Residential Lighting with LEDs: Retrofitting the Pink Ranch

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JR.
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Re: Residential Lighting with LEDs: Retrofitting the Pink Ra

Post by JR. »

Wayne: I have a sort of lighting question...

I am looking at another green energy saving DIY project...

I have a small 7A electric heater that I would like to vary with a simple dimmer. So I can maybe stick it under my desk and keep my feet warm without heating my whole house warmer. The 850 watt full on is a little too much heat for close in use.

I suspect I could just stick an incandescent light bulb under there and get a fair amount of heat, but adding a dimmer to my cheap simple heater would be ideal. I just put a 75W incandescent into my drop light and put it under my computer desk. A little Rube Goldberg but we'll see. I can already feel some heat from it. :D

A quick search of lighting dimmers with adequate current is not very compatible with my world view (too f'n expensive.) I don't feel like rolling my own complete triac controller design but I am tempted to buy a cheapo say 1A light dimmer, and just connect that to a 10A triac that I can buy for less than $2 in onsey twosey.

My question foe Wayne is do you know of proper commercial lamp dimmers that will handle 7A (inductive) heater element. That don't cost $25-$200 ?

JR

PS I am way past due for an update to my entropy thread... a few interesting tidbits building up.
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mediatechnology
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Re: Residential Lighting with LEDs: Retrofitting the Pink Ra

Post by mediatechnology »

Why is the load inductive? Does it have a fan?

I saw some Lutrons that would handle 1000W resistive (Tungsten) loads on eBay for about $35.
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Re: Residential Lighting with LEDs: Retrofitting the Pink Ra

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I'm just guessing it's more inductive than capacitive... I know the triac dimmers don't like cap loads.

I just don't feel like dropping $35 for a dimmer...

I figure I can get a cheap 1.5A dimmer, and feed it's output to the gate of $1.60 triac... I could design the whole dimmer from scratch but don't want to kill the brain cells, and worry about keeping mains voltage 1/4" away from me when using it... I can feed the low current dimmer into a higher current triac easy peasy.


I don't even know how old this heater is, it came with my house when I bought it 25+ years ago,,, I had to replace the on/off switch about 10 years ago... I'm afraid a $35 dimmer is worth 2x what the heater is worth...

I may buy some incandescent lamps and stick a few under my computer desk... I don't need 850W but a couple hundred watts would be about right.

Ironic after replaicing every lamp in my house with CFLs and LEDs... :lol:

JR
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Re: Residential Lighting with LEDs: Retrofitting the Pink Ra

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I just ordered a few triacs, so tonight I'll pick up a cheapo low current dimmer at Lowes.

By the time I'm done I'll should still be cheaper than buying a 1000w dimmer, but probably not by much... :lol:

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Re: Residential Lighting with LEDs: Retrofitting the Pink Ra

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As I feared my frugality will end up costing me money... last night I bought a nice cheap lamp dimmer for $9 that handles 250W, so I still need to add my helper TRIAC (on order and due in next week) to control 7A, but I also picked up a cheap 3 bulb vanity fixture and $5 worth of incandescent lamps (8x60W).

This morning I mounted the 3x 60W bulbs under my computer desk and the 180W keeps my feet and legs toasty, and well lit... :D

Next, I would like to add a timer or some kind of time of day controller for the in-wall radiant heater in my bedroom. I only need heat there at night, and not all that much since I sleep with an electric blanket.

I momentarily thought of doing something using one of those smart lamp switches that senses when you are in a room to turn lights on/off, but the radiant heat source might look like a very warm body to it. :lol:

Maybe if my redneck leg warmer is completely adequate for my day time spot heating, I'll repurpose my small 850W heater to timed bedroom duty...

This morning when I walked to the post office to get my newspaper it was rewarding to see my roof completely covered by frost. All the other houses in my neighborhood had already melted off the frost with waste house heat... I am wasting less heat, and could get down even more by putting the heat only where I am and only when I need it.

The built in timer on my in wall heat pump allows me to run most of the house with zero heat at night, and turning on the in wall at 7am gives me a warm house when I get up.

Progress baby...

JR

PS: did I mention I'm not green, I'm cheap...
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Re: Residential Lighting with LEDs: Retrofitting the Pink Ra

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Well, my 3x60W incandescent lamps mounted under my computer desk works so well that by late afternoon it gets too warm, so I will stick my 250W dimmer on that and consider it finished. Ironic perhaps that I have a LED lamp on top of my computer desk.

I had another thought... I have a low current programable lamp timer that I was using to blow a fan at my in wall heater for day/night heat difference in my big room, and so far I haven't even had to turn on that resistance heater, since the heat pump can supply my heat needs.

When I add a high current triac to my 7A portable spot heater, I could then use the low current programable timer, in front of the dimmer, to make that 850W heater, not only variable but time of day programmable. So now instead of heating my bedroom at a modest heat output 24x7 using the fixed in-wall unit, I could program it to warm up, just before bedtime, and again early in the morning using my portable 850W unit.

If I want to get more clever I could program up a micro controller to add smart temperature hysteresis and different TOD temperature targets, it might even be cool to sense outside temp, for fudging the temp target some for comfort vs. heat loss to outside. I need to work out how to interface to the triac. Opto sounds indicated.

But for now without investing a lot of time and killing brain cells, I can do variable heat output and TOD after my high current triac shows up early next week and I can run the low current control stuff in front of that.. So next project is putting my bedroom heat on TOD control.

Of course if/when it gets really cold outside, I can turn on the in-wall units to supplement. But we've had a few sub 30' nights and I survived under my electric blanket. By just not heating the house at night, i must be saving something, while the electric bills will tell the tale.

JR

PS: When I was a kid, my bedroom was an unheated top floor converted attic/annex, so I guess I got used to cold nights. 8-)
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Re: Residential Lighting with LEDs: Retrofitting the Pink Ra

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Just got my first comparable electric bill and 74% of one year ago... not perfectly apples to apples but close enough. Looks like I could break even on extra shipping cost to bring in a heat pump/air co from CA, vs buying a straight air co locally, within first season... :D

Started thinking about making smart TOD heater out of my 850W heater using an old micro demo board. In my spare time. This would allow me to turn down/off in-wall resistance heater in back bedroom.

Need to hurry, world is ending tomorrow..


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Re: Residential Lighting with LEDs: Retrofitting the Pink Ra

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I saw a blurb in the WSJ about scientists copying the scale like pattern of the living firefly's money maker (sex attracting light latern) that increased the efficiency of LED lamps even further. Apparently a smooth top surface suffers more internal reflections than the laser etched scale pattern.

So it appears LED lamps can get even better soon from a trivial (?) mechanical change.

I couldn't find the technical article but this sounds promising if accurate.

JR
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Re: Residential Lighting with LEDs: Retrofitting the Pink Ra

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the living firefly's money maker (sex attracting light latern)
I couldn't stop laughing hysterically when I read that.
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Re: Residential Lighting with LEDs: Retrofitting the Pink Ra

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Yup, evolution can be pretty single minded (reproduction needs sex).

I almost fired up my digital camera to post photo's of my snow blanketed yard I woke up to this morning. I hesitated and it has already melted off. Snow is not very common here, and it doesn't stick around very long when it does visit. i don't expect the accumulation would impress many from up north. It didn't impress me.

JR
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