Vanity and lighted mirror on dimmer

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philhurtgen

Member
Location
Indiana
Occupation
Apprentice Electrician
Hey guys,

Got a strange situation here, and I'd appreciate y'all's insight! My company is currently installing a vanity light and lighted mirror for a customer, and the original intent was to have both fixtures on a single led dimmer switch, in order that you could dim both fixtures simultaneously. However, as it turns out, the lighted mirror did not react this way in practice, and we also discovered that the lighted mirror had a built-in dimmer function via a touch-sensitive button. So, when dimming down the vanity, the lighted mirror had no change in brightness-it did, however, produce a slightly audible hum when not set at the same relative brightness as the vanity; adjusting the lighted mirror to the same brightness as the vanity would quickly resolve the hum.

Our question in all this is simply if this is perfectly safe, or if the dimmer switch could somehow adversely affect or "harm" the lighted mirror. It seemed strange that the brightness of the mirror wasn't affected by the dimmer, even though both it and the vanity were on that same switch.

Always appreciate the answers I get on this forum. :)
 

GoldDigger

Moderator
Staff member
Location
Placerville, CA, USA
Occupation
Retired PV System Designer
I would not be comfortable supplying phase-controlled chopped power to a phase control dimmer. It will not necessarily cause damage, but it certainly does not meet the intended operating conditions of either device.
Other than bypassing the built-in dimmer in the mirror, I do not see a solution other than supplying uncontrolled line voltage to the mirror.
It sounds like the mirror's dimmer circuit includes feedback to deliver the same power to its LEDs over a wide range of input voltages.
 
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