Thread: Installing Dimmer Switch

"will I kill myself?"
If you get mains current (or lots of pills) in ya, then yes.

I wouldn't touch it without killing the lighting at the switchbox (that's the technical term?) and still check it with a multimeter (if I had one).

Not that I'd trust myself to do this anyway.

Electricity is potentially lethal!

A garden variety dimmer can pollute the power to your recording equipment and/or guitar rig.

Faulty wiring job can cause a fire. "During a typical year, home electrical problems account for 67,800 fires, 485 deaths, and $868 million in property losses." - from the US Fire Administration website

If you're still thinking it's a good idea, this is a doable DIY project, but I would recommend you have someone who has some electrical experience do it for you. You can watch and have them explain what they're doing, so you can learn for next time. It's especially important that you find and switch OFF the circuit the light is on and use the buddy system. A buddy that knows CPR is a big bonus, since a mild shock is all it takes to stop your heart.

borrowed from Codemonkey's "Power Problems" thread

http://www.recording.org/ftopict-52142.html

** I've decided to issue a stern warning with every post involving electricity:

LISTEN UP!! Electricity is LETHAL !!! And even with all the training and knowledge they receive as they master their trade - there are a lot of good electricians out there with fewer than 10 fingers. When working with high voltage, it only takes a momentary lapse of concentration, or one assumption to vaporize a digit or two. If you're lucky you'll get knocked across the room and live, and adapt to picking your guitar and your nose with the remaining fingers. So if you're determined to start dancing with Mr. Edison without doing your homework and/or professional supervision, all I can say is - you've been warned and....

Addendum:
Never trust the markings at the breaker panel. They lie like a cheap Persian rug, unless it's hangin' on the wall.

True Story #391. Four years ago I had a maintenance man that was actually a half way decent handyman. The maintenance manager and myself (ops/it/hr/general PITA) told this good ol' boy all summer to never trust any marking on any breaker he saw. Well along towards the 1st of August a site's power pedestal went tits up and Ol' Boy went out to work on it. He dutifully went to the main panel for that section and turned off the marked breaker for that site. He took off the cover plate of the site's ped and saw what looked to be an obvious problem. "Knowing" that he had shut off the breaker, he bypassed testing the circuit with his multimeter and stuck his screwdriver on the terminal post to tighten a lug. Whammo! He rolled back and lay like a turtle on it's back staring at the sky for about 7 minutes. Then he shook himself and rolled over to the side. When he recovered enough to think he started accusing us of turning the breaker back on-which of course when he went to double check we hadn't. The breaker was mismarked because sometime in the past the main leg had broken from frost heaves or something and the owner had just chained that pedestal to the next one over-on a different breaker. I myself laughed. But I digress.

Moral: Never trust any marking on any breaker or disconnect without testing thoroughly first.

I have to say its not a laughing matter. I have had deal with the fall out from a man being crushed from arc flash blast that threw him agaist a cement wall. He was wearing a 40cal/cm^2 arc flash suit at the time and was not burnt. But the engery in the blast was estimated to be 35cal/cm^2 which is enough force to break bones.

It was not a "funny" thing to have to tell his family that this accident should have never happened, as he took all the precautions. In the end it was faulty equipment that caused to the accident.

Anyway use caution, and understand what your are doing before you start poking around.

EDIT:
Oh and this was on 600VAC 4000A service, not a standard household service.

Of course you should take all of these warnings to heart, but this is a very standard DIY projects and is safe to do if you take the proper precautions and follow directions exactly - and get help if you run into anything unexpected that comes up.

Now dimmers really can play games with your power and that can have a big effect on audio, so it's not clear that this is a good idea. But its well within the capabilities of the average homeowner.

True, Link. It isn't a laughing matter. I am a firm believer in Karma and this was a truly Karmic wake up call moment for Ol' Boy. He had been trying to earn a Darwin Award despite my best efforts to veto the vote. Even I tend to let the power company deal with the 660vac stuff 8-)

What Bob said about the dimmer situation itself.

Wow, that's some pretty real stuff. I have to admit I expected it though. I am sorry about your friend Link, as I am assuming 'telling his family what happened' means that experience was his last.

On another note, how does power really effect audio? I postulate that our power is pretty screwed up as it is. Our internet keeps going out for no reason (the router resets itself unexpectedly, it has been replaced twice), sometimes light bulbs burn out for no reason even if they are relatively new, and various other things. So would electricity interfering with audio mean more 60Hz hum, failing equipment, or quite literally 'electrical interference'? And does this have the potential to affect audio even in the 'full' position, or only in attenuated ones?

In regards your computer equipment, you are likely experiencing sags or brownouts. This is where not enough juice goes through the lines. Microprocessors are more susceptible to sags than to spikes IMO. I've lost more equipment to sags than spikes. Every bit of equipment I own is now on a UPS to condition power, and the most important stuff is on full time sine wave units.

In audio, you'll notice sagging power by diminished headroom in preamps and anemic output from power amps. There are other symptoms but those are two very obvious ones.

A dimmer light switch in essence is a rheostat that adds interference into the electric line. Everything attached to that line (leg) is then affected. The cleanest path will always be a simple open/close switch.