way OT: CMOS / triac AC dimmer circuit

Started by onboard, March 14, 2005, 10:35:39 AM

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onboard

I'm pretty hesistant to post this, but might as well. I was given a touch light dimmer circuit to check out that was a lightning stike victim.

A 10k resistor at the triac went fairly closed, 242ohms. I'm guessing the three of the four Si diodes showing reverse voltage are blown, they're measuring 1.5V - not a zener rating that I've found.

The control IC part number is unmarked, the stamp is just Tashin's number for the whole circuit as a product. I traced the circuit and looked up some data sheets.

Is it a good guess that the IC is one of the commonly available chips designed for this type of circuit? Maybe I could swap in almost any adjustable mode 8-DIP package. Is it likely the triac is dead since it's gate resistor went closed? Caps blown? BTW, nothing on the pcb is visibly burned...

This might seem silly since these circuits sold cheap as replacements, but none of them I've found will fit inside this particular lamp.

And I can imagine there could be some stompbox relevancy to a circuit like this. Maybe?

edit I have no intention of tinkering with this until I know it's 100% because it involves 110V AC.
-Ryan
"Bound to cover just a little more ground..."

onboard

I was wrong about one of the resistors going closed - once I desoldered it from the pcb it measured good. The low reading was actually 242ohms between the triac terminal 1 and gate. I don't know if that's a clue.

So I'm left with three diodes showing reverse voltage that's too low to be zener - I think - a triac that could be dead, and a mystery IC.

From the looks of the schems in app notes for other circuits like this, the diode pair next to the IC are 1N4148 - I have those handy from distortion builds. The other is 9.1V zener, haven't run across any of those yet.

I'll drop this...it's just pretty cool to have gotten involved in stompbox building and realize "Hey, reading a schematic and looking up a data sheet might actually have some other use *beyond* building guitar effects!"
-Ryan
"Bound to cover just a little more ground..."