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Thyristor Project: Light Dimmer

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 Department of Electronic and Telecommunications
University of Moratuwa
EN 2110 - Electronics-III

Thyristor Project: Light Dimmer

R.M.V.B. Senanayake 160570C
N.A.M.P. Nissanka 160447G
K.P.D.U. Kahatapitiya 160260C
U.K.W.D.M.R.N.C Navanjana 160426R
T.M. Piyadigama 160490F

This is submitted as a partial fulfilment of the module

EN 2110 : Electronics III
Department of Electronic and Telecommunication Engineering
University of Moratuwa

04.01.2019
 1

Thyristor Project: Light Dimmer

R.M.V.B. Senanayake 160570C
N.A.M.P. Nissanka 160447G
K.P.D.U. Kahatapitiya 160260C
Navanjana U.K.W.D.M.R.N.C. 160426R
T.M. Piyadigama 160490F
Electronic and Telecommunications Department
University of Moratuwa

I. I NTRODUCTION AND P ROBLEM It is inefficient to use a variable capacitor of

S TATEMENT
The ability to change intensity of light is
required for some occasions. It is not only for
common needs as bedroom lights and decorative
aspect but also for industrial application like
monitor screens and displays.
The dimming can be obtained by controlling
the current through the light source. Then the
problem is to minimize the additional energy
needed to obtain the dimming capability. Higher
dynamic range and smooth continuous change of
intensity are desired characteristics.
II. R ELATED W ORK
Dimmers are instruments which controls the
current through a light source. The most ba-
sic way of controlling current is to connect
a variable resistor serially to the light source.
When a specific voltage (DC or AC) applied the
variable resistor will change the current through
the circuit so dimming can be achievable.
However this is not the approach of a power
dimmer. The above mentioned dimmer is highly
inefficient as the current through the light source
also flows through the variable resistor conse-
quently dissipating undesirable huge amount of
power at the resistor. Therefore this kind of
dimmer is highly inefficient. As a rule of thumb
resistors are devices in signal processing but not
in power electronics.(Erickson, 1997)
variable inductor instead of the resistor because
such devises are comparatively expensive bulky
and less accurate. When considering higher
power transfer these devices are less feasible.
Fortunately, there is another way of control-
ling the current through circuit: Switching. This
time it is not trying to control current continu-
ously or to change the amplitude but to cut the
current in order to get a sequence of pulses of
which the width can be controlled as desired.
Though the current amplitude or the intensity
amplitude does not change the effective value (or
the mean) of the pulse sequence will be changed
accordingly with pulse width.
Though discreet in nature, this type of dimmer
pocess higher energy efficiency. As the energy
dissipation through a switch is virtually zero.
When a switch is open current through the
switch is zero while voltage is equal to the sup-
ply voltage, while when it is closes the current
flows through it while the voltage is zero. In both
occasions, the power dissipation is zero.
Hence a power dimmer can be efficiently
implemented by a switch. The frequency of
the pulses should be high to the extent which
an observer cannot identify discreetness of the
emission of light.
This switching of high frequency has to be
automated. Then we have to use electronic com-
ponents which have switching capability. Power
electronic components that has switching capa-

bility are thyristors, power transistors (BJTs) and
IGBTs. These devices can be used for various
designs.
Fig. 1. Basic Triac Dimmer
Thyristor dimmers are commonplace because
thyristors are cheaper and available. TRIAC,
SCR, GTO and SCS are several thyristors that
can be used for making dimmers. This will be the
switching device of a dimmer. However before
understanding specific details of this dimmers
we think it is better to introduce two classes of
the dimmers at the moment.
There are two classes of dimmers: leading
edge and trailing edge dimmers. Both kind work
with AC supply. The leading edge dimmers cut
current wave form after a zero crossing while
trailing edge dimmers cut before a zero crossing.
That is to say leading edge dimmers are opened
at the begining of the waveform and closed after
a decided phase while trailing edge dimmers are
closed at the begining and opened after a decided
phase.
2
Fig. 2. Current wave form and trigger pulses at the gate for a
leading edge dimmer
Cheap and available SCR and TRIACs are not
fully controlled switches. They can be triggered
to On stage by a pulse at a gate but cannot be
change to OFF state until the input current is
above a certain value: hold off current. Therefore
SCRs and TRIACs can only be used for leading
edge dimmers. GTOs, SCSs or IGBTs which can
be triggered into OFF state also are required for
trailing edge dimmer implementations.
TRIAC dimmers are very popular for mid
power level dimming. SCRs are unidirectional
switches while TRIACs are bidirectional. ”How-
ever, in most applications, one half of the device
must block forward current immediately after
the other half has ceased conduction, a very
difficult requirement. Because of the interaction
of the two halves, it has not been possible to
build triacs with voltage, current, or frequency
ratings as high as those readily obtainable in
thyristors. Therefore, high power AC switches
must be implemented with thyristors.” (Motto,
1977) SCR dimmers can be implemented as
using two SCRs for the positive and negative
direction or using a rectifier to make the SCR
effectively bidirectional to the outside of the
rectifier.
This leading edge dimmers has some draw-
backs that a novel type of technology trailing
edge dimmers came into existence. Leading edge

