On Fri, 2005-12-16 at 20:20 +0200, Peter wrote:
> Yes except it works well mostly for low loads (say <1A). Beyond that it 
> starts making a lot of heat for a small and unobtrusive circuit it is 
> supposed to be. A Hall current sensor is not so expensive by the time 
> you need to measure go/no go 7A and it has to take the inrush of 
> presumably 40-50Aish gracefully (i.e. even if the filament decides to go 
> just then). I'd still look into a simple thermistor siliconed to the 
> insulated side of the triac with extra shrink tubing to increase 
> insulation (you are using a triac, no?).

I am using a triac, yes. The load that the brightest lamp will cause is
2A. I have another lamp which will pull 1A. I don't know if the triac
heats up much when it's on with these loads though. I have a fairly
large heatsink on it, but I make a point of not touching any part of it
when it's got the 240vAC going through it, so I don't know if it heats
up much.

Although, thinking about it, I might have a temperature probe floating
around somewhere for my multimeter.. I've also got a few ds1820's too..

I'll give that a go..

Cheers Peter,

Tim.

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