Make Your Own Durable Light Dimmers For Less Than $30

Make Your Own Durable Light Dimmers For Less Than $30

on Apr 11th 2012 with 18 comments
Tutorial Details

In today’s tutorial we’re going to take you step by step through everything you need to know to build your own rugged light dimmers. We use these exact dimmers on all our studio and on location shoots. Besides being extremely durable, these little devices provide a wider range of lighting options and are surprisingly valuable when you have to light a scene in a tight location.

Tutorial

Download Tutorial .mov

File size: 528 MB

Adam Everett Miller is everettoptions on Videohive
 
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I am the editor of Aetuts+. I also run Hello Studios as my 9-5 job. I'd love any feedback about Aetuts+ so don't hesitate to drop me a line. ae@tutsplus.com  

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  • AK

    You’re like Jesus with glasses…

  • http://www.helgekallevik.tk Helge Kallevik

    Great tutorial, thank you! Will repost it in my blog :)

  • Brett Perry

    Very helpful tutorial. I would add a couple of tips. First, be careful tightening the ground (green) wires in the box. The tendency for most people is to really tighten these more than neccesary resulting in stripping the threads in the box. If you do strip the threads, you can use a slightly bigger sheet metal screw which will cut it’s own threads. My set up has three such dimmers mounted on a pine board. Keeping the dimmers all in one place saves running from light to light to adjust the dimmers. Each dimmer is numbered and I put a white piece of medical (cloth) tape on each light so the numbers match with the appropriate dimmer. I can simply say, “Number one needs to be lower or higher”, and the person handling the lights can easily get the right dimmer switch avoiding changing the intensity of a light that you’ve already got just right where you want it. Thanks for the tip on setting level marks on the boxes for the switches – I should have thought of that! Keep up the great work.

  • Leigh

    Does this work with halogen? I have several sets of worklights from Hope Depot that are I think are halogen (as I believe the curly type new bulbs are also) that I use to light my greenscreen.

    • http://www.vimeo.com/everettoptions Adam Everett Miller
      Author

      I don’t believe so… I’m not really an electrician, but I’m pretty sure those have to either be on or off.

    • Jon Hungerford

      From an electrician…

      Most halogen lights are dimmable, in fact, I have never seen one that isn’t, unless it uses some special control gear which is unlikely.

      The curly ones you refer to are most likely fluorescent. Some fluorescent lights are dimmable, some are not. You will need to check before you use them on a circuit with a dimmer in, as the transients from a dimmer can wreck the fluorescent globe, even if you haven’t turned the dimmer down at all.

  • http://canyonproducoes.com.br Guilherme Rambo

    Download link doesn’t work =\

    • http://www.vimeo.com/everettoptions Adam Everett Miller
      Author

      works fine for me… the tut download or the shopping list download?

      • http://canyonproducoes.com.br Guilherme Rambo

        @Adam The tut download, this is what I’m getting: http://cl.ly/1t461W1a2N471J013R0i

      • Big Cee

        The Tutorial download is not working for me either Guilherme Rambo.

  • Eric

    Does the 600 watt dimmer really have any implication on how high the watts of your lights can be? What I mean is can you use a 1000 watt light or are you limited to 600 watts and lower?

    • Jon Hungerford

      If you use 1000W of light on a 600W dimmer you will burn it out pretty quickly. The wattage rating of the dimmer refers to the maximum amount of power you can run through the dimmer.

      It’s best to have a dimmer with reasonable headroom, ie if you are using 1000W of light use a 1200W dimmer or something like that. It will let your dimmer last a lot longer.

      Bear in mind that if using fluorescent globes, the actual power draw will be greater than the power rating of the globe due to a characteristic called Power Factor. Therefore, a 100W fluorescent globe could be drawing as much as 150W, depending on its efficiency and control circuit design.

      Having said that, you would rarely be using 1000W of fluorescent light on a single dimmer…

  • Ryan

    I think it’s important to add, that if you try to stick a 1K light on a 600 watt dimmer you’ll burn the dimmer up….literally. I use 1K dimmers for everything so I don’t have to think about it

  • Naomi

    do you have a bug on your shirt?

  • dima

    Ох епт! Мне показалось или он там сам себя расчитывал))) Блиать нельзя такую штуку у нас ставить)) У нас итак лампочки в жопе выносят через детекторы, а если еще и себя рассчитывать можно будет уууу)))

  • http://www.zebravideo.ca video production toronto

    awesome tutorial, thank you. Will try to follow the steps

  • sachin

    awesome tutorial but please put application of light dimmer

  • http://twitter.com/logankriete Logan Kriete

    Wouldn’t connecting the ground wires to the screw & box effectively turn the entire box (since it’s metal and connected to the screw) into the ground, AKA electrified if the current needs to be grounded? Isn’t that potentially dangerous if someone touched the box?