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Lockable Dimmer Switch?

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vylia1990

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Location
Washington State
Occupation
Electrician
Does anyone know of any lockable type dimmer switches for LED lighting? I've seen lockable toggle switches and dimmer switches, but extensive internet searching has not uncovered a manufacturer that makes a locking dimmer switch. Customer wants to have dimming functionality but also wants to the ability to lock the switch as its in a high traffic area. Any ideas on making this setup work if locking dimmer switches don't exist?

Thanks!!
 
Dennis Alwon

Dennis Alwon

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Location
Chapel Hill, NC
Occupation
Retired Electrical Contractor
Can you put the dimmer after a sp switch that is lockable. IOW- power to lockable sp switch and then switch leg to dimmer.etc
 
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vylia1990

Member
Location
Washington State
Occupation
Electrician
Dennis Alwon said:
That is why I was asking if it was going to be in an open area. Those are not really an inside plate of beauty. haha but it may work
Click to expand...
It's inside, in an open area.

The lockable cover plate is an interesting idea, I didn't think of those, but they are a bit ugly. Unfortunately may have to resort to it because as much as I like the idea of running the switch leg to a closet, there aren't any closets nearby and the furthermore the switch leg is already in.

Thanks for the input.
 
Kansas Mountain

Kansas Mountain

Senior Member
Location
Oklahoma, United States
Occupation
Lighting and Lighting Control Designs
Probably going to be way more involved than your current scope of work will justify, but some digital lighting control systems have scheduling capabilities that will disable local controls and lock the fixtures into pre-programmed states during certain times.

Ex. forcing school corridors to be on during 7:30AM-5PM, but outside of those hours, having the fixtures respond to wall switches and/or occ sensors.
 
synchro

synchro

Senior Member
Location
Chicago, IL
Occupation
EE
Dennis Alwon said:
If it is in a 1 gang box then cut it into a 2 gang box-- one sp switch feeding the dimmer.
Click to expand...

As I understand this proposal, the lockable SP switch would either power up the dimmer, or it would shut off the dimmer off and therefore shut off the lights as well. If so, is this what the OP wants to do?
Or does the OP want to keep the dimmer operating where it was set to, but prevent this setting from being changed?
A lockable cover of over the dimmer like those posted above would allow either of these two objectives to be done.

Another way to keep the dimmer function operating but keep it from being changed would be the following. Wire up a Maestro dimmer with a companion dimmer in one of the two ways shown below. But insert a lockable single pole switch in series with the blue wire. That would disable the companion dimmer from being able to change the dimmer setting when the SP switch is open. If desired, the main dimmer could be hidden behind a cover plate of some type so that its settings would only be controllable by the accessible companion dimmer. This proposal would have a total of 3 devices: Maestro dimmer, companion dimmer, and lockable SP switch.

Maestro_wiring_with_companion_dimmer.png

They also make dimming modules that can be attached to a box but they are relatively expensive.
 
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