Facta #2

SUPER TRIAC
DIMMER
by Lucas Mafra
On this #2 issue of FACTA magazine I introduce my friend Super
TRIAC (Triode for Alternating Current): BTA41600B. I met him when
I asked the electronics seller: what is the most nervous triac you have?
It all started when I was interning, making fixtures with our friend the "Goose".
He has huge old incandescente lamps, of 300, 500, 750, and up to 1000 Watts!
They are giant in comparisson with a simple 100W lamp. The most powerful we
usually find in the market is of 200W. They stopped making these beautiful large
lamps because more efficient alternatives emerged, and they became a rarity. The
problem was finding a powerful enough DIMMER to build fixtures with these
beautiful great lamps since we were able to find in the shops only 150 to 400W
dimmers. Solutionatic: to replace the TRIAC, the dimmer’s soul. Problem
solved. I could have used the TIC263, which is also powerful (25A), but the price
difference between it and the "super BTA" (40A) was very small.
In this edition’s instructional video you will learn how to build a professional
lamp in which you will be able to install a common DIMMER and later replace
the TRIAC. For enthusiasts and collectors of electronics, we present in Figure
1 a schematic from the Popular Electronics of 1967, where LP1 is a small neon
lamp. In Figure 2 you can check a more recent scheme, taken from the website of
our master Newton C. Braga.
If you use the dimmer for a greater than 1000W charge, motors or resistors, you
should use a heat radiator at the triac and also porcelain connectors in order to
withstand the heat.
References:
Dimmer control:
www.newtoncbraga.com.br/index.php/eletronica/57-artigos-e-projetos/6507-controle-universal-de-potencia-art997
TRIAC BTA41600B and family datasheets:
http://www.datasheetcatalog.org/datasheet/stmicroelectronics/7469.pdf
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