Dimmer Switches

Dimmer switches have been around practically since the advent of the light bulb, I'd guess Circa 1877. Just as one discovers a way to make your days enlightened, along comes another to dim your hopes and dreams. Seriously though, the new technology (electricity) had only recently embraced the electric light bulb, electrical theory was severely lacking; with new discoveries made practically every day, it was only a matter of time before a light dimmer of some kind would emerge.

Originally it was thought that by lowering the voltage feeding a light bulb, the resultant lack of power would cause the lamp's filament to dim and therefore, be less bright. It was discovered that that was not he case, in fact, lowering the voltage would cause an inverse spike in current flow, the strongest burst of which would certainly overpower the meek filament, turning it to dust.

Relying on new theories, the answer was inserting a little more electrical "load", or electrical resistance to the circuit, thereby supplementing the resistence of the lamp, with a rheostat, also known as a variable resistor, a potentiometer or even a volume control. Whatever you call it, the outcome was the same, the lamp burned less bright, but the power was still being consumed by the resistor, which caused heat to build up and deteriorate the insulation of the conductors, eventually causing total failure of the device.




Among the dimmer switches, pictured above is a rotary dimmer - nothing fancy - this one is actually a used one. We have all used them, some have a push on/off feature, some with an on/off switch at the lowest dimmer setting. Intitially these dimmers would handle a maximum combined lamp-load of 600 watts, ten 60 watt lamps, or six 100 watt lamps, etc.. Larger dimmers, to handle larger lighting loads, were developed and perfected. But the inherent problem with heat dissipation still persisted.

You may or may not have seen the higher wattage dimmers, but they are quite distinguishable. A typical 1,000 watt dimmer would only fit in a 2-gang switch box, but the heat sink, which carries the heat away from the device, is up to 6-1/2" - 7" wide. The larger plate has a ribbed aluminum body, with what look like vertical dividers that effectively increase the exposed cooling surface to the open air. I am sorry that I do not have a photo of one of these dimmers to show you.

The Ariadni
Other dimmer switches shown here are various types maufactured by Lutron lighting controls If you want to know how to install one of these, please follow along.