IR controlled light dimmer

posted Feb 7th 2009 12:30pm by Caleb Kraft
filed under: classic hacks, home hacks

dimmer

This is a pretty useful device. It is an IR controlled light dimmer. It goes in line with the main power and controls how much gets through to your light. You can adjust the brightness with a TV remote control. Finally, we can retire our clapper! These are commercially available, but making your own is just so much more fun. You may have to dig a little on their site for the schematics and programming. There are tons of other projects there as well so have fun. You can see a video of it in action after the break.

[Thanks T]

Comments [14]

tagged: 120v, dimmer, infra red, ir, remote controlled

14 Responses to IR controlled light dimmer

Jududdar says:

February 7, 2009 at 1:18 pm

This is pretty amazing. In the process of completely gutting an apartment and rebuilding it for myself – dang, now I’ve got to build a bundle of these! =) Great post!

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Roboguy says:

February 7, 2009 at 1:52 pm

The “Download” button near the bottom of the page gets you the code and the schematics – no digging required, just a bit more thorough look.

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Skyler Orlando says:

February 7, 2009 at 5:50 pm

@roboguy-

“digging”==”thorough look”

;)

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aztraph says:

February 7, 2009 at 6:51 pm

it is cool, but seems like a lot of work considering x-10 remote control modules have been around for 20 + years. plus you don’t have to rewire your house, granted it isn’t IR but it is wireless.
http://www.x10.com/automation/x10_lm15a.htm

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supernova_hq says:

February 7, 2009 at 9:15 pm

There’s just something “hacky” about controlling your lights with a light…

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ino says:

February 8, 2009 at 1:36 am

It would have been interesting WITH the source code, not only the hex file.

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dbgtwill1 says:

February 8, 2009 at 2:28 am

except for the proto board i could probably build this for free where as x10 set up is $20….even if it cost more to diy i would probably still do it…most people dont relize us hackers and crackers do this because we can and we enjoy it
theres is nothing better imho than the feeling of know i can take old junk that would otherwise end up in a landfill make somthing useful out of it…
well enough of my ranting this is cool props to the builder…peace

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dbgtwill1 says:

February 8, 2009 at 2:29 am

i 4got to say with junk in my room it would be free lol

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pc486 says:

February 8, 2009 at 10:09 am

no source = sad me :(

tiny schematic though, and it looks like a good application for the triacs and attiny25s i have laying around. good hack!

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Dave says:

February 8, 2009 at 11:03 am

@dbgtwill1-

I agree, but how about combining the two? I’ve got an IR receiver connected to a PC with LIRC (actually a mythtv frontend/backend) and I’ve put an X10 controller on the PC. Along with controlling the mythtv functions, I’ve assigned a few buttons on the remote to control the lighting, including some presets for ‘movie mode’ (all lights off) and ‘sports mode’ (lights over the bar on full, other lights at 50%).

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anfegori91 says:

March 1, 2009 at 5:39 pm

this one is more complete and interesting:
http://www.micropic.es/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=1
the page is in spanish and the code is not opensource, but there are other remote controlled dimmer project that is free.

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John T says:

June 9, 2009 at 7:03 am

What I would like to see is that, when my movie ends, I would like to push the on button and have the lights do a 10 (or so) second fade in without me having to push and hold the up button on the remote. I’m guessing that would take some kind of programmed chip to make that happen. Do any of you know if this is possible?

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X10 vs Insteon says:

December 4, 2009 at 1:42 pm

For a simple hack this is wonderful – I’m using an Insteon controller and IR543 to do the same thing but it can do the fading that John wanted. Still, for the price this simple dimmer is pretty neat.

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cadnet says:

March 21, 2010 at 2:24 am

Hi,
On this site there is a

Electrical circuit IR light dimmer ,I n need a genius engineer can modification to work as follows:
I – delete from TSOP17 of the circle
II – introduces a DC 12V to filed and offset current, ranging from zero to 12 volts
So that the work piece looks like when the light is zero OFF when the amount of any increase light also increase. At 12 volts greater intensity
III- Addition or deletion or amendment to the pieces as needed

I need this in my study . Is this possible?

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