Singing light bulb on dimmer switch

David D. · 2006-05-20T07:22:00+00:00

Most light bulbs hum loudly when dimmed via a dimmer switch. A few are ok,because they contain extra filament supports at critical positions.My hanging (swag) kitchen tiffany-style light takes a G40-150w bulb. Ithums badly when dimmed.(1) Is there a brand of G40-150 bulb that does not hum when dimmed?(2) Alternatively, is there a small, in-line filter available, or afiltered, table-top dimmer switch, that would create a smoothershort-duty-cycle output than the intermittent, alternating square-wavecreated by a typical dimmer switch? Would that be safe for a householdlamp application? Would that eliminate the audible humming? - David

May 20, 2006 21 Replies

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Peter Pan 20 years ago

Always thought the singing to be related to the harmonics due from phase control (the sound isn't 60 Hz), so the capacitors might not like seeing all that harmonic current.

Also putt> mm wrote:

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Bud-- 20 years ago

Going further back in the thread, the discussion was on filtering rectified AC.

bud--

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