I have assembled and tested around 5 K8064 DC controlled dimmer for a project I am working on. I am powering them at 120V 60Hz AC, and my dimmer signal is 0-5 VDC. They are dimming a flourescent source, a ballast, connected to a lamp. I understand these are not meant to be dimmed, but, for the most part it works just fine.
My issue is that some of the boards produce a flickering effect, where the output of the board quickly changes to max voltage, then goes back down to the normal dimming setting it is supposed to be at. It looks like a lightning storm, because of the quick bright flashes.
The issue seems to be worse at lower dimmer settings, but the dimmer board never produces an error, meaning I can keep them running the lamp while it is flickering with no problems.
I would really like some suggestions on how to improve the stability of the boards that have a more severe flickering problem. It seems like some of the boards have trouble holding the output to a dimmer setting. Thanks for any input
All the dimmers work normally with an incandescent bulb. I used a 150W bulb.
They have varying levels of performance with the fluorescent source (some flicker a lot, some not at all).
If there’s anything to try to reduce the amount of flickering I would be interested, I have a multimeter and a oscilloscope to check any parts of the circuit if needed.
As you state, the load you use is not meant to be dimmed.
We are afraid we cannot assist with modifications for custom purposes.
We are not even sure that it is possible to modify the unit in a way so that it can dim such a load correctly.
Fluorescent lightbulb dimmers are very complex (and expensive).
You can indeed use conventional dimmers with fluorescent lamps (aka CFL bulb), as it is your expressed intent. BUT, these need to be the dimmable type. You can find these in the same shapes and output wattages as the conventional CFL bulbs, but the difference is in their internal circuitry. Here is an example I dug out of a quick Google search.
I found out about these and bought myself a couple to use with my own dimmer. They do work, and no flicker happens.