Lutron Grafik eye power consumption question..

[souljas]

hi, I recently read somewhere (not a very reliable source!) that the grafik eye 310x series is very inefficient. And that, for example, when a zone is at 10% light it uses the same watts as if the lights were in 100%! Is there any truth to this?

[Bruce_]

Dimmers "consume" around 1-2% of the connected load. They DO NOT simply divert to power away from the lamp.

A long time ago, a dimmer would just divert power away from the lamp, and therefore you wouldn't save energy. But that was 30+ years ago.

Almost every dimmer available today uses "phase control", which mean it chops the waveform. Basically, it turns the power on and off 100 times per second. There's 2 methods, leading edge (triac), and trailing edge (transistor). Both dim the lights. Both save energy when you dim the lights. And it's almost linear too, so dimming the lights to 10% means you will save 90% of the energy.

Also, when you dim the lights you extend the lamplife. So that saves you money on replacements. Even at 95% (which you can't see the difference), the lamplife is still doubled.

There's a lot of talk about using compact fluorescents instead. What isn't talked about is that they are usually low power factor, which affects that actual power used. So combined with the extra energy needed to manufacture these lamps, they are NOT the carbon-friendly light that many make them out to be.