increasing current capability of a lamp dimmer

[m b]

I would like to use a lamp dimmer to control an infrared heater.

The heater is 1500 watts, and the biggest (cheap) dimmers I have found
are 600 watts.

I managed to get a deal on some 40 amp triacs on e-bay ...

I believe the following should work (using the home depot dimmer as a
trigger for the high current triac) can anyone verify it ?



--------------|
| |
.-. |
| | |
| | heater |
'-' |
| |
| |
| |
| |
_|_ |
V_A triac |
|----/ | |
| | |
| | |
.----------. | | |
| | | | |
| home |---- | -----------
| depot | |
| dimmer | |
| | |
| |----------|------------------------
| | -
| |
'----------'







(created by AACircuit v1.28.6 beta 04/19/05 www.tech-chat.de)

 

[Jamie]

m b wrote:

I would like to use a lamp dimmer to control an infrared heater.

The heater is 1500 watts, and the biggest (cheap) dimmers I have found
are 600 watts.

I managed to get a deal on some 40 amp triacs on e-bay ...

I believe the following should work (using the home depot dimmer as a
trigger for the high current triac) can anyone verify it ?



--------------|
| |
.-. |
| | |
| | heater |
'-' |
| |
| |
| |
| |
_|_ |
V_A triac |
|----/ | |
| | |
| | |
.----------. | | |
| | | | |
| home |---- | -----------
| depot | |
| dimmer | |
| | |
| |----------|------------------------
| | -
| |
'----------'







(created by AACircuit v1.28.6 beta 04/19/05 www.tech-chat.de)
If you have a triac type dimmer from Home-Depot, you could unsolder

the wimpy one and replace it with the large one you have. And of course,
heat sink it.

Jamie

 

[Tom Biasi]

On 10/18/2012 7:54 PM, m b wrote:

I would like to use a lamp dimmer to control an infrared heater.

The heater is 1500 watts, and the biggest (cheap) dimmers I have found
are 600 watts.

I managed to get a deal on some 40 amp triacs on e-bay ...

I believe the following should work (using the home depot dimmer as a
trigger for the high current triac) can anyone verify it ?



--------------|
| |
.-. |
| | |
| | heater |
'-' |
| |
| |
| |
| |
_|_ |
V_A triac |
|----/ | |
| | |
| | |
.----------. | | |
| | | | |
| home |---- | -----------
| depot | |
| dimmer | |
| | |
| |----------|------------------------
| | -
| |
'----------'







(created by AACircuit v1.28.6 beta 04/19/05 www.tech-chat.de)

It depends on how the dimmer is designed. A lot of times the load is in

series with all the other circuitry and you won't have a convenient way
to get the trigger pulse.
As was suggested, if the circuit board looks like it can handle the
extra current maybe you can swap triacs and add heat sinking. Then hope
the diac and your triac are compatible.

Tom

 

On Thu, 18 Oct 2012 16:54:46 -0700 (PDT), m b <jcms985@gmail.com>
wrote:

I would like to use a lamp dimmer to control an infrared heater.

The heater is 1500 watts, and the biggest (cheap) dimmers I have found
are 600 watts.

I managed to get a deal on some 40 amp triacs on e-bay ...

I believe the following should work (using the home depot dimmer as a
trigger for the high current triac) can anyone verify it ?



--------------|
| |
.-. |
| | |
| | heater |
'-' |
| |
| |
| |
| |
_|_ |
V_A triac |
|----/ | |
| | |
| | |
.----------. | | |
| | | | |
| home |---- | -----------
| depot | |
| dimmer | |
| | |
| |----------|------------------------
| | -
| |
'----------'







(created by AACircuit v1.28.6 beta 04/19/05 www.tech-chat.de)

I actually tried it... The series connected Leviton brand dimmer
(cheapest on the face of the earth) did not work to trigger the triac
except in the high ranges.

Substituting the triac with the larger one did work better - but not
smoothly I had to turn it up to ~15% to get it to turn on then could
turn it down to ~5% where it would turn off if I tried to go lower
(and that point was variable so it might turn off arbitrarily)

I eventually used a picaxe to read a pot and use pwm to control a
solid state relay, and a tricolor led to indicate which stove range
element was doing what from across the room... Cost ~$20 and a couple
of days to convert two of the controls. New, so called, "infinite
range controls" were ~$25 and only last couple of years the way I use
the cookstove.

I expected the potentiometer to fail given the environment but they
are still working after 4 years. The original thermo-mechanical
controls had a time constant of ~36 seconds for the pwm, the
electronic ones ~6 seconds.