Trailing edge dimmer!

Other Hardware General Electronics
1

Hi everyone,
I have some 230V dimmable LED lights (80 W in total). I would like to control them with Arduino. Reading online I saw that usually this type of bulbs work better with trailing edge type dimmers (compared to leading edge type dimmer). I took a look online to see if there is a dimmer module that I could simply control with my Arduino for example giving a 0-5V input (something like this for example), but I couldn't find any. I was wondering if someone knows about such a module.

Thank you!

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2

I'm not sure that these LED lamps are dimmable to any great extent - they have internal electronics.

Check carefully on their datasheet.

And if they were, I don't think that a trailing edge dimmer would be of any advantage - and they're more expensive.

regards

Allan

3

I have some 230V dimmable LED lights (80 W in total). I would like to control them with Arduino. Reading online I saw that usually this type of bulbs work better with trailing edge type dimmers

I'm not sure you can generalize. They should be designed to work with a regular dimmer because they are designed as screw-in replacements for regular incandescent bulbs. An electrician did tell me that sometimes dimmers and dimmable LEDs are not compatible, but he basically said it's "mix-and-match" and "hit-or-miss". He didn't say one type of dimmer is always better or one type of LED bulb is always better.

If you are building something yourself it's probably better to get "raw" high-power LEDs and then buy (or build) a dimmable constant current (controlled current) [u]LED Power supply[/u].

The only small "catch" is that the dimming is controlled by 0-10VDC or 10V PWM. But that's an commercial industry-standard so once you build it your Arduino dimmer can control any of these "industrial" LED dimmers. There are also industrial fluorescent dimmers controlled by 0-10VDC.

4

If the bulbs are compatible with dimmers, it should not matter if it is leading or trailing edge type. FWIW, leading edge (triac type phase control) is what is available in the USA, trailing edge (FET dc control) are very special, specific purpose type units and are not found in general, wide distribution in the Home DIY stores.

Here is a 2 channel triac type dimmer compatible with Arduino:

There are many many articles on the web for DIY Arduino triac phase controllers. Please don't attempt DIY if you are not skilled in this type of endeavor since 220 v mains is very unforgiving and one mistake is one too many.