The novel feature of this lamp dimmer is that the circuit is totally solid-state and uses no mechanical switches nor potentiometers, The lamp can be switched on and off and faded up and down simply by placing a finger on a touch plate. The heart of the circuit is « Siemens $5668 IC. This IC is basically a triac phase-controller, i.e. the lamp brightness is controlled by varying the point in the mains eycle at which the triac triggers, as shown in figuze 1 ‘The sooner the triac is triggered the greater the conduction angle of the triac and the more power is delivered to the lamp. The later that the triac triggers the less power is delivered Varying the conduction angle of the (Pu = 200 [PL = 400 ¥, Trae must be cools) triac from 30° to 150° gives control from almost full power down to almost zero. Figure 2 shows how the $566B varies the triac conduction angle in response to finger contact with the touch plate, Touching the plate briefly (60 to 400 ms) switches lamp on at the brightness it was set to when last used, Touching the pla briefly a second time switches the lamp off If the plate is touched for longer than 400 ms the lamp will come on and then start to fade up and down as the IC periodically increases and decreases the conduction angle. When the finger is removed from the touch plate the lamp will stay at whatever brightness it has reached. The complete circuit of a touch dimmer using the $566B is shown in figure 3. This also shows alternative possibilities for controlling the circuit, such as replacing the touch plate by a pushbutton or using multiple touch contacts, (Siemens application) 7-90 — elektor july/eugust 1978 olw on -e2xa7/cis 2 = 184004 L1= Toros choke col 9 Tri = PL < 200 W! TC OSA6O or any other 1A type PL = 400 W: TOC 02860 or any other 2 A Type (rac must be cooled) Toon a ' 100 touch dimmer