When ever I dim my incandescent lights, a high pitch hum can be heard from them. The hum becomes louder the more they are dimmend. Is there a way to remove the hum.
Quote from: nklght on September 01, 2008, 02:21:52 AM
When ever I dim my incandescent lights, a high pitch hum can be heard from them. The hum becomes louder the more they are dimmend. Is there a way to remove the hum.
Pretty much all dimmers, including X10's, chop the current supplied to the bulb to accomplish dimming. This is what creates the "hum". The only cure is not to dim, or to buy bulbs that have more internal support for the filament.
Where I work, we have a non-X10 manual dimmer. I can always tell when the dimmer has been turned below "full on" as it causes the bulb to "hum" as you have described.
As Bill said, humming is universal to triac dimmers. It ain't just X10. Also as Bill said the amount of hum is relative to how well the bulbs filaments are supported.
A long time ago I read a report that Phillips bulbs were less prone to hum because of rugged filament contruction. Also when a Phillips bulb burned out there was less incident of destroying the triac in the dimmer. "Rugged" bulbs made for garage door openers, trouble lights, etc. might also buzz less.
The hum is useful for finding lights which you might think are off. At least now I know it is normal and can tell my wife to stop complaing.