Author Topic: LED Dimmer fires when connecting load  (Read 3636 times)

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

Offline kkawulaTopic starter

  • Newbie
  • Posts: 4
LED Dimmer fires when connecting load
« on: June 28, 2016, 11:17:23 pm »
Hello,
I'm trying to design light dimmer for driving the LED bulbs.
Initially design was based on standard triac circuit with optocoupler. Unfortunately that solution wasn't especially good for driving low power LED bulbs at small PWM values.
I have searched internet and I found how to make alternative circuit with galvanic isolation provided by transformer. Circuit from the attachment has been built and tested. Every thing works ok, starting from very low PWM values to 100%.
Unfortunately now I have to face up different problem. From time to time, during connecting the load, I can observe that triac occasionally fires and blink could be observed.
I have tried triac which are not EMI sensitive like BTA312-800C, but it does not change anything.
Any ideas what can I improve and why triac fires?

Best regards
Krzysztof
 

Online NiHaoMike

  • Super Contributor
  • ***
  • Posts: 9225
  • Country: us
  • "Don't turn it on - Take it apart!"
    • Facebook Page
Re: LED Dimmer fires when connecting load
« Reply #1 on: June 29, 2016, 01:19:11 am »
Try moving the diode to the other side of the transformer. My guess would be stray capacitance coupling in a pulse.
Cryptocurrency has taught me to love math and at the same time be baffled by it.

Cryptocurrency lesson 0: Altcoins and Bitcoin are not the same thing.
 

Offline bktemp

  • Super Contributor
  • ***
  • Posts: 1616
  • Country: de
Re: LED Dimmer fires when connecting load
« Reply #2 on: June 29, 2016, 06:19:19 am »
Most LED lamps don't like being dimmed and will fail soon unless they are specifically designed for dimming.

You could try adding a resistor (100-1kOhm) across G and T1. This decreases the gate sensitivity to prevent any voltage spikes from mains triggering the triac.
 

Offline Fungus

  • Super Contributor
  • ***
  • Posts: 17191
  • Country: 00
Re: LED Dimmer fires when connecting load
« Reply #3 on: June 29, 2016, 06:21:46 am »
I'm trying to design light dimmer for driving the LED bulbs.

What 'bulbs'?

Are they dimmable? You'll have big problems if they aren't.
 

Offline kkawulaTopic starter

  • Newbie
  • Posts: 4
Re: LED Dimmer fires when connecting load
« Reply #4 on: July 01, 2016, 10:25:33 pm »
After in depth investigation, the RC snubber circuit has been found as one of cause that triac is fires sporadically when load is connected.
On load connection the contacts in the socket are “Bouncing” what in some simplification we can consider as switching load “on” and “off”. When it’s “on” the snubber circuit is charging and remains charged when load is disconnected. When load is reconnected triac is polarised with snubber voltage which need to be reverted by mains voltage. When disconnection time is long and mains voltage swings to opposite voltage, triac gets voltage shock and dV/dt can reach 800V/us (according to my observation.)
After removing snubber, triac fires less often but still it happens…:(

@bktemp
Most LED lamps don't like being dimmed and will fail soon unless they are specifically designed for dimming.
You could try adding a resistor (100-1kOhm) across G and T1. This decreases the gate sensitivity to prevent any voltage spikes from mains triggering the triac.

I have already try it with out bigger effect :( Btw  triac BTA312-800C should be quite insensitive to any EMI problems )
 

Online NiHaoMike

  • Super Contributor
  • ***
  • Posts: 9225
  • Country: us
  • "Don't turn it on - Take it apart!"
    • Facebook Page
Re: LED Dimmer fires when connecting load
« Reply #5 on: July 02, 2016, 01:13:40 am »
Try moving the snubber to be across the output and add a X rated cap directly across the mains input?
Cryptocurrency has taught me to love math and at the same time be baffled by it.

Cryptocurrency lesson 0: Altcoins and Bitcoin are not the same thing.
 

Offline bktemp

  • Super Contributor
  • ***
  • Posts: 1616
  • Country: de
Re: LED Dimmer fires when connecting load
« Reply #6 on: July 02, 2016, 11:30:51 am »
After in depth investigation, the RC snubber circuit has been found as one of cause that triac is fires sporadically when load is connected.
That does not make sense to me.
A triac triggers whenever a large enough current is flowing at the gate pin. This can be either an external signal applied to the gate, or an internal generated current by either capacitive coupling from T2 or overvoltage breakdown. For both cases a snubber should help because it reduces dV/dt a bit so reducing the capacitive coupling effect and reducing the amplitude of an inductive voltage spike. But in your case the resistance is quite high, so it may not do much. Try adding a TVS diode or a varistor accross the triac.
 


Share me

Digg  Facebook  SlashDot  Delicious  Technorati  Twitter  Google  Yahoo
Smf