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can someone help me or point me to a site or supplier. I would like three or four lights (each say 60W 120V) to fade in and out. The fade time should be about 15 seconds. The lights should be bright for say 90 seconds. The application is: I perform live music and would like a minimal lighting setup but NOT flashing lights. The music is Portuguese in a small restaurant so the lighting needs to be subtle. Many thanks, Alan

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I don't know of any lights specifically that will auto-fade like you are asking. But I can point you in a direction that might help. Many of the major "stage light" manufacturers use DMX, which uses RS485 as its physical layer. This is actually very common and can easily be done with a simple microcontroller. – Kris Bahnsen Apr 13 '12 at 21:00
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A standard pot controlled dimmer circuit could be easily adapted by using a capacitor as the control voltage and allowing it to discharge slowly. Suitable capcitor size and load design needed. – Russell McMahon Apr 14 '12 at 7:04

1 Answer

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You didn't say if you were interested in designing / making your own dimmers from scratch (this site is mainly for people interested in that).

You can buy programmable light dimmers. This is your safest bet, as designing your own mains electronics is quite dangerous.

Quasar electronics do a bunch of light dimmer circuits

Light dimmer circuit

These are self-assembly kits, so will strike a good balance between price and safety.

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