AC Jr. Moonlights

[DMBillies]

I'm currently trying to decide how to mount the moonlights in my hood and I got to thinking about if they would even work with the AC Jr. lunar simulation (which I think is built in to the base unit).

I know Neptune makes dimmable LED's specifically to simulate the lunar cycle, but frankly I'm not dropping the money on some fancy LED's. I already have 6 current lunar moonlights. My hunch is that they will not work since they have a transformer that knocks them from 120V AC to 6V DC. Anyone know for sure? Don't want to burn up a set of moonlights trying to find out.

It also sounds like I could choose to use a regular old blue incandescent bulb for a moonlight and dim it off of the 8th socket in the DC8. Can anyone confirm that will work? I'd be worried about it being too bright, should I just use a really low watt bulb?

I can post this in the neptune forum, but I was hoping to get some more candid responses from people who have tried different things. I haven't even gotten a chance to start controlling stuff since I'm still throwing everything together, but this is a decision that is best as I'm mounting all of my lighting.

Thanks

 

[crumbletop]

If you can plug your moonlights into the wall, then you can plug them into the AC Jr. (DC-8). You could then program the channel just like any lighting channel and tell them when to come on and when to turn off. You can have it do on/off by lunar phase, I think, but will not get dimming. IMO, you would be fine without dimming

 

[DMBillies]

Jack- Yeah, I got ya on the programming on and off and possibly even doing that in general phase with the moon (minus the dimming factor). I am quite positive I can do that. I'm also pretty positive I can't dim the moonlights I currently have, so just programming the channel will work fine.

BUT

Is there a DC8 channel that will dim a regular incandescent bulb? Is this a myth? It seems like (from the manual), that it should work but it isn't very specific about how it works and what effect you get (e.g., moon simulation w/ dimming, moon sim w/o dimming, simple time on/time off, etc.). If I can't dim an incadescent I will most certainly go with my LED moonlights.

 

[crumbletop]

I think you can dim a bulb, but I never tried it. I think you might need an x-10 setup and a special lamp control module to have it dim incandescents.

 

[NeveSSL]

I don't think you can dim on the DC8. Pretty positive you can't. And the lunar module is separate.

I do know that ocd_mariner has the lunar module if you'd like to check with him (or if he'd like to join the conversation *ahem*) if you have any questions. Chuck said he loved them!

Brandon