The Wednesford Chronicles

Yes, you should now be able to shout* at your lights for colour and brightness too.

 

* I find talking normally is greeted with indifference by Madame Google.

Yes, LEDs can be dimmed; I have a total of 3 rooms with LED downlighters, all on dimmers.  You can't achieve very low output levels because there is a "minimum" output level which you can't go below.  If you are talking about the mini florescent bulbs that fit in ordinary BC/ES/SBC/SES connectors then the answer is "not possible".

 

A traditional dimmer works by reducing the voltage supplied to an incandescent bulb.  As I understand it, the LED dimmers work by messing with the "duty cycle" of the supply voltage sent to the light unit.  This means that the light is on at full brightness but not all the time and the eye perceives this as being "dim" compared to the full brightness of an always 100% supply lit LED (if that makes sense).

 

As a starting point, if you're talking about LV LEDs then take a look at the Bachmann Just Plug system.  https://www.Bachmann.co.uk/category/scenery-landscape/woodland_scenics/just-plug-lighting-system?page=3

 

HTH

8 hours ago, AY Mod said:

Yes, you should now be able to shout* at your lights for colour and brightness too.

 

* I find talking normally is greeted with indifference by Madame Google.

I've never enabled voice control of the telly as I do tend to get a bit sweary during the voting in the Eurovision Song Contest, which might have unwanted consequences with voice activation.  Like serving up the complete Danny Dyer and Ray Winstone filmography.

6 hours ago, DutyDruid said:

Yes, LEDs can be dimmed; I have a total of 3 rooms with LED downlighters, all on dimmers.  You can't achieve very low output levels because there is a "minimum" output level which you can't go below.  If you are talking about the mini florescent bulbs that fit in ordinary BC/ES/SBC/SES connectors then the answer is "not possible".

 

A traditional dimmer works by reducing the voltage supplied to an incandescent bulb.  As I understand it, the LED dimmers work by messing with the "duty cycle" of the supply voltage sent to the light unit.  This means that the light is on at full brightness but not all the time and the eye perceives this as being "dim" compared to the full brightness of an always 100% supply lit LED (if that makes sense).

 

As a starting point, if you're talking about LV LEDs then take a look at the Bachmann Just Plug system.  https://www.Bachmann.co.uk/category/scenery-landscape/woodland_scenics/just-plug-lighting-system?page=3

 

HTH

In the end I installed some outdoor rated colour changing floodlights which have a useful range of colours possible, and can be dimmed down quite nicely.  I will be moving onto street and building lighting at some point, my niece as given me firm instructions to do it, and I have been looking at the Just Plug option, although from what I can see there are some quite nice components coming in from our Chinese overlords, including a very nice hub board which allows you to use a 12v transformer yet supply 3v LED compatible supply, with solderless connections and which can daisy chain other boards off it, which I would imagine further saves the LEDs from frying.  I just need to sit down and work it all out, I've made passive provision for the lighting cabling under the scenery modules although I suspect I'll only dim the main lighting in the shed to "summer sunset" level so I can see what I'm doing!