help

[AND_ECE]

hello

can you help me build a light dimmer circuit?pls thanks alot

 

[dknguyen]

https://home.howstuffworks.com/dimmer-switch2.htm

 

[kchriste]

AC or DC? What voltage? What's the light bulb's wattage?

 

[AND_ECE]

AC or DC? What voltage? What's the light bulb's wattage?

the power of my load in the dimmer is 200 watts...
and it is possible to have a wireless dimmer?

 

[blueroomelectronics]

**broken link removed**
**broken link removed**

 

[slosjo]

Use Parallax to make it wireless....

You could very easily make your dimmer circuit wireless by using this microcontroller:
**broken link removed**


with this sensor:

**broken link removed**


and any remote control. You would still need to figure out how to control a dimming circuit with a microcontroller, but you can make the micro do things based on signals it gets from the sensor via your remote control (TV remote, stereo remote, you can program for any remote you want) with the above setup. The programming required to accomplish this is very simple.

 

[Krumlink]

Sure, if you want to spend a extra too much. PICs are cheap and vastly superior.

 

[slosjo]

Ever hear of a PIC running 8 processors at the same time? 8 tasks simultaneously? It really depends on the application, but i'm not so sure your pic is superior. Either way, that isn't the topic of this thread.

Yes, parallax products are more expensive, but my time is worth something...and for the originator of this thread, I think a simple programming solution would be best; a "plug and play" device, such as the parallax propeller.

 

[blueroomelectronics]

Ever hear of a PIC running 8 processors at the same time? 8 tasks simultaneously? It really depends on the application, but i'm not so sure your pic is superior. Either way, that isn't the topic of this thread.

Yes, parallax products are more expensive, but my time is worth something...and for the originator of this thread, I think a simple programming solution would be best; a "plug and play" device, such as the parallax propeller.

Point is the proprietary Parallax Propeller is way overkill for a light dimmer. A simple $1 12F508 could do the job with power to spare.
The Propeller is hardly plug and play, how do you connect it so it can control a 200W 120VAC light bulb?

 

[slosjo]

When I said plug and play, I was referring to the product I linked earlier, not peripheral devices...of course a lightbulb is not plug&play with a microcontroller! The protoboard is plug and play because it includes all the voltage regulators, crystal,etc that you need to run the micro, as well as space for development. They also sell a programmer (usb interface) for $20. If you buy a pic for a dollar, you will also need a board, crystal, voltage regulator, programmer(which can be pricey), discrete caps & resistors, connectors, and other things just to make it work (If you are a newbie, you probably don't just have all this stuff laying around). Once you pay for all that and the shipping and delays from digikey, you are probably in the same ballpark as the parallax, but you have endured much more stress for a less capable micro. The propeller is very much a plug and play device in comparison with the beloved pic.

I agree that it is overkill for a light dimmer, but look at it this way, you could dim your lights while controlling your biped robot and watching TV at the same time with the prop....

P.S. If you want to control your light bulb with the propeller(or any micro), you simply need a solid state relay that switches 120VAC with 3.3VDC, or a chain of relays that eventually step up to switching the 120VAC.

 

[blueroomelectronics]

Most PICs have a built in oscillator, and since you'll need a wall adapter for either the propeller or PIC anyway you might as well buy a 5V switchmode one and skip the regulator.
Besides that propeller demo you still have to wire up all sorts of parts IE triac, zero crossing detector and such. So it's not much more work to put a tiny cheap 8pin PIC or AVR in there.
You can get C or BASIC compilers for the PIC, many demo versions are free too.

Edit: Digikey has 24hr turnaround even in Canada eh.

 

[slosjo]

Ahh Bill, you raise another good point...free demo compilers, eh?

How about a totally free compiler and development environment for spin and assembly? Spin for higher level stuff you don't want to mess with, and assembly for the time sensitive stuff...and you can keep it without paying! whoa..nice.

you said "Besides that propeller demo you still have to wire up all sorts of parts IE triac, zero crossing detector and such."

With the propeller prototype board, you don't have to add any of these things, like I said the board is ready to go when you get it. You may have to add these things to add peripherals, like a light dimmer, but you would also need that on the pic...I guess I don't see your point.

I would be willing to bet if we both started from scratch, I could make a wireless light dimmer using parallax cheaper than you could with a PIC...the only difference being that mine would be able to deliver a beer to you straight from the fridge in addition to being able to set the mood lighting (Labatts eh?)

