How Can You Put A Dimmer Switch On Fluorescent Lights?

How Can You Put A Dimmer Switch On Fluorescent Lights?

Dimmer switches have been used for a long time in homes to help create a relaxing atmosphere.

They’re great for setting the mood, so you don’t have to have harsh lights when you want to wind down after a long day.

But while dimmer switches were originally designed for use with incandescent lights, there are now a lot of different bulbs used in the home (and in other spaces, too), one of which is fluorescent lights.

Can dimmers be used with those?

You can put a dimmer switch on fluorescent lights, but it’s not as simple as with other bulb types. You need a compatible dimmer designed for fluorescent or CFL lights and dimmable ballast or dimmable bulbs for integrated lights.

To explain all of this, let’s take a look at:

• Whether dimmers can be used with fluorescent lights
• What you need to get it working
• How to wire a dimmer for fluorescent lights

If you just want to use a cheap dimmer light switch, probably not.

Some are designed to be dimmed, but you probably need a specific dimmer for fluorescent.

Compact fluorescent has the power supply built-in, and you would need something compatible with the specific power supply. Some have a dimming function built in. You have to use a remote signal to control it.

Fluorescent tubes are usually purchased separately from the ballast. In this case, the ballast must be designed to be compatible with a dimmer. In most cases, a dimmer specifically designed for the ballast will be necessary.

The dimmer on the fluorescent lamp in my office is a plastic tube wrapped around the fluorescent tube. I rotate the pattern to get the amount of dimming I want. The tube stays the same brightness, but the pattern blocks some of the light. Wasteful, but cost-effective.

There are fluorescent lights that are compatible with all dimmers. This requires extra circuitry that makes the lights somewhat more expensive to produce. If a fluorescent light is compatible, it will usually say it in the advertising literature, on the packaging, and on the device itself.

Some fluorescent lights are dimmable, but only with special light dimmers. The manufacturer literature will tell you what kind of dimmer you need, but that is no guarantee that you can actually buy them at a reasonable price.

Even dimmable fluorescent lights tend not to get very dim before they completely stop producing light.

Dimmable fluorescent lights tend to be much more expensive than equivalent brightness dimmable LED lights.

On June 2, 2016, I searched Home Depot for dimmable fluorescent, there were just 6 results, 3 expensive light fixtures, and 3 discontinued bulbs. One of the discontinued bulbs was “non-dimmable”, which literally matched the search, but wasn't what I intended to search for.

Are Dimmer Switches Compatible With Fluorescent Lights?

It’s vital to be cautious when you need to dim fluorescent lighting due to the fact a preferred dimmer that activates its very own isn’t compatible.

And that’s due to how fluorescent and CFL lighting paintings while in comparison to different forms of lighting.

While older incandescent and halogen lighting use a filament, and LED bulbs have a semiconductor that produces mild, fluorescent, and CFL lighting rely upon passing a modern thru a fuel line sealed within the bulb.

That modern isn’t simply direct from the supply either.

It’s controlled via way of means of a ballast – a small tool stressed out into the mild fixture that controls it in order that the bulb is lit without being overpowered.

It’s that ballast that interferes with how a preferred dimmer transfer works – which flips the modern on and rancid loads of instances a second.

Because the ballast is a middleman dealing with the modern to the mild, it method that in preference to the mild dimming, it'll flicker or now no longer paintings at all.

However, that’s now no longer the end – it's miles feasible to dim fluorescent and CFL lighting when you have the proper equipment.

What Is Required To Dim Fluorescent Fixtures?

If you need to dim fluorescent lighting, you'll want a dimmer designed for paintings with those bulbs and a ballast that may be dimmed.

It’s essential to word now that there are 3 one of a kind styles of fluorescent lighting:

• Standard fluorescent lighting
• Integrated CFL lighting
• Non-incorporated CFL lighting

Fluorescent lighting is the lengthy tubes you’ll be used to seeing while a person talks approximately those styles of bulbs.

CFLs have tubes that might be twisted to create a compact mild bulb shape.

In incorporated CFL lighting, the ballast is constructed into the bulb base.

In non-incorporated CFL lighting, the ballast is separate and might be established withinside the mild fixture or near it.

This approach that you can now no longer want to shop for a separate dimmable ballast if you’re shopping for incorporated CFL bulbs – you simply want to make certain that you’re shopping for dimmable bulbs because the ballast they've constructed into the bottom might be a dimmable one.

In short, you want a well-matched dimmer and a well-matched ballast, separate or constructed into the bulb.

There are a few manufacturers that make each the dimmable ballasts and the switches to go along with them – including Lutron.

It’s a terrific concept to shop for each collectively due to the fact that you understand they’re designed to be well matched, and also you get the most dimming overall performance.

What I imply via way of means of that is – a few CFL dimmers won’t paint nicely while dimmed low.

They will transfer the mild off early, supplying you with a useless region for your dimmer transfer.

Using a fantastic matching dimmer and ballast from a dependable logo like Lutron, you’ll get the satisfactory viable overall performance from a CFL or fluorescent mild so you don’t have a useless region.

It’s additionally really well worth noting that the opposite factor of a fluorescent mild fixture – a starter – is unaffected. So you don’t want to fear approximately swapping this out.

A general Google search turned up quite a few dimmable LED lights designed as replacements for non-dimmable fluorescents.

Fluorescents are slowly fading away from the market, and the dimmable ones are winking out much faster.

Most light dimmers work by reducing the average voltage supplied to the lamp. This works just fine with filament types and is one of their major advantages.

But fluorescent tubes have something called a minimum striking voltage, which means that below this voltage, they flicker or don't light up at all. Worse, they are current-operated devices, so their brightness depends on the current flow.

So a standard dimmer will cause a fluorescent to go off abruptly at the minimum voltage, while above it there is not much effect on brightness.