Project question

Hey guys I’m in the process of making a scented wax melter. The heating element is similar to the one shown in the picture. We want to be able to make the temperature and the light bulb (which is for show not for heating purpose) adjustable. Can I do that with a simple rotary dimmer switch?

The heating resistor is a 24W unit and the light bulb a 4W LED. The dimmer I have in mind is a 300 W rotary base plastic-enclosed dimmer.

A simple dimmer will work fine to control a heating element that is resistive.

The LED will likely not work. LED’s require regulated DC, and the power supply to convert from line voltage AC to DC will probably have a problem with the output of a cheap dimmer. Unless the LED claims to be dimmable and the dimmer claims to be LED lighting compatible I would expect overheating followed by failure.

Mike B

Should work for the heater.

As for the light source, (I know you just say that the image is similar, but not necessarily indicative of the unit you have) are you sure it’s a LED and not a neon bulb? I assume it’s meant to flicker, so an LED would require some sort of circuitry to do that (internal or external), whereas neons are capable of being designed to do that somehow.

If it was a plain old LED with a current limiting resistor, then I suspect a dimmer would work just fine. But with any flicker circuitry, all bets are off. It might work and it might not.

Actually, I don’t know how a flickering neon bulb would react to a dimmer. Try it out and report back!

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Thanks for the replies guys! The LED that is shown in the picture will be replaced by an edison light bulb. I ordered all the supplies so I’ll let you know if it ends up working.

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Ok guys I got the parts and put it together quickly to see if it works, and it does. This is with a 60W normal edison bulb, so not an LED. I was a little afraid that the heating element would not get as hot because of this but it seemed to work just fine.