FINCHforum

Does anyone use a automatic daylight extender?I am looking for a unit that will automatically turn on approximately 25 60 watt globes,as a dimer and be capable at turning them of at different times of the day.similar to this one.
http://www.finchsociety.org/cfa/dimmer/dimmer.htm
But without the price tag approx $700 for unit only.Any thoughts out there.

The dimming part is the costly part of this exercise. I looked at doing something similar when I first set up part of my shed as a bird room. I concluