Lutron Universal or Incandescent

[mrm3]

What is the difference (apart from £20) for the Lutron Rania Universal or the Incandescent range ?

Trying to work out which one I need. The write up on screwfix and few other sites seems to be the same. Universal sounds like a safe bet but it would be nice to know where the extra £20 is going !

[Andy_C_000]

Hi mrm3,

I've been looking at the Lutron range for a little while, and as far as I know, the Incandescent Dimmer is only suitable for simple incandescent bulbs (mains 230v).

The Universal Dimmer is for use with more complicated loads, like low voltage halogen lamps where the dimmer is supplying power to the bulb through a transformer.

From what I remember, the Lutron web site pretty useful and should list off the types of loads that can be controlled by either the Incandescent or Universal dimmers.

What type of lamps will the dimmer be controlling?


Andy_C

[mrm3]

Not sure !



Just moved into house and do not know much about electrics. Sounds like universal for me. Father in law is an electrician so I can ask him. Thanks !

[Bruce_]

The "universal" dimmer uses transistors to control the power. The older incandescent dimmer uses triacs.

Triacs produce more noise than transistor dimmers.

If you have normal incandescent lamps, then there's not a lot of advantage with the transistor dimmer. But if you want to have LV halogens, then the benefit is less noise when dimmed.