AC Arduino dimming circuit

Posted on Feb 6, 2014

I am not an engineer, just an experimenter and hacker and prototyper etc, so, thanks to people who know a lot more than I do, I learned that this is not safe to use NOTE: This can only be used to dim a unit that runs off of a transformer-based power supply, ie something that doesn`t run off of 120 V, but 12, 24, or 48 Volts. Solder iron, wire stri

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ppers, breadboard or perf board, wires, 9V battery, IRF730 transistor, bridge rectifier, Arduino, infrared detector ( like this one ), SONY universal remote control ( like this one ) ButI had been trying for a number of weeks to perfect this, as in, find the correct transistor that would not overheat or burn out (one that is rated for a high enough voltage since it`s using AC 120 V). I followed this circuit from Dmitri`s blog, except instead of the IRF 250 I used an IRF730. At first, I was using the IRF 520, with a 100 V drain source voltage and a 9 amp continuous drain current. It worked fine at first, and then it burnt out (there was connectivity between the gate-source and gate-drain). So I got an IRF540, with a 100 V drain source voltage and a 33 continuous drain current. This similarly worked at first, then burnt out. Finally, I used the IRF730 which works pretty well so far! And doesn`t burn out it is rated upto 400 V (which far surpasses the 120 V wall voltage in the US). I like to use this type of cord (see the main image here), that is ungrounded (it has only two strands and two prongs), it has some places to plug in an AC device, namely your lamp or fan, or whatever you will be dimming. Once you cut it, strip away some of the rubber insulation around the wire, leaving about 1/8 ³ copper wire hanging out, enough to plug into a perf board or a screw terminal (which I highly recommend using, as AC current should be...

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