 

[shaneshane1]

hello

can you help me build a light dimmer circuit?pls thanks alot

what is the point in us helping you, you dont know how to read a circuit, you dont know how to read symbols, and you dont know how to read.

start out with real easy things, REAL EASY like lighting a LED correctly, and as you LEARN you will work this stuff out for you self, but personally i think you are deliberatley asking these questions to annoy everyone, and there time is been wasted on you, please explain how i could possibly be wrong about you AND_ECE?

 

[blueroomelectronics]

Ahh Bill, you raise another good point...free demo compilers, eh?

How about a totally free compiler and development environment for spin and assembly? Spin for higher level stuff you don't want to mess with, and assembly for the time sensitive stuff...and you can keep it without paying! whoa..nice.

you said "Besides that propeller demo you still have to wire up all sorts of parts IE triac, zero crossing detector and such."

With the propeller prototype board, you don't have to add any of these things, like I said the board is ready to go when you get it. You may have to add these things to add peripherals, like a light dimmer, but you would also need that on the pic...I guess I don't see your point.

I would be willing to bet if we both started from scratch, I could make a wireless light dimmer using parallax cheaper than you could with a PIC...the only difference being that mine would be able to deliver a beer to you straight from the fridge in addition to being able to set the mood lighting (Labatts eh?)

What I'm saying is the Propeller is overkill for a simple wireless light dimmer, so is a dsPIC for that matter.
Your propeller can no more open a fridge door than any other microcontroller without a fair amount of additional hardware. It's I/O pins are not magic, they're just like any other microcontrollers I/O pins.
Spin what is that? It's not C or BASIC but something specifically for the propellers CPU. Will you ever land a job because you know Spin?
Below is the demo board you've suggested, it contains a pair of voltage regulators, some prototyping space, a crystal, switch and propeller chip. It like any other micro can no more turn on a light than fly to the moon without adding all sorts of parts.
**broken link removed**
Parallax Propeller demo board
I'm not a Labatts fan, I like Molsons more.

 

[slosjo]

Bill-
I agree, the I/O pins contain no magical powers, good point. What makes prop pins different is that they are all connected, via a hub, to EIGHT processors, which can all access said non-magical pins. The fact that you can do eight different things at the SAME TIME, in my head, puts the prop ahead of any PIC as far as performance and versatility goes. So, no, it couldn't open a fridge without additional hardware, but with it, it could open seven refrigerators and launch a sweet ice cold Molson Canadian straight into your waiting hand...all at the same time.

you said

"Spin what is that? It's not C or BASIC but something specifically for the propellers CPU. Will you ever land a job because you know Spin?"

I didn't lean Spin to get a job, I learned Spin on the job. I got the job because I had experience in other languages. Spin was presented to me as an easy language in which to set up experiments and prototypes. If you know C/C++, you know Spin(basically). There are many things about it that make it easier and slightly higher level than C. It's great for experimenting, but no, you're not going to order 100,000 at $11 each to put into production when you can accomplish the same thing with a freescale for $0.50. The issue is time. When you're pressed for time, why fiddle with C when a monkey can program Spin with the same result?

So we agree, pic and prop are overkill for a light dimmer, great. Prop can do eight things at once, pic can't. Prop is easier to set up and program than pic.
Prop can get you brownie points with the boss by allowing you to set up sweet displays in half the time it would have taken with a pic. Who knows, perhaps they will make me CEO....

 

[blueroomelectronics]

And the best part is AND_ECE will say...

 

[kchriste]

You could very easily make your dimmer circuit wireless by using this microcontroller:
**broken link removed**

It's an interesting chip. I like the serial bootloader, but there is something cheesy about having a picture of a propeller geekhat stamped on a chip:
**broken link removed**
It seems to be more geared toward video applications than anything else. The only other peripherals on chip appear to be I2C and a UART. The typical PIC has things like Timers, ADCs, analog comparators, PWM, etc built in, which looking at the datasheet, the "propeller" doesn't seem to have. It would definitely be a good chip to make a homebrew video game console with.

 

[shaneshane1]

And the best part is AND_ECE will say...

He would say could i get you to re type all that again so i can read it again sir

 

[blueroomelectronics]

He would say could i get you to re type all that again so i can read it again sir

Shazam

I do envy the propellers video generation though. Never found an efficent way to do "good" video with a PIC. I'd be happy if I could get a TMS9914

 

[Krumlink]

Propeller=$20
PIC=$1

HMMMM

Oh well He's going to say (AND_ECE) PLZ Sir I need help with resister. Which way goes which?