Where does one get those variac dimmers with the big off white knobs
that I see in many recording studios?

Do they work with low voltage (12v) halogen lighting?

Do they work with low voltage (12v) halogen lighting?

Yes, if the lighting uses a 120V to 12V transformer.

You have to be careful when dimming halogen lighting. If you dim it only a
_little_, the lamp's temperature drops out of the "scrub and recycle" region
_before_ the filament temperature leaves the "rapid evaporation" region, and the
lamp's life is significantly shortened.

"William Sommerwerck" wrote in message
...
Do they work with low voltage (12v) halogen lighting?

Yes, if the lighting uses a 120V to 12V transformer.

You have to be careful when dimming halogen lighting. If you dim it
only a
_little_, the lamp's temperature drops out of the "scrub and recycle"
region
_before_ the filament temperature leaves the "rapid evaporation"
region, and the
lamp's life is significantly shortened.

Some claim that running the lamps back at full power will restore
the the cycle that replaces the tungsten that was boiled off the
filament
and was deposited on the interior of the globe.

you can buy low voltage dimmers which are made for those lights. Lutron
makes a few models, they work fine.
--Lou Gimenez
The Music Lab
2" 24track w all the Goodies
www.musiclabnyc.com



From:
Organization: http://groups.google.com
Newsgroups: rec.audio.pro
Date: 15 May 2005 02:50:09 -0700
Subject: Studio Light Dimmers -Source?

Where does one get those variac dimmers with the big off white knobs
that I see in many recording studios?

Do they work with low voltage (12v) halogen lighting?

In article .com,
wrote:
Where does one get those variac dimmers with the big off white knobs
that I see in many recording studios?

Any good electrical supply house can get autotransformers. I like Tristate
Electrical Supply. You can sometimes get them surplus at C&H Sales in
Pasadena but they usually don't come in NEMA boxes and will require some
mounting work if you get them that way.

Do they work with low voltage (12v) halogen lighting?

IF you have a real transformer instead of a fancy switching supply to
knock the voltage down, yes. Note that if you dim low-voltage halogens,
you will radically reduce your bulb life (even if you crank them up to
full brightness for a few minutes every few hours to get the halogen cycle
going again).
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

Richard Crowley wrote:

Some claim that running the lamps back at full power will restore
the the cycle that replaces the tungsten that was boiled off the
filament
and was deposited on the interior of the globe.

It does, but you have to make sure you do that before too much has
boiled off.
--scott

--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

wrote:
Where does one get those variac dimmers with the big off white knobs
that I see in many recording studios?

Do they work with low voltage (12v) halogen lighting?


Hi!

There are special dimmers for halogens that work behind transformers.
Available at every good electric stuff store, at least here in Estonia

br,
Sven

I don't know about using Variable Transformers with halogen lighting.
However, I just bought two Staco Variable Transformers (3A) from
http://www.newark.com to replace the dimmers in the studio that were
creating a lot of noise and they work great.

Mark.