How to reduce the brightness of a garland of incandescent lamps?

Question

Do it yourself

I assembled a garland of 15 incandescent lamps, each lamp is 40 watts. Everything is connected in parallel, the circuit is simple:



The problem is that the total power turned out to be 600 W and this joy rather burns out the eyes. I tried to put a dimmer (here is this one - https://www.chipdip.ru/product0/8004075824 ), but after about a minute it crackled and expired. Although it has a maximum power of 1300 watts, apparently this miracle of Chinese engineering does not hold more than 100 watts. There was an idea to put a diode in the gap in order to statically reduce the brightness by half, but, unfortunately, I have little understanding of the topic and cannot choose the right one.

Actually, the question is for connoisseurs - is it possible to do this, and if so, which diode is suitable for a circuit of 15 40-watt light bulbs? Or maybe there is some more efficient way to lower the brightness?

Answer 1

The diode needs a powerful one, at least 3 amperes. But with it, flickering will be noticeable.
I would probably connect the lamps in pairs in series, adding one more - to get 8 parallel chains of two lamps. Then they will burn in full, and there is nothing to burn out.

Answer 2

Or maybe there is some more efficient way to lower the brightness?

A step-down transformer

Answer 3

You need to buy a normal dimmer, not this Chinese shit. The dimmer on the link can hardly withstand 130 watts, it was doomed to burn out.
It's a pity, but even in the chip dip, Chinese shit is sold with parameters that are 10 times higher.