Smart home with your own hands. How to manage the power load?

Question

Do it yourself

I have long wanted to make a "smart system" in the apartment. I plan to repair and it will be possible to lay all the necessary wires. I develop the system myself. I was thinking of managing modules via 1wire, which, however, does not matter at the moment for the current question.

I want to control a simple load using a relay. In this case, there will be two states: on and off. But I can’t think of anything to smoothly change the brightness of the lighting. I am an engineer by education, but the element base has long been out of the question.

Tell me how and what to control the load using a low-level signal (control module on the microcontroller) in this case?

Answer 1

Bresenham's algorithm in thyristor power controllers .
The microcontroller controls the optothyristors.

Answer 2

di_halt has a great article easyelectronics.ru/upravlenie-moshhnoj-nagruzkoj-peremennogo-toka.html

Answer 3

Those. do you want to make the light bulb dimmer? But this will only work with an incandescent light bulb. And what will you do if you decide to replace the lamps with mercury or LEDs (I’m not sure about LEDs, they can and can be controlled)?
IMHO, the best lighting control option is to turn on the number of lamps you need. Those. 1-lamp - minimum light, 5 lamps - maximum light.

Answer 4

I'm doing the same renovation right now.
Instead of relays, I use triacs (plus drivers for them). 20 rubles apiece. Unlike relays, they are more durable, silent and allow you to smoothly adjust the light of incandescent lamps.
I use microcontrollers and I have smooth light control done like this. A circuit is assembled on a pair of transistors that sends a signal to the microcontroller when the mains voltage passes through 0. And the microcontroller counts the time (100 percent) / 10000 seconds from this signal, and sends a pulse to the triac. The triac opens and passes current until the mains voltage passes through 0.

Answer 5

I'm going to make a "Smart Home" too, but I want to use ZWave. For ZWave technology, dimmers for such a task are produced by Duwi. For X10 (wiring signal) there is also, even domestic production (with feedback). Is there any way to customize them?
Why 1Wire? Why not wireless or email. wires? I somehow imagined how much it takes to ditch to hide this wire for control, I leaned towards other options.

Answer 6

If memory serves, this thing is popularly called a dimmer :)