Flicker-insensitive light dimmer for incandescent lamps

This paper presents a new dimmer that does not amplify light flicker in incandescent lamps. The development of this new dimmer is motivated by the fact that the incandescent lamp is very sensitive to voltage fluctuation and the typical R-C-circuit dimmer for incandescent lamps amplifies the light flicker considerably. The proposed method utilizes a 16-b microcontroller to calculate the fluctuation voltage and determine the appropriate firing angle for a power switch device in the circuit of the dimmer. The mathematical model and simulation of the incandescent lamp with the proposed dimmer are also presented. By dynamically adjusting the firing angle to compensate for the voltage, the proposed dimmer can substantially diminish the light flicker. Furthermore, a series of experiments on this dimmer has been made to test its performance, and the results demonstrate a remarkable reduction in amplifying effect of light flicker.