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Dimming a Transformer

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#1 ·
Anyone see anything wrong with dimming a low voltage landscape light transformer if its hardwired in ?
 
#14 ·
Incandescents or LEDs doesn't matter. Both will dim nicely with the proper equipment.

Of course, you don't want to try to dim motors or other general purpose loads connected to a transformer. :)

Do they "dim" the circuit before the xfmr or after the xfmr?
Dimming is done on the primary side of the transformer. There are some cases (very rare) where a dimmer or voltage control would be applied at the secondary, but not a common practice.
 
#21 ·
Using a dimmer rated for magnetic loads is not too hard on the transformer at all. In cinemas they commonly use standard boost/buck transformers for the aisle lights, they seem to hold up well. Only burnouts I've seen are because of a sustained fault on the secondary and in a few cases where the dimmer was the wrong type or had failed and was imposing too much chop on the output.

The HD $59 special should last for it's usual life. (I have a few of the Malibu brand going on 10 years now.)
 
#17 ·
...It will work for resistive, but a dimmer designed for resistive loads will cause the transformer (or the dimmer) to fail early, and it'll be noisy.
I learned this when I tried to put a speed control on my blender.

Worked fine until the day it didn't, and then I was cleaning milkshake off the ceiling.
 
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