RE: dimmer switches

["Tesla list" <tesla-at-pupman-dot-com>]

Original poster: "Lau, Gary by way of Terry Fritz <twftesla-at-qwest-dot-net>" <Gary.Lau-at-compaq-dot-com>

One thing I would add - Do not connect the dimmer case to RF ground.
The voltage spikes between the RF ground and the mains lines arced over
on one I was using to control my vacuum cleaner motor and destroyed the
dimmer.

Gary Lau
MA, USA

 -----Original Message-----
From: 	Tesla list [mailto:tesla-at-pupman-dot-com] 
Sent:	Wednesday, July 04, 2001 12:40 PM
To:	tesla-at-pupman-dot-com
Subject:	Re: dimmer switches

Original poster: "Terry Fritz" <twftesla-at-qwest-dot-net>

Hi,

I have never used dimmers but there are a few things I know to watch out
for.

Get the biggest wattage you can find.  the higher the wattage the bigger
the
traics in them and the tougher they are.

You need to be very careful of voltage spikes.  Maybe get a bunch of
MOVs from
Radio Shack to be sure a spike does not blow it up.

One big thing to watch out for is that if the dimmer fails, it will fail
in the
100% ON condition.  That could be pretty exciting if you are tuning your
coil
or really don't want full power just then...

Variacs are far nicer in that very little can go wrong with them.  But
dimmers
are far easier to get.  Maybe someone could figure out a good rock solid
dimmer
circuit to replace a variac for at least the lower powered coils...

Cheers,

        Terry


At 04:42 AM 7/4/2001 -0400, you wrote: 
>
> Can anyone tell me if using a 400w dimmer to control a 8000v/50ma neon
would 
> do it any harm ?