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Neon on dimmer channel


alabamaman

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Hi everyone,

Sorry for my English, I'll try to be clear.

I'm going to do a show where some neons are asked to be under dimmer. I remember that Avolites dimmers have a curve preset or a preset working on something else for that, but I can't have them, and I will be able to change curve only with a spark 4d.

Can you help me?

Oh, I will not be able to mount a pc with an y cable for additional "weight" for every neon.

Hope you can understad my problem, thank you.

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First thing to note is whether the neon transformers are suited to dimming. If they are electronic they might not be, and even traditional transformers may have issues if they have active circuitry in them to detect earth faults or arcing.

 

If they are plain vanilla "core and coil" transformers then it would probably be wise to use a resistive load in parallel, since traditionally neon transformers have been a temperamental load for dimmers.

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First thing to note is whether the neon transformers are suited to dimming. If they are electronic they might not be, and even traditional transformers may have issues if they have active circuitry in them to detect earth faults or arcing.

 

If they are plain vanilla "core and coil" transformers then it would probably be wise to use a resistive load in parallel, since traditionally neon transformers have been a temperamental load for dimmers.

 

Is it truely neon lamps that are required to be dimmed ? Although the O/P says neon, it must be remembered that in some countries, flourescent lamps are refered to as neon lamps.

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I would have to agree with Paulears on this as I have put a neon sign on a dimmer before and it did not like it at all. It dimmed only to about 15% and then went off and yes I also tryed it with a dummy load with it and it still done the same thing.

 

The other thing the HTs will not come on on till you set them to full.

 

I was told by a friend that there is dimmable HTs for neons but I have never seen them.

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This is a new one on me - I didn't know you could dim neon at all - I thought it just suddenly stopped when the HT dropped below the threshold?

 

That was what I was always told - indeed so firm was the advice I never ever tried it. Never tried it with fluorescents either for that matter... But in these cases you could always try it and see!

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Fluoros are highly dimmable with the right kit. Ordinary neon dims, but not over the full range. And I've never seen it go up without a bump as it strikes, though it'll go below the strike point once its struck. With a standard magnetic neon tranny you can dim it on any decent dimmer that can handle an inductive load.

 

Those who have been looking at the new American site celebrating ("Uniquely American") lighting design will note that in Hair in the 60s they were dimming neon using variacs; dimming neon is not new.

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This is a new one on me - I didn't know you could dim neon at all - I thought it just suddenly stopped when the HT dropped below the threshold?

 

Neon can be dimmed, though not very well, with a standard neon transformer on a standard dimmer.

At below a certain voltage it will indeed go out suddenly, but there is a fair range between full on and out, over which it does dim.

 

Neon sign transformers have an open circuit voltage of about twice that needed to light the tube, they are designed with a very high impedance in order to limt the current to the desired value. Therefore at a reduced input voltage the lamp still lights, provided that the voltage is not below the maintaining voltage of the lamp.

 

Dimmable neon transformers exist but these use a proprioty dimming system, they are not for use with a standard dimmer.

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