Author: Giorgos Lazaridis

Dimmer Theory

What is a dimmer?

A dimmer is a device that is originally created to control the brightness of lamps. This is
done by altering the total power delivered to the lamp and thus the brightness. The following
schematic demonstrates a basic type of dimmer:

The resistor R is a protective resistor for the triac's gate. The potentiometer Rp along
with the capacitor C, controls the time that the triac will be conductive, counting from the zero
point of the input waveform.

Operation principles

The operation of the dimmer is based on the fact that, during a full cycle of an AC
waveform, a thyristor will only allow a part of the waveform to be delivered to the load (lamp).
Take a look at the following waveforms:
 Both waveforms above comes from the same dimmer. The only difference is that the
waveform on the left will bright the lamp higher than the waveform on the right. That is because,
on the left waveform, the triac will be conductive earlier than the triac shown in the right
waveform.

The time that the triac becomes conductive is symbolized with the Greek letter α
(ALPHA) and is measured in angles from the zero point of the waveform. This zero point is the
point that the voltage is 0 volts, and this happens 2 times every one full period of the wave form.
When the α becomes smaller, then the dimmer becomes conductive sooner and the lamp is
brighter. When the α becomes bigger, then the triac delays more to become conductive and thus
the lamb is dimmer.

A full wavelength period is 360 degrees (2π). Due to the fact that during a full wave
length the zero cross occurs twice, α can take values from 0° to 180 degrees (0 - π). When α =
0°, the full power is delivered to the load and when α = π, no power is delivered to the load.

Zero cross detection

 A basic dimmer using a microcontroller

The zero cross detection circuit is the most critical part when designing a dimmer. This
circuit will watch the input power waveform and detect when this waveform crosses the 0 point
and becomes 0 volts.

Zero cross detection circuits are mainly used in cases when the dimmers needs to be
controlled from a micro controller. In that case, the micro-controller needs to know the zero
cross detection point of the waveform, so that it can calculate the angle offset to send the trigger
pulse to the gate of the triac.

Here is an example calculation. Suppose that the AC power oscillates in a 50Hz cycle.
This means that each cycle will take 1/50Hz = 20 mSec to be completed. During those 20mSec,
the waveform will cross the zero point two times, one at the beginning and one in the middle of
the cycle, that will be after 20/2 = 10mSec.

If we want the lamp to be half the way bright, then the microcontroller needs to send a
pulse in the middle of each semi-cycle. Thus, a pulse must be sent after 5mSec after each time
the waveform passes the zero point. For this to be done, the microcontroller will watch the zero
cross detection circuit (ZCD) for a pulse. When the ZCD send this pulse, the micro controller
will count 5 mSec and then will trigger the gate of the triac.

The following circuit will perform a Zero Cross Detection circuit. This circuit is very
stable and accurate, and has a controllable pulse width. Another great advantage is that because
of the transformer, this circuit has a complete galvanic isolation with the mains supply so that it
makes it completely safe and risk free of destroying the microcontroller due to power peaks.
DC dimmer

A typical DC light dimmer / DC motor speed controller

The operating principle of a DC dimmer is completely different. When a triac becomes

conductive, the only way to turn them back into a non-conductive state is to have 0 volts
difference between it's pins. In the case of AC current, this happens twice every full period. But
in the case of DC voltage, this would never happen and thus, when the dimmer become once
conductive it will remain like that until the power is completely turned of from it's pins. This
makes the triac inappropriate for DC power. Also, because DC power never crosses the zero
point, the α parameter has no meaning to be used.

For those reasons, DC loads are controlled in a different way. The most popular and
efficient way is the use of PWM switching signal to control the power delivered. A PWM signal
between 1.5KHz and and 3KHz is applied to the base of a transistor. The transistor is used to
drive the load. By altering the duty cycle of the PWM signal, we can change the brightness of the
lamp. The higher the duty cycle, the brighter it lights and vice-verse.
The control signal

The circuit is designed to work from an analog output of a PLC. Here you can see the Mitsunishi
ALPHA with an I/O emulator connected to the circuit

The first thing that comes to someone's mind when thinks of a dimmer, is a
potentiometer that controls the light intensity. If a potentiometer is used, things can be very easy.
Tons of different circuits can be found around the net. Others are very precise, others are not so
stable. But the control of this dimmer is a DC voltage level.
 The specific PLC that he will use has 4 analog outputs. Each output can be programmed
to deliver any voltage between 0 and 10 VDC, with 0.01 voltage step. He plans to have a mimic
program with 4 slide bars or buttons displayed on a touch screen connected to this PLC, and
control the lights from there.

