Re: Low Voltage Lighting

In sci.electronics.design SQLit <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> 
> "DaveC" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
> news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>> Need to light a display in a dark room with less-than-full brightness
> lights
>> (ie, "mood" lighting). Would like to use small spots, but these are mostly
<snip>
> If you looking for mood lighting consider switching the lights at full
> bright in several stages. A dimmer accepts the full load and only passes on
> the level you set. Using a 100 watt base and you set it for 50 % or 50 watts
> then your burning off 50 watts in heat. Not exactly efficient. I know it
> means more wiring but if you think about it you might decide that it is a
> better way to go.

Nope.
Modern semiconductor based dimmers (99% of those sold now) are around 95%
or so efficient.
They basically are on-off switches that switches on at varying points in
each cycle.

I would be really, really surprised if you can even buy resistive dimmers
(which even then are not quite that bad) nowadays as it's cheaper to
make the semiconductor based ones rather than a high power resistor.