. I have seriously considered PWM, but Will my solid state relay keep up with the speeds? I believe I tried the "Fading" Sketch with a SSR before, and got disappointing results on a normal desk lamp.
So how would I go about dimming my high voltage AC lights?
Pwm will not work with AC, just think about it for a second.
What you need to dimm is called phase angle control.
Optoiolator and a Triac.
Pwm and a low pass capacitor to control the gate on the triac.
Pwm and a low pass capacitor to control the gate on the triac.
No that will not work.
A triac once on will stay on for the rest of the cycle. PWM is not the answer here.
See:-
I think I confused myself...
The triac can be used to deliver variable amounts of current based on a pwm & cap low pass, giving varied control no? Ie current controlled you talk like they're fets.
The triac can be used to deliver variable amounts of current based on a pwm & cap low pass, giving varied control no?
No.
A triac can be turned on with a voltage to the gate. It only has two states of conduction full on or full off.
Once on it stays on for the rest of the cycle even if the gate voltage is removed. Therefore the technique of phase angle control is to wait for the start of the cycle. Then delay some and then fire the triac. It is this delay after the start of the cycle that determines how much of that cycle gets transferred to the load. A short or zero delay will see all of it transferred, that is fully on. A delay of half a cycle will see the load powered by half, and a long delay will see very little of the cycle going through the load.
The gate could be controlled via pwm and a cap via an optocoupler, I don't see why not ?
No no no no cjdelphi.
THAT'S NOT PWM it's simple phase angel control.
As you see in the video it do not work so well beacuse it's one capacitor missing.
(from pot - gate. Should bee an capacitor to GND)
Pelle
cjdelphi:
http://youtu.be/tyQ-BM7sXy0The gate could be controlled via pwm and a cap via an optocoupler, I don't see why not ?
Because the turning on of the triac would not be synchronised with the mains cycle. For a better circuit there should be a capacitor between the neutral and the resistor side of the diac. As it is it is just using the stray capacitance of the bread board circuit to act as a capacitor.
A diac is a device that is normally not conducting and then at a set voltage normally arround 22V it breaks down and becomes conductive. This allows to control the delay between the AC cycle zero crossing and the triac firing.
Funny this, one of my "made but never used" things was/ is a box (plastic junction box) with two triacs and three optocouplers - to control two outlets on the box. It would provide an isolated 4-wire interface.
The concept was to use a separate logic which could now be implemented with an Arduino, to phase control the two triacs based on the zero-crossing signal derived from the third optocoupler which was switched by either a resistor or a capacitor (would take some time to locate said device just now).
The advantage of a microcontroller in this instance, is to implement a PLL and reduce any problems from noise on the mains (notably Zellweger tones). This would also allow synchronisation using a series capacitor to derive the signal which then corresponds to the peaks rather than the signal crossings.
Domestic mains voltages - 110 or 240 - are referred to in electricity distribution as "Low Voltage". 
See the post : Triac/Optocoupler Dimmer - Project Guidance - Arduino Forum (Triac/Optocoupler Dimmer)
lemming:
See the post : Triac/Optocoupler Dimmer - Project Guidance - Arduino Forum (Triac/Optocoupler Dimmer)
A lot of "head-banging" around the misunderstanding of the purpose of a "Zero Crossing Control" Opto-isolator.
The final circuit indirectly mentioned closely describes my project of some thirty years ago.
Note trigger currents: MOC3020 30 mA, MOC3021 15 mA, MOC3022 10 mA, MOC3023 5 mA.
