SCR dimming circuits as stepdown voltage regulator question

[fretzburner]

Hello, I have a vox lil night train head and it's 100v from japan. Is it possible and safe to use scr circuits to regulate my 220v mains to 100v? The dimmer module is small enough to be installed inside the head chassis.

Thanks,
Barry

[PRR]

NO!

The dimmer makes VERY ugly part-wave. This is OK for lamps and heaters because they average-out the wave over time, many milliSeconds. Into a DC rectifier, you are likely to still have the peaks of the 220V wave putting OVER-voltage on the circuit.

And I know this because I have stunk-up the house blowing-up things with SCR dimmers. They should only be used on "thermal" loads: incandescent lamps, heaters, and *some* motors (but not the one I blew-up!!).

Get a proper step-down TRANSFORMER, or a replacement power transformer.

[fretzburner]

Thanks Mr.PRR for the informative reply. I avoided early new year blast

Merry Christmas to all !!!
Barry