cutting creates radio electric disturbances that
will affect on mains supply. Therefore a con-
ventional mains filter is used to filters out this
disturbances at the industry level. Such filter is
simply a inductance in series and a capacitor
in parallel. The inductance is to smooth the
leading edge while capacitor is to limit the power
through the inductor. This assembly specifically
use of the inductance make the dimmer ex-
pensive and bulky while the inductance is not
integrable. At low power range lamp flicker also
observable due to this inductance. The coil in
the inductance will be vibrated with a buzzing
noise making the dimmer unsuitable for noise
sensitive environments. Trailing edge dimmers
are not required an inductance to disturbances.
(US patent 6294901B1)
Fig. 3. Leading edge dimmer mains filtering
Both classes need a circuit to set the triggering
pulse at the desired phase. For this phase trigger-
ing part there are various applications both ana-
log and digital. Using microcontrollers, ICs or
digital modules can be seen in the industry. The
basic analog application is to charge a capacitor
to a constant voltage limited by a zenor diode
(or DIAC -in directly) and used the triggering
point to be the point where zenor diode passes
a current. The time to charge the capacitor is
controlled by RC product of the branch where R
is controlled by a variable resistor. This simple
assembly can be modified in order to have linear
or another shape response and to give even neg-
ative and null pulses as well as positive pulses.
3
Fig. 4. Leading edge and trailing edge current wave forms
However all bulbs are not dimmable. Flu-
orescent bulbs are undimmable and there are
both types of dimmable and nondimmable LED
bulbs. Dimmable LED bulbs needs some special
requirements comparing to incandescent bulbs.
Leading edge dimmers are suitable for resistive
and inductive loads while trailing edge dimmers
are the most suitable type for resistive and capac-
itive loads. Since LED bulbs are capacitive loads.
Trailing edge dimmer is one of the requirement
for LED dimmers. Incandecent bulbs do not
require a specific class because they are mostly
resistive loads.
III. P ROPOSED S OLUTION
At first stage of this project we planned to
build a trailing edge dimmer and designed the
circuit. It is required to use a GTO.
However at the implementation stage, we had
a very limited time and found that some essential
components are unavailable in the local market
and no sufficient time for importing.
Therefore we disigned a light dimmer using
triac and mains filter with one additional capac-
itive filtering.
IV. S PECIFICATIONS
The circuit could be implement in a small
scale as possible. The dimmer should be inex-
 4

pensive as possible. The device should generate
little disturbance to the main. The dimmer should
be able to operate by a human user with simple
knowhow.
V. S IMULATION R ESULTS
cycle begin from the zero crossing stage the ca-
pacitor C3 (see appendix for schematic) charged
with a time constant ditermined by R1 R3 and
variable resistor R2. When the capacitor voltage
is above a certain value determined by DIAC
the TRIAC will be triggered to ON state. Hence
the circuit is short circuit through the TRIAC
making the voltage between output terminals
of the dimmer to be zero.Then the capacitor
also discharge through the TRIAC while it is
ON preparing the capacitor for the next half
cycle. L1 Res1 C1 is the mains filter and R4
C4 is a supporting filter to make the leading
edge smooth in order to reduce electromagnetic
disturbunces to the mains filter. C2 capacitor is
used as supporting capacitor for C3 to ensure the
smooth behaviour of the capacitor

IX. R EFERENCES
Motto J.W. Introduction to solid state power
electronics, 1977
Erickson R.W. Fundamentals of power
Fig. 5. Phase Cut current wave form electronics 1997
US Patent US6,294,901 B1 2001
VI. I MPLEMENTATION
Selected TRIAC was BT139 because it was
readily available. A potentiometer is used to con-
trol the phase angle as it was providing a good
interface for non technical users considering the
familiarity of potentiometers in volume controlls
and other day to day instruments. Capacitors
and resistor values for the triggering circuits
was calculated based on mentally simulation and
prototype testing.

VII. E XPERIMENTAL R ESULTS

We test the result with a bulb as the load
and the oscilloscope to find the voltage between
the bulb and obtain the required dimming while
getting the phase controlled leading edge cut
wave form.

VIII. C ONCLUSION
The functionality of the dimmer can be
demonstrated in following steps.When a halph
 5

X. A PPENDIX

A. schematic

Fig. 6. Schematic

Consider that actual values of components as follows

TRIAC BT139
R1= 1k
R2 = 100k
R3 = 1k
R4 = 100k
R5 = 150k
C1 =0.1uF
C2=0.05uF
C3=o.1uF
C4=0.1uF
L= 47uF
 6

B. layout

Fig. 7. Layout

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