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Joel Solon Spira (March 1, 1927 – April 8, 2015) was an American inventor, entrepreneur, and business magnate.. He invented a version of the light-dimmer switch for use in homes around the United States and led his Lutron Electronics Company into the production of lighting controllers.
Since semiconductor or solid-state dimmers switch quickly between a low resistance "on" state and a high resistance "off" state, they dissipate very little power compared with the controlled load. Most recently, software programmable internal dimmers can use signals from the same switch that turns lights on and off to control dimming.
The switch is controlled by a PWM (Pulse Width Modulation) signal, which alternately turns the switch on and off at a rapid rate. The relative proportion of off time vs. on time determines brightness. For example, if the switch is off 10% of the time, the resulting control signal would be the equivalent of 1 V produced with a variable resistor.
Lighting control systems serve to provide the right amount of light where and when it is needed. [1] Lighting control systems are employed to maximize the energy savings from the lighting system, satisfy building codes, or comply with green building and energy conservation programs. Lighting control systems may include a lighting technology ...
In larger lighting systems, for example warehouses or outdoor lighting systems, the required current may be too high for a manual switch. In these systems light switches control lighting contactors , a relay that allows the manual light switch to operate on a lower current, with smaller wiring than would be required in the main lighting circuit.
Typically a dimmer has a starting address that represents the lowest-numbered dimmer in that pack, and the addressing increases from there to the highest-numbered dimmer. As an example, for two packs of six dimmers each, the first pack would start at address 1 and the second pack at address 7. Each slot in the DMX512 packet corresponds to one ...
Digital Addressable Lighting Interface (DALI) is a trademark for network-based products that control lighting.The underlying technology was established by a consortium of lighting equipment manufacturers as a successor for 1-10 V/ 0–10 V lighting control systems, and as an open standard alternative to several proprietary protocols.