RickR
Well-Known Member
These aren't bare lamps, but can come with a wide variety of mountings. http://www.lightingservicesinc.com/...ll&dimming=30&energystar=All&availability=All
My uneducated take on mains dimming of retrofit LEDs - it will never be without defects. A retrofit lamp has a solid state driver that needs power to work and when the power drops below a certain level, the driver ceases to work. Holding a charge - like in a capacitor - might allow the driver to continue to function for a while (I think the principle behind the R-LED and presumably others) but that's fine for an uncontrolled 10% to 0% but doesn't do as much for on. Some also won't "bump" out but must fade. The wireless may be a better solution but replacing fixtures will always be better light, better control, and likely more energy efficient and longer lived.
My uneducated take on mains dimming of retrofit LEDs - it will never be without defects. A retrofit lamp has a solid state driver that needs power to work and when the power drops below a certain level, the driver ceases to work. Holding a charge - like in a capacitor - might allow the driver to continue to function for a while (I think the principle behind the R-LED and presumably others) but that's fine for an uncontrolled 10% to 0% but doesn't do as much for on. Some also won't "bump" out but must fade. The wireless may be a better solution but replacing fixtures will always be better light, better control, and likely more energy efficient and longer lived.
The Ketra's look pretty, but I assume their control is proprietary, and getting DMX to them is a pricey option?
I though the box with dmx in to speak to Ketra was not a pricey option - but define pricey. I thought like $150-200? I'll try to follow up with sales rep but you could find a dealer and ask. Barbizon is listed as a dealer - guessing hey have a presence in Florida.The Ketra's look pretty, but I assume their control is proprietary, and getting DMX to them is a pricey option?
No idea on pricing, but their N3 interface has a DMX input. The wireless signal is proprietary and there's one interesting catch in converting to it from DMX: it works best when you use a profile that includes a fadetime parameter (RGBF, RGBIF, and similar).
The reason for this is that the wireless connection is fairly slow and there's a lag in converting from DMX. If you try to send a 5s fade as a series of in-between values sent over a period of 5s (ie the normal way for DMX dimmers), then you'll see individual lamps changing level at different times along the way. To avoid that you would want to set the fade time parameter to 5s and then snap to the new level in 0s (letting the fixture calculate the actual fade).
So you could still do that by DMX, you're saying, simply by lying to the board about the actual performance, and then making sure the fixtures match your lie?
On dimming retrofits, recall that the control range is not the same as the voltage.
Incandescents usually take 15% of their voltage to preheat. So even on a 120V system minimum dimmer output will be far higher than the typical 5V LED or driver requirement. Worst case we lose a bit of the bottom range of a dimmer, but could still dim smoothly from 0-100% brightness. The theory is sound, the engineering and marketing is still developing.
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