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Low voltage AC control Printable version

https://auschristmaslighting.com/wiki/Low-voltage-AC-control

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This article refers to historical methods that are generally not used anymore

Low voltage AC control (under 50 Volts AC) is Mains supplied power that is transformed to a lower safer voltage. This was mainly done in Australia due to the danger that 240 volts poses, however the adoption of RGB and LED lighting has seen this method be superseded by Low voltage DC control.

Controlling low voltage AC lights requires more work compared to mains power control. A transformer is used to step down the power to a low AC voltage and then connected to the secondary non-powered side of a Light-O-Rama AC controller, i.e. the left bank (channels 1-8) of a CTB16PC AC controller. This avoids running individual transformers off the control output where they may be damaged from fade/twinkle/shimmer effects. The primary bank must still run at 110/240 volts AC to supply power to the controller's CPU. This means only half of the controller can be used in this manner.