I have the interest to build a Temperature-controlled Light Dimmer for Reptiles (desert tortoises).
As a natural instinct and probably for the sake of good health desert tortoises like many other reptiles enjoy basking in the sun. However in the reptile house sunshine is a scarce luxury and therefore artificial light (tungsten filament lamps) have been used. Just as in the nature, the tortoises will seek shelter from the "sun" when they have enough "tanning", or when the ambient becomes too hot. Due to the limited space again, the tortoises may not be able to "escape" entirely from the hot "sun". The lamps would need to be turned off or dimmed down.
I have therefore had this idea : let the lamp be dimmed down when ambient goes beyond 30 DegC, dimmed futher when ambient goes up to complete shut-off say beyond 37 DegC. The change should be smooth, i.e. no sudden on or off of the lamps (i.e. no lightning/thunders!).
I have never seen in the market anything that can do the job, nor have I seen any published work on this.
I believe that a simple circuit, without MC, should be able to do the job. I have found many dimmer circuits on the web, but they are manual, and not temperature controlled. There are also a lot of temperature-control or thermostat circuits, but are always employing simple relay or triac on-off switching. We need to combine these two kinds of circuits.
It seems to me no one has ever done such a design yet.
Any advice or comments please ?
As a natural instinct and probably for the sake of good health desert tortoises like many other reptiles enjoy basking in the sun. However in the reptile house sunshine is a scarce luxury and therefore artificial light (tungsten filament lamps) have been used. Just as in the nature, the tortoises will seek shelter from the "sun" when they have enough "tanning", or when the ambient becomes too hot. Due to the limited space again, the tortoises may not be able to "escape" entirely from the hot "sun". The lamps would need to be turned off or dimmed down.
I have therefore had this idea : let the lamp be dimmed down when ambient goes beyond 30 DegC, dimmed futher when ambient goes up to complete shut-off say beyond 37 DegC. The change should be smooth, i.e. no sudden on or off of the lamps (i.e. no lightning/thunders!).
I have never seen in the market anything that can do the job, nor have I seen any published work on this.
I believe that a simple circuit, without MC, should be able to do the job. I have found many dimmer circuits on the web, but they are manual, and not temperature controlled. There are also a lot of temperature-control or thermostat circuits, but are always employing simple relay or triac on-off switching. We need to combine these two kinds of circuits.
It seems to me no one has ever done such a design yet.
Any advice or comments please ?