All-

Anyone know of an electronic low-voltage dimmer with IR remote, that dosen't cost more than $200? I see that Lutron makes one (SPSELV-600), but it's a bit pricey. X-10 not acceptable.

You want to play you got to pay.

I googled that model number and the first site I looked at had it for $180. They were 30% higher than I pay for other dimmers from our supply house, so you might find it cheaper.

You can get what you need here. But as I said it'll cost ya. http://www.hankselectric.com/productCat30250.ctlg

A little off topic - I'm curious why can't X-10 be used?

Northbayec-

I did a house with X-10 before, and had intermittent outages (sometimes modules would not respond), but most importantly, sometimes lights would turn on for no reason. It didn't happen often, but enough to be annoying. I want to use this dimmer in a media room, and IR will allow me to blend lights into a media remote macro.

So you guys don't find these dimmers a little on the high side, huh? I bought a MAELV-600 last week for about $120, and thought that was steep. For this remote dimmer, even if I could get it for $180 as Eagle suggests, I'm sure that dosen't include the remote. That's more expensive then the track & lighting fixtures I'm connecting it to. If it ever gets taken out in a surge, I will lose my lunch.

Chimo, are you sure you need an Electronic Low Voltage Dimmer? 99% of electronic transformers work fine with standard incandescent dimmers.

Curt

Do they only make the different flavors of dimmers to get them to work? I always assumed that if you mixed matched you might hurt the life of the dimmer and the transformer it feeds. Does an icandescent dimmer effect a transformer(either magnetic or electronic) at all?

Caselec-

To be honest, this is my first experience with LV lighting (except for outdoor). The track lighting & fixture mfg. recommended the ELV dimmers, though I forget why. My track is carrying 120V; each fixture has an electronic transformer to step down to 12V- the advantage is being able to mix-n-match fixtures. I didn't even think about researching dimmer info. Now if I do it, I may cry.
Anyone know the 'advantage' to using ELV dimmers? No buzzing? Energy efficiency? Bulb life?

Sometimes it will make a terible buzzing sound. Sometimes the light flickers. Iv'e seen times where a dimmer was not LV (installed by others) with no noticeable effects. We onece got the wrong LV dimmer magnetic not electronic and of coarse no returns.

You could use a dimming module like a HP-2 with most dimmers. It will allow you to run a lot more wattage but it wont save you $$.

Any incandescent dimmer will state "For permanently installed incandescent lighting loads only" or some such thing. You should be using the correct dimmer for the application. Chimo is this for your own house? If not why do you care what it costs? Doesn't the customer pay for the material?

Chimo, I had a similar experience a couple of months ago with electronic dimmers so I called tech support at Lutron. I was told that electronic dimmers cut off the top and bottom on the sign wave and dim the transformer without hurting it. I was also told an incandescent dimmer would work fin for about 3 months and then one day the transformer would just quit. So I opted fpr the $110 low voltage dimmer for my customers LV undercabinet lights.

Chimo, if the manufacture of the transformers recommends using electronic low voltage transformers then that’s what you should use. Most of the electronic transformers I have used specify that they are dimmable with standard incandescent dimmers so that’s what I use and have never had a problem.

Curt

Curt, the transformer may say it is ok to use a standard dimmer but I am sure the dimmer says otherwise.

Scott,

I only install a few electronic transformers each year but know in the past Lutron has told me that it is ok to use standard incandescent dimmers with electronic transformers but might not get satisfactory performance with some transformers. So far I haven’t had any problems so can’t justify the price difference.

A lighting store near me built a new showroom about 2 years ago and installed quite a bit of lighting connected to electronic low voltage transformers. Lightolier supplied them with standard incandescent dimmers for these transformers and so far they haven’t had any problems.

I don’t think there is any safety issue here only a performance issue or the dimmer and low voltage transformer manufactures would include warnings with the products.

Curt