Patent · US Expired

Single wire, multiple phase remote dimming system

US5821704A · kind A · utility

30Cited by
1References
20Claims
0Family size

Assignee

Inventors

Key dates

Filing dateMay 12, 1997
Grant dateOct 13, 1998
Priority date
Expiry dateMay 12, 2017

Classification

  • Technology area (CPC H)Electricity
  • CPC primaryH05B47/18
  • WIPO fieldElectrical machinery, apparatus, energy
  • WIPO sectorElectrical engineering

Abstract

A lighting control and dimming system 10 utilizes a single traveler conductor for transmitting analog data signals corresponding to a particular light intensity level of dimmers DIM 1, DIM 2, DIM 3, DIM 4, . . . , DIM N in a dimmer group. A predetermined binary data word is retrieved from the read-only memory of a controller that may be remote from the dimmers, and is transmitted serially in an analog pulse train over the traveler conductor to each dimmer unit. Remote signaling and selection of a specific scene are performed independently of the phase of the applied AC line voltage by sampling the logic values of logic high to logic low and logic low to logic high transitions of a zero cross signal. Dimmers enabled by the transmitted analog data signal produce a predetermined scene at a particular brightness level corresponding with one of the stored binary numbers.

Source: USPTO / EPO open patent data. Objective bibliographic and citation counts.