I had dimmers installed on the light switches that I have; they are this kind
Now I want to buy some high quality lamps from Artimede, which it turns out have dimmers on their cords. The store that sells them says
Now my earlier thoughts were, what good are the lamp cord dimmers, they are hard to reach when entering a room – I would have thought the dimmers are more useful on the wall.
I also sadly notice that the dimmers are for ‘incandescent use only’, according to the Amazon description; so no halogen then? Most of the Artimede’s use Halogen though on lamp I want can use either.
Any electrical dopers here can prevent poor me from starting some kind of horrible electrical fire caused by my hardwired dimmers?
a halogen bulb is an incandescent bulb with a long life time. the use of a dimmer will reduce the lifetime of that bulb.
a lamp that is a task light, reading lamp sometime or tv sometime, might be useful to be dimmed at the lamp location. leave the wall dimmers fully up and use the dimmer on the lamp to have this ease of use.
it is not good to have a dimmer on a receptacle for the reason stated that people will dim (lower voltage) other appliances which isn’t good.
I think most dimmer switches don’t have any effect when operated at their “max brightness” setting, so theoretically you could just leave them in.
Well, you won’t be plugging appliances in, at least not today. But some day in the future, you might forget and do so - or a roommate might. Or whoever owns/rents this property after you move away.
If you’re going to use a wall-mounted dimmer switch to power an outlet, you’d be wise to explicitly label the outlet “OUTLET ON DIMMER; USE INCANDESCENT LIGHTS ONLY”.
leave the wall dimmers in the fully on position and use the dimmer at the lamp.
anything can get plugged into a wall receptacle. the advice is for when someone plugs something other than a incandescent lamp into it and that causes a problem.
i wouldn’t have a receptacle on a dimmer. i would use a lamp with a dimmer in it or use a separate inline dimmer (an extension cord with a dimmer in it).
the halogen bulb gets its long life character because the bulb burns very hot. if you dim that bulb causing it to run less hot then it does not have the full lifetime that it could have.
dimming an ordinary incandescent bulb will extend its lifetime.
have a wall receptacle on a dimmer is a problem because plugging other than an incandescent bulb into it will be a problem.
To answer the second question first, there’s little reason to prefer one over the other. Set the unused dimmer at maximum. (Though as already hashed out, a dimmer on a receptacle is discouraged.)
The way a halogen bulb achieves long life is that it replenishes the filament by using the chemical reaction of a halogen gas inside the bulb. In order for this to work, the bulb needs to be at a very high temperature. Dimming the bulb reduces the temperature, and thus reduces the positive effects of the halogen.
Dimming a ‘regular’ incandescent doesn’t cause any real problems for longevity, and probably does increase the lifetime of the bulb. If you put a CFL (compact fluorescent) in the lamp, there could be problems with the dimmer, but that’s another topic.
Ok, but can I plug in a halogen bulb lamp into a socket which is connected to a dimmable light switch, if i don’t use the dimmer? The lighting company said because the halogen bulb is 120V, I can dim it as well as use it.
You can, but it’s still against code. If nothing else, if you ever sell the house, you should remove the dimmer so the inspector doesn’t point it out as a code violation. However, swapping a dimmer for a regular switch costs less than five bucks (assuming you don’t already have a regular switch on hand) and less than 10 minutes, so if you know you can never use the dimmer, I don’t really see why you wouldn’t just remove it now.
It is a very bad idea, and probably illegal, to wire a wall-switch dimmer to an outlet. The danger is plugging anything other than a conventional lamp into the socket. They are meant to be wired only into circuits which control ceiling-mounted lights or other permanent lights.
If you do it anyway, you can use either traditional incandescent lightbulbs or halogen lightblubs in a lamp you plug into the dimmer-equipped outlet. You can use the lamp with the dimmer on high, low, or any setting in between. The light output will increase or decrease as you’d expect.
If you use a dimmer on a traditional incandescent bulb, the lifespan gets longer at lower dimmer settings. The effect isn’t that huge, maybe +20/30%.
If you use a dimmer on a halogen bulb, the lifespan gets *shorter *at lower dimmer settings. The effect isn’t that huge, maybe -20/30%. So you’ll be paying an extra price for a long-lasting bulb and burning it out a bit sooner. The actual extra cost might be a dollar a year. BFD.
You didn’t ask, but … If you put an ordinary CFL bulb into a lamp on a dimmer & run it at a less-than-fuyll-power setting, you’ll fail the CFL in just a few hours at most. That will be an expensive waste.
There are more expensive dimmable CFLs. Which will have a normal life when used with a dimmer on high,low, or anywhere in between. But they don’t dim as well as incandescents or halogens. The color doesn’t change to that warmer yellower color at low settings, and they only go from full-bright to maybe half bright and then they cut off. They don’t operate at very dim settings.
Why is everybody assuming that these are 120V bulbs? I once had a lower-voltage (12V?) halogen lamp that had its own transformer and its own dimmer. Such a transformer won’t work correctly if it’s powered by a dimmed wall outlet. At the very least, it will buzz heavily.
Lutron (and possibly others) sell a modified dimming receptacle where either one or both connectors have an extra-narrow prong which only accomodates special plugs that you’re supposed to install on your dimmable devices.