A simple dimmer using a MOSFET for AC driven lamp

This paper presents a simple dimmer using a MOSFET for AC driven lamp such as AC LED and incandescent lamp. The control method of the proposed dimmer is pulse width control (PWM) method. Compared with the conventional phase-controlled dimmer, the proposed PWM dimmer can produce sine wave and it does not cause harmonics problem. Furthermore, because the MOSFET is free from latching & holding current, the proposed dimmer using a MOSFET has wide dimming range and the proposed control method does not amplify the light flicker due to independence of the input voltage. Therefore, the proposed PWM dimmer can be used as the AC driven lamp´s dimmer instead of the conventional phase-controlled dimmer. The experimental result shows that the proposed PWM dimmer has good performances.