crestron dimming system

[richardthomas]

One of our clients has a Crestron commercial grade dimming system for their media room and keep having problems in same zones with burnt up transformers-120v line, 12v secondary, 50w magnetic transformer. This system has been sent back to factory, factory found nothing wrong. Within 6 months the same thing happened. They replaced entire system and now it is happening again. Their is also another resident in same area that is starting to have the same problems. These transformers, once replaced, usually last for 6 months to 1 year. Any clues on what the problem or problems could be?

 

[surf more]

first time sailer with crestron !!!!!!!!!!!!me i am

 

[mxslick]

Richard, Welcome to the forums.

As for the problems, there are several things I would look at:

1: Make absolute certain that the LOAD side of the dimmers have NO shared neutrals!! I prefer to also run dedicated neutrals to the LINE side of each dimmer module, I know that Vantage systems require dedicated line side neutrals, Crestron may not but I feel it's good design practice.

2: If the LOAD side wiring of several modules shares the same raceway, make sure that the neutrals for each dimmer load land on the correct module. A crossed neutral (one where two modules have each other's neutrals connected wrong) could cause problems.

3: Make sure the transformers aren't overloaded. It happens a lot with LV lighting in media rooms.

4: What brand are the transformers? Could be as simple as cheap transformers, or ones that aren't capable of being dimmed.

Finally, were both rooms designed/installed by the same vendor?

From here those are the things that come to mind... keep us updated.

 

[surf more]

what happened any luck

 

[kevinkk]

First have your Creston programmer check that he or she has set the dimming curve for the circuits with magnetic loads to the magnetic load dimming curve, this error will kill some less expensive transformers especially when run at low levels.

We have found that lights made by NORA fail quickly when dimmed with Creston dimmers, try replacing transformer with Q-tran if you need to put a small transformers in the can, if you have remote transformers use sebco. You can also add a Creston CLX-2IND or CLX-4IND which will help smooth off the dimming wave and help at increasing the life of the transformer.

Good luck