Dimming Florescents

[Chris_J]

Can a C4 Dimmer handle dimming/switching of any dimmable ballast, or is it recommended to have an interface like Lutron's FDBI?

Are there recommended brands of dimming ballasts?

Thanks,

Chris

[akg4y]

http://www.c4forums.com/viewtopic.php?id=2374

[Chris_J]

Hmmm... so "it kinda sucks and we're not working to address it" is the answer. Fabulous. No wonder I get beat up about this vs. Lutron all the time. You get what you pay for.

C

[henniae]

Hmmm... so "it kinda sucks and we're not working to address it" is the answer. Fabulous. No wonder I get beat up about this vs. Lutron all the time. You get what you pay for.

C

Problems with dimming CFLs are caused by the nature of dimmable CFLs and not Control 4. C4 dimmers can dim CFLs that are dimmable.

[RyanE]

As Alan said, C4 dimmers can dim CFLs that are dimmable.

--- DISCLAIMER --- I'm not speaking for Control4... --- DISCLAIMER ---

But they still suck in various ways and we're not doing anything about it.

Seriously, most of the issues are that dimmable CFLs have a minimum strike level, and a minimum level to dim, and they have a very limited dimming range. These are inherent in the type of lighting, and they're not anything that Control4 can do anything about.

Control4 *has* added some additional properties to dimmers to somewhat address these issues, as well as working on different technology (reverse phase) dimmers, but none of them make CFLs not suck at a lot of levels.

RyanE

--- DISCLAIMER --- I'm not speaking for Control4... --- DISCLAIMER ---

[jberger]

It's CFL's that suck, not Control4

You can control some CFL's today, but it all depends on what the bulb is capable of and the technology needed to control it.

Control4 makes a dimmer especially for forward phase dimming, and one for reverse phase dimming. So they clearly have a plan to support lighting other than standard incandescent. And they have added the features in composer to allow the system to adapt and control CFL's on a load by load basis. It's just wrong to say that they are not working to address it.

But it's hard to get good dimming out of consumer grade bulbs, ballasts and fixtures. If you want a wide dimming range, you need to step up to expensive ballasts and associated equipment to get even close to the $1 incandescent bulb's range and color.

LED's look to be the future, but they are still on the expensive side and rapidly advancing. They have a much better range of dimming than CFL's but the color of the dimmed light is still not equivalent to standard bulbs.

[RyanE]

The true incandescent replacement for the near future is likely halogen, although the savings on a halogen bulb are nowhere near as good as CFL or LED.

RyanE

[outmotoring]

any chance of Control4 offering matching light switches/dimmers that are NON zigbee so they match visually with the rest of home for locations where I don't want to spend the $$ on controlled lighting?

[RyanE]

Nope.

*mechanical* switches couldn't look and feel like Control4 dimmers / switches, they also would have no LEDs.

You can certainly use manual Decora switches, they'll work, as the Control4 dimmers and switches are decora style.

RyanE

[tjawi]

Hi Chris and all,

I am also in the need of controlling TL dimmable ballast that has 4 wire (two hot wire and two 0-10V DC control current). One of the solution was actually using Lutron GRX TVI, as a bridge between C4 dimmers and the dimmerable ballast.

Unfortunately we have tried using the C4's 240V ELV and non ELV dimmers, they can not communicate with the Lutron GRX TVI.

Therefore I need other 'bridge/interface' between the C4 dimmer and 4 wire dimmable ballst (0-10V system).

Can anybody help us?

Thank you in advance,

Tjawi