Ambience or “mood” is often the main reason for choosing a dimmable light fixture, given that  it allows your lighting to become a multi-purpose tool, useful for a range of activities that require different lighting levels.

Restaurants and hotels often use dimmable fixtures in their seating areas to create an atmosphere or ambience at night. Additionally, dimming features are also used in sports courts to provide appropriate lighting for different levels of play and sporting activities.

As we know, LEDs are controlled through current, this means that when a dimmer is used to control its light intensity, it also reduces the power being fed to the LED, resulting in less energy (watts - power consumption)  being used. Less energy used equals more money saved, and extended LED lamp life.

 Basic Applications

• With our 0-10V dimmer, you can dim one or more single color LED zones that require the intensity level to be adjusted to one or more preset levels.

• These applications can be for indoor or outdoor lighting and exist in high-end residences, retails and many commercial spaces. 

 Complex Applications

• These applications are mainly seen on building facades, retail, and entertainment spaces and in theatrical applications, but can be used in any space that calls for advanced color mixing effects.

• Although 0-10V controllers can be used, we recommend using a DMX512 product for complex applications.

What is a 0-10V dimmer?

0-10V is an analog lighting control protocol. In other words a 0-10V controller applies a voltage between 0 and 10 volts of Direct Current to achieve different intensity levels. This simple lighting control system connects to your LED fixtures to provide multipurpose lighting solutions and ambiance, at 0 volts, the light will dim to its minimum light level, though it typically requires a switch to turn the lights completely off, and at 10 volts, it will have the maximum lighting output.

There are two existing 0-10V standards which  are not compatible with each other, so it is imperative to know and understand which type is required. 

The first 0-10V control was used for controlling theatrical lighting, a lighting console that provides a separate 0-10V output for each dimming channel and is connected to the input dimmer modules located in a remote panel. The other 0-10V is a method developed for, and still used as, a standard means for controlling fluorescent dimming ballasts (also referred as “current sink”) and  has now become popular for some drivers used for LED lighting.

The IEC standard for these current sink controllers is that the ballast (or driver) provides full light output when the control voltage is 10 Volts (or above). As the control voltage is reduced by the control, the light level is reduced.

For more information about the IEC standard, visit the IEC website.