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Originally Posted by Mayhem
Zac - 1000W is 1000W regardless of the percentage of dimming. Triac and SCR dimmers work by turning the lamp on and off at a high rate. Our eyes then see this “high speed flashing” as changes in the intensity of the light.
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Not exactly true. Most fuses and breakers look at average power over time - and the time per half-cycle of the AC line is pretty short (.0083 second at 60 Hz). If the
dimmer is at 10%, that means that every half-cycle, the power will be ON for .00083 second and OFF for .00747 seconds. The instantaneous power during the brief period when it's on may indeed be 1000 watts, but the average for the half-cycle will be 100 watts. Those pulses at 1000 watts WILL contribute a little more to the stress on the
circuit than would a 100
watt lamp at 100%, but nowhere near as much as if the 1000 watt lamp was on 100% of the time.
John