Dimmed lighting fixtures return to full brightness upon fire alarm activation
- Thread starter Kevin C
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FionaZuppa
Senior Member
- Location
- AZ
- Occupation
- Part Time Electrician (semi retired, old) - EE retired.
maybe call Lutron and ask, or maybe your electrical supply house?
- Location
- Placerville, CA, USA
- Occupation
- Retired PV System Designer
It would have to be a control system that supports programmed scenes and momentary activation contacts for selection.
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gar
Senior Member
- Location
- Ann Arbor, Michigan
- Occupation
- EE
170918-2352 EDT
My comments only relate to the logic of how you might do this.
Assume the fixtures individually have 0-10 V control for dimming. With no input to the dimmer leads, meaning the leads are open circuited, then I believe the dimmer is at full brightness.
This would mean that internally there is a pullup resistor, possibly 10 k ohms, that would pull up the input to 10 V, and that simply an external variable resistor between the dimming leads could control brightness.
But better yet is an external adjustable 0-10 V power source. In this case many dimmers can be paralleled and power source voltage adjustment from a single knob can simultaneously control the brightness of many lights.
With the above assumptions it is only necessary to open the control circuit to all the dimmer inputs to get full brightness.
.
My comments only relate to the logic of how you might do this.
Assume the fixtures individually have 0-10 V control for dimming. With no input to the dimmer leads, meaning the leads are open circuited, then I believe the dimmer is at full brightness.
This would mean that internally there is a pullup resistor, possibly 10 k ohms, that would pull up the input to 10 V, and that simply an external variable resistor between the dimming leads could control brightness.
But better yet is an external adjustable 0-10 V power source. In this case many dimmers can be paralleled and power source voltage adjustment from a single knob can simultaneously control the brightness of many lights.
With the above assumptions it is only necessary to open the control circuit to all the dimmer inputs to get full brightness.
.
Fulthrotl
~Autocorrect is My Worst Enema.~
- Occupation
- E
you don't say where you are at. lighting codes vary widely.
what's the engineered drawings say? if you have an open
slate, go to nLight and look at their stuff.
you'd need a gateway, and such, but it'll do anything you want,
include sing, dance, roll over and play dead, and bark.
prolly cost less than lutron by a fair bit.
you can also run all your 0-10 volt controls thru a multi pole relay
that the coil is tied to the fire alarm bell output.
bell rings, opens relay, all lights go to full brightness.
not code compliant, i'd guess however. fire codes are funny,
an don't take well to home designs.
FionaZuppa
Senior Member
- Location
- AZ
- Occupation
- Part Time Electrician (semi retired, old) - EE retired.
probably easier to just install a separate light fixtures (led) that just go on when alarm is activated, vs having to rely on occupancy lighting and special controls.
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