Will putting dimmer switches on my lights save me money, there are 8 GU10 50w bulbs per room. Will it be cheaper to run them at half brightness or will it make no difference wether they are on fully or not.
Cheers Jay.
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Will dimming GU10 50w bulbs save me money ?
- Thread starter jaydarcy
- Start date
Will putting dimmer switches on my lights save me money, there are 8 GU10 50w bulbs per room. Will it be cheaper to run them at half brightness or will it make no difference wether they are on fully or not.
Cheers Jay.
8 x 50w GU10's is 400w.
Normal dimmers will take roughly 2/3 of stated wattage for normal (filament) bulbs.
This means a 400w dimmer can only control 250w of GU10.
I tried 35watters instead. Still too much, so I ended up splitting my eight bulbs into two circuits, 4 on each and for want of a better description I "staggered" the 2 circuits so over the t.v. / corners and hearth under one circuit, over seating on the other, but I did originally have two seperate lighing circuits to the centre roses, made life easier.
Normal dimmers will take roughly 2/3 of stated wattage for normal (filament) bulbs.
This means a 400w dimmer can only control 250w of GU10.
I tried 35watters instead. Still too much, so I ended up splitting my eight bulbs into two circuits, 4 on each and for want of a better description I "staggered" the 2 circuits so over the t.v. / corners and hearth under one circuit, over seating on the other, but I did originally have two seperate lighing circuits to the centre roses, made life easier.
Dimmers don't work that way - they chop the waveform to lower the RMS voltage - they either delay turning on until part way through each half-cycle (leading edge) or turn off before the end (trailing edge).Newspark said:
I don't think that domestic ones have ever been just a variable resistor.
jaydarcy said:
Will putting dimmer switches on my lights save me money, there are 8 GU10 50w bulbs per room. Will it be cheaper to run them at half brightness or will it make no difference wether they are on fully or not.
Cheers Jay.
It will almost certainly cost you money - running halogen bulbs that dimly actually shortens their lives.
http://members.misty.com/don/bulb1.html
B
breezer
not to mention the cost of good quality suitably rated dimmers v any money saved
ahh the drivel that gets posted hereNewspark said:
1: as already said resistive dimmers are nonexistant domestically and i think very rare now in professional applications (they used to be used for stage lighting before phase cutting systems became common and were very big and ran hot enough to fry eggs)
2: even with a resistive dimmer the total power will be less when the lights are dimmed than when on full brightness.
Dimming any incandescent light to save money is a really bad idea. The reduction in light output is much greater than the reduction in power consumption. Most of the 'light' coming from your bulb is below the visible spectrum already (it's infra-red). If you reduce the power by a small amount you lower the temperature and the emission spectrum slides down the scale.
On top of this you have all the problems associated with trying to dim halogen bulbs. The halogen can't remove tungsten from the envelope properly because it isn't hot enough but it CAN remove tungsten from parts of the filament instead - because they aren't hot enough!
To save money you can either switch a few off or use lower power bulbs.
On top of this you have all the problems associated with trying to dim halogen bulbs. The halogen can't remove tungsten from the envelope properly because it isn't hot enough but it CAN remove tungsten from parts of the filament instead - because they aren't hot enough!
To save money you can either switch a few off or use lower power bulbs.
Most people, I had always assumed, want to dim lights to get a lower light level, not to save money.
So if you are dimming for effect, then you need to ensure you start out with the right lighting. CFLs with high-frequency dimmable control gear?
So if you are dimming for effect, then you need to ensure you start out with the right lighting. CFLs with high-frequency dimmable control gear?
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