Gabriella Levine

ongoing and past work

AC DIMMER Circuit!!

I adapted this from info from Dmitri Grinberg’s post on Hackaday, “Lamp Fading and Remote Control for the Lazy”.

I have been trying for a number of weeks to perfect this, as in, find the correct transistor that would not overheat or burn out (one that is rated for a high enough voltage since it’s using AC 120 V). I followed this circuit from Dmitri’s blog, except instead of the IRF 250 I used an IRF730.

At first, I was using the IRF 520, with a 100 V drain source voltage and a 9 amp continuous drain current. It worked fine at first, and then it burnt out (there was connectivity between the gate-source and gate-drain). So I got an IRF540, with a 100 V drain source voltage and a 33 continuous drain current. This similarly worked at first, then burnt out.

Finally, I used the IRF730 which works pretty well so far! And doesn’t burn out – it is rated upto 400 V (which far surpasses the 120 V wall voltage in the US).

It works for a light (a resistive load):

and a fan (an inductive load):

Here is the simple dimming code used with the infrared detection sensor. I used a universal sony remote as the transmitter.

2 Responses to “AC DIMMER Circuit!!”

  1. Fitri says:

    Hi Gabriella,
    can this circuit support supply 220vac?

    can you post the program in text format for me? i do had a problem opening your attached file.

    i am working to do a project similar with you just that i dont want to use IR yet.

    thank you..

    • gabriella says:

      Hey – yea the IRF 720 can handle over 400 Volts so that will work fine. Without IR you can use any simple PWM output to control the output.

      here’s the code I used
      #include
      IRsend irsend;
      int RECV_PIN = 2;
      const int RELAY = 13;
      const int RELAY10 = 10;
      const int RELAY1 = 6;
      const int RELAY2=7;
      int relayState = 0;
      int relay1State = 0;
      IRrecv irrecv(RECV_PIN);
      decode_results results;
      int counter = 255;
      long previousMillis = 0;
      long interval = 500;

      void setup()
      {
      Serial.begin(9600);
      irrecv.enableIRIn(); // Start the receiver
      pinMode(RELAY, OUTPUT);
      pinMode(RELAY1, OUTPUT);
      pinMode(RELAY2, OUTPUT);
      pinMode(RELAY10, OUTPUT);
      }

      void loop() {
      if (Serial.read() != -1) {
      for (int i = 0; i < 3; i++) { irsend.sendSony(0xa90, 12); // Sony TV power code } } else if (irrecv.decode(&results)) { Serial.println(results.value, DEC); unsigned long currentMillis = millis(); if (currentMillis - previousMillis>interval){
      previousMillis = currentMillis;
      if(results.value==2894&&relayState==HIGH)
      {
      relayState=LOW;
      counter=0;
      Serial.print(“relayState = “);
      Serial.println(relayState);
      Serial.println(counter);
      analogWrite(RELAY10, counter/4);
      }
      else if(results.value==2894&&relayState==LOW)
      {
      relayState=HIGH;
      counter = 255;
      Serial.print(“relayState = “);
      Serial.println(relayState);
      Serial.println(counter);
      }
      else if
      (results.value==3216&&relayState==HIGH){
      counter = counter -20;
      if(counter< =0){ counter =0; } Serial.print("dimming "); Serial.println(counter); } else if(results.value==1168&&relayState==HIGH){ counter=counter+20; if(counter>=255){
      counter = 255;
      }
      Serial.print(“brightening! “);
      Serial.println(counter);
      }
      analogWrite(RELAY10, counter);
      }
      if(results.value==691022&&relay1State==HIGH){
      relay1State =LOW;
      Serial.print(“relay2State = “);
      Serial.println(relay1State);
      }
      else if(results.value==691022&&relay1State==LOW){
      relay1State=HIGH;
      Serial.print(“relay2State = “);
      Serial.println(relay1State);
      }
      digitalWrite(RELAY, relayState);
      analogWrite(RELAY1, counter);
      digitalWrite(RELAY2, relay1State);
      irrecv.resume(); // Receive the next value
      }
      }

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