Two dimmers in series?

I am in the UK (230V) and have a 100W standing lamp with a dimmer wired in line with it's mains lead.

I have recently got a remote controlled dimmer which plugs into the wall mains socket and then I plug the device into the dimmer.

This means I would have two dimmers in series. Could this cause a problem?

If it might be troublesome then could I leave the inline one on its maximum setting (it does not "click" at max so I guess it does not truly bypass the dimming circuit). Then I would use only the remote dimmer.

Thanks for any info.

Reply to
Andy
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no no no - Open up & dig into that lamp., disconnect the dimmer wire to the hot side and bipass it by splicing it to the hot lead directly to the socket, [assume the neutral is already connected direct] then you'd only have the groovy remote controlled dimmer.

This is proceedure is a whole lot safer than the alarm dudes experiment };-)

UV_Ray Just Passing Through

Reply to
UV Ray

Hard to say how ever, I would say this though, if the second dimmer is a phase control type it's possible it may not work off from another dimmer unless it passes through a xformer to clean up the phase control switching.. That's just a guess and would need testing..

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Reply to
Jamie

Why not remove the inline dimmer, seems like a safe bet.

Cheers

Reply to
Martin Riddle

The gterm "series" is inappropriate. "Tandem,"cascade," or 'sequence" are better terms to use. Series is when there is one current path through the part of the circuit elements that are in series, There are no multiple paths.

Dimmers use two conductors. Power from the hot side is diverted to the neutral through circuitry that does the phase control. Power is not available to the next dimmer in the cascade until the first one fires. I cn see all kinds of problems arising from this arrangement depending upon the specific design. In all likelihood, nothing disasterous will happen, but you cannot be sure.

Bill

Reply to
Salmon Egg

For what it's worth: I once observed a significant failure of a dimmer module in a 300-watt halogen torchiere lamp, after the lamp was plugged into a separate dimmer (an X10 "lamp module" remotely controllable dimmer).

The lamp's own dimmer failed - the rotary switch and potentiometer jammed and refused to turn. I pulled out the dimmer module to replace it with an ordinary rotary on/off switch, and found that the plastic case of the dimmer potentiometer had actually gotten hot enough to soften and sag!

I don't know whether this was due to a defective component in the dimmer, or whether running such a dimmer from a triac-dimmer-chopped mains supply was somehow the cause of the failure. In either case I'm grateful that the failure wasn't severe enough to actually cause the dimmer module to catch fire.

Reply to
Dave Platt

Two ordinary dimmers in series works fine if one is left full on. I would be less certain of the X10 dimmer working in this setup. They can have problems without anything complicating the circuit.

Reply to
Andrew Gabriel

The only real answer there is to test it and see if anything gets hot. Setting hte one full on and using the other is a possibility, but not being able to see them from here ...

Reply to
TWayne

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