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What's inside a 20+ year old dimmer switch?

scottiebabe

Not much. The dimmer function failed and only the switch function remained functional.

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The schematic is the same as drawn by this author:

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The Quadrac (an internally triggered triac, a triac + diac) failed short between all three terminals.

Searching for an X25783 datasheet led me to this,

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https://images.100y.com.tw/pdf_file/31-Teccor-Quadrac.pdf 

A more common brand that may be similar could be the 

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https://www.littelfuse.com/media?resourcetype=datasheets&itemid=b4817091-0710-4ac7-a446-a7ffcca0a634&filename=littelfuse_thyristor_q6008lth1led_datasheet.pdf 

The potentiometer used as a rheostat has a switch stacked on top.

Not much inside...

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  • in reply to scottiebabe

    My homeowner insurance company is involved with a company that monitors your electrical system to watch for various faults. They claim to find all manner of physical issues from open neutral wires to arcing wires. Obviously their intention is to minimize electrical fires, which I think is a very good idea. I wish I'd had this service twenty years ago!

    For the curious, It's State Farm and Whisper Labs ("Ting"). So far it's only warned me that I've had power interruptions, which I find more useful than the old 'quarter on the ice cube tray' method.