The first thing that came to my mind was a comparator circuit. I would have the mains
power through a transformer transformed to 9VAC, and then full rectify this signal. Then, using
a comparator, i would compare this signal with the control signal from the PLC. Whenever the
9V signal was higher than the control signal, the output of the comparator would go high and it
would drive the gate of the TRIAC (through an optocoupler of-course). Although this sounds a
good idea, it is actually completely false approach. Look what will happen:

The control voltage is minimum The control voltage is maximum

When the control signal is minimum, the comparator's output will send the trigger pulse
to the TRIAC's gate at the very beginning of the waveform. This will send full power to the light.
As the control voltage is increased, the trigger will delay more and more and the light will
gradually dim. Until here everything looks normal. But when the control voltage is at maximum,
the trigger pulse can only be located at the middle of the waveform, as is shown on the right
image above! The triggering pulse will never delay more than half a semi-period. This means
that the light will never dim less than half of the power. The triggering circuit needs to be
completely different!

A more advanced triggering idea

The 555 will generate a pulse, with a delay. This delay will start count from the time a zero-cross
detection pulse is occurred, and the delay time is set from the DC voltage level applied on pin 5
of the 555.

I have a really good zero-cross detection circuit posted in the dimmer theory page. This
circuit will generate a clean rectangular positive pulse whenever the waveform crosses the zero-
point. The only thing i had to find out, was how to make a delay-ON circuit that would start
counting from this pulse. Moreover, this delay circuit had to be controlled from a DC voltage
level.

To tell you the truth, the on-delay circuit was not very hard for me to find one. Actually,
my mind went directly to the 555 timer connected as monostable circuit. The trigger input of the
555 (pin 2) would be connected to an inverted output of the zero cross detection circuit. A
properly selected RC net would create a fixed delay.

And right here comes another challenge. The delay of the 555 must be variable and
controlled with a DCV signal. The 555 timer is not the most common and most used chip ever
just by luck. If you look at the 555 theory page, there is the internal diagram of the chip. You
will notice that the upper comparator has it's reverse-input pin coupled with a chip-pin, and this
pin is the pin number 5. Actually, the pin's name is pretty much self-explanatory. It is named
"Control Voltage". If you apply voltage to this pin, then the voltage level of the reverse-input of
the upper comparator, and the level of the non-reverse-input of the lower comparator is affected.
When the 555 is connected as monostable multivibrator, the upper comparator will monitor the
capacitor's voltage. By changing it's reverse-input voltage level, this affects on the delay of the
timer!

In other simple words, the input voltage is coupled (through a limiting resistor) directly
to the pin 5 of the 555 timer. The higher the voltage, the more the delay from the 555.

The Circuit

The circuit is as follows:

 The mains AC voltages is transformed to 9VAC through the transformer. the signal is
rectified with a full-wave bridge rectifier. Immediately after the rectifier, the signal is driven to
the zero-cross detection circuit. A large capacitor (C1) is used to smooth a part of the rectifier's
output power. This will be used as the power supply of the rest of the circuit. The diode D1 is
very important. Without this diode, the signal that is drivern to the zero-cross detection would be
smoothed as well, and the zero-cross detection would be impossible.

The output of the zero-cross detection is directly sent to the trigger input of the 555
timer. The control voltage is driven to teh input 5 of the 555 timer. The rheostat R9 is used to
control the maximum delay of the 555 timer, so that with maximum control voltage, it will NOT
exceed the length of a semi-period, otherwise the light will be turned into a crazy-disco-light. A
reader [PUNiSH3R] posted a comment (bellow) regarding this component. When i designed this
circuit, i had it on a breadboard for test, and i had a bit potentiometer and an oscilloscope, so i
could adjust the circuit easier. But as PUNiSH3R suggested, better use a multi-turn
potentiometer with higher precision.

The output is then inverted with the transistor T3 and the signal is driven to the P gate of
the optocoupler. the optocoupler is used to have complete galvanic isolation between the control
circuit and the power circuit. The power circuit uses a BT136 TRIAC to control the load. This
TRIAC is capable of driving a 4 amperes load at 600 volts. Feel free to use a more powerful
TRIAC.