Suitable dimmers for the new Megaman CFL

Advising on a new job ATM where there will be a mixture of C-Bus and traditional in the new house. Neeed to keep a lid on the cost on this one.

Not having had any experience with the new linear dimmable Megaman CFL does the standard Clipsal dimmers (non C-Bus) work with the new Megaman?? How many 11Watters can be dimmed using the standard dimmers.

the 5508DIA has anyone got the capacitance rating yet on the Megaman's CFL yet to determine how many can he loaded on one channel.

Cheers,

Fleetz

 

Hi
I've recently received this e-mail from Megaman.
(probably best to read from last to first)
Did'nt really understand the capacitance bit?!?!?

I'm currently running 4 x 11w from a 1 amp / channel dimmer.
all seems well....
currently installing a system where 10 x 11 w are required.
planning on using one of the new 2.5 amp units for this
i'll let you know..


e-mail bit;

Dear Adrian,

The calculation of VA is correct.

Below is schematic of the input side of BR1411d.
Capacitance as shown in below:
C1, C2: 47nF,400V, or 68nF
C3: 2.7UF,400V or 2.2uF


Best Regards,
George Chan
Product Support Engineer
Dear Adrian,

As I cannot find the maximum wattage of dimmer from customer's inquiry, when it's known, please check across the instruction manual as pasted below. If this cannot help, please elaborate what's needed and will find it out for you.


Thanks and Best Regards,
Carmen Chung
Marketing Dept


Thanks again for the info;

I understand I can calculate the VA from the equation;

POWER IN WATTS = VA x POWER FACTOR

Therefore,

VA = Power in watts / power factor

So for this lamp, VA = 11 / 0.6

= 18.3? VA

Just need the capacitance ? any ideas / help, much appreciated...

 

Hi Ashleigh,

Just wonder have your R&D guys done that quick test?

Do you know if the Megaman smooth dimmerable CFL's are designed for leading or trailing dimmers.

I am just finalising a hybrid C-Bus and traditional design where the megaman dimmerable CFL's are spec'd in so if you know if the megaman's are designed with leading or trailing dimmers in mind would be good to know so I can add the correct Clipsal dimmer mechanisms to the list.

Be interested in the capacitive loading tests for the C-Bus dimmers too. Have a number of circuits where there will be 6 X Megaman 11w smooth dimmerable CFL's on 1 dimmer channel (5508D1A).

Regards,

Fleetz

 

Further to my previous post I just rec'd this statement from Megaman here in Austrailia with compatible dimmers and min/max loads. Might helps some others on the forum...

Regards,

Fleetz

 

It looks like the 1/5th min load and 1/6th max load is something that Megaman are using as a basic rule, rather than something specifically relating to those dimmers mentioned in the PDF posted by Fleetz:
http://www.litebulbs.co.uk/documents/dimmerable.pdf

The Megaman CFL's have, in general, struggled with compatibility with dimmers.

A quick test done by the R&D guys using a Leading Edge C-Bus 8 x 1A Dimmer is a bit mixed on the Megaman Dimmerable lamps. The GU10's were noted as "average from 20% to 70%", and a maximum of 4 could be connected to a dimmer channel before the temperature of the dimmer channel became excessive. The 15W GK715d and 18W WL48b were both marked as "Good, but requires kick-start". The 7W and 9W Megaman Dimmerable lamps were "Average".

Another interesting observation is how much the RMS current varies between brands. A pair of 15W GK715d's was using 590mA RMS whereas a pair of 20W Philips Tornado's (the best performing lamp tested) only 391mA RMS, the less capacitive loading of the Tornado's quite likely contributing to their better compatibility.