Last winter, Studio960 posted his infamous Pimp my Pup thread. One mod I really liked out of that was the interior LED lighting and the fact that he put them on a dimmer. I bought that same dimmer (there are nicer ones out now that are even less expensive), and recently added LED strip lighting in place of the small light fixtures he used under my countertops. They're not visible at all unless you're on the floor. One of the things I like the best about this mod is having interior lights, if I need to get at something when the PUP is all closed up. and are on full bright. This is the same as the first pic (sort of worthless), but on full dim. I used 24ga alarm wire between the sections and added a 36 LED SMD panel light to the dome light which is now on the same dimmer.
As you enter the PUP, I added two switches (one for indoor one for outdoor lights) and a 12v receptical on the left (just above the fire extinguisher). The dimmer is mounted inside the cabinet right behind the switches if you will. It's remote control from a little key fob type like the size for car door locks. Had I bought one of the dimmers that are out now, I would have just put it where I put the switches.are. I'll take some pics tomorrow. Btw, these really workedgreat this past weekend and dimdown enough to be night lights for my children.
I would be curious if you are now experiencing any RFI noise in your HDTV signals and other vhf/uhf radio equipment such as WX ALERT RADIOS... The LED dimmer controllers i was looking at really produced alot of RFI NOISE... I have to watch all of these type items that may interfere with my other hobby being Ham Radio haha... Roy Ken
C'mon how much noise can hard switching FETs cause? (Joking of course). For anyone interested. These dimmers are PWM type. They switch on and off between a few hundred to a few 1000 times per second to control brightness. While their operating frequency is WAY below any RF commonly used. The FETs (the things that actually do the switching) "ring" (oscillate) when turned on or off unless they are designed with proper snubber circuits and controlled dV/dT (slowed down). Those ringing frequencies can get way up into several MHz. Tiny MHz noise bursts repeated 1000 times per second and transmitted over several feet of wire. It's a radio transmitter. Its range however is something else entirely. I'll leave that up to the HAMs to figure out.
