Maybe a stupid electrical question.

[Doc]

I'm a complete idiot when it comes to electrical things so if this is a stupid question just humour me.

I have a astrozap dew controller with four ports to plug in various 12v dew heaters.

Question is can one of these ports be used to power a 12v light that I want to illuminate my wixey altitude guage.

So in theory what I want to be able to do is wire up a 12v light to a RCA plug and then plug this into my controller and will I be able to turn the brightness up and down just the same as you can the heat on a heater.

Cheers.

[Merlin66]

Maybe, maybe not... the controller works at constant voltage but on a varying duty cycle i.e. switches off some of the time to reduce the power. Your lamp may just see the "constant" voltage and remain un-dimmed...

Electronic guys... where are you?????

[Doc]

So it should work except I may not be able to dim the light.

[astromerlin]

Hi, It will work, but it may not dim as much as you need.

John

[blinky]

Yep it will work fine, the same design of circuit is actually used to dim lights and control the speed of motors so it should all be OK.

[Doc]

Thanks guys you have put my mind at ease.

[Merlin66]

Blinky, I agree with the comment about motor control but I'm not sure about dimming lights....I would think this would need a lower voltage not just a chopper type circuit. I'm sure there are some electronic wizards who can comment with more authority....

[blinky]

In my dew controllers I take the output and pass it (via a resistor to lower the voltage) to an LED and the brightness of the LED varies according to the power being applied to the band.

[astromerlin]

Hi, Electronic Wizard here.. If you have a " chopper" circuit this means that you will have the full voltage ie: 12v on the load at a rate of X% percent of the time so if the load see's 12v half the time then the current drawn by the load will be halved.

cheers

John

[Doc]

Hi, Electronic Wizard here.. If you have a " chopper" circuit this means that you will have the full voltage ie: 12v on the load at a rate of X% percent of the time so if the load see's 12v half the time then the current drawn by the load will be halved.

cheers

John

John in basic terms this means?

Are my lights dimmable?

[calibos]

If the LED doesn't dim to the extent that you desire, might I recommend Rimmel Double Decker Red nail varnish. Its absolutely fab-u-lous dahling I use it on all my fingers and to......I mean red LEDS on my scope.

[Doc]

I bet you look dashing Keith

I'll ber it in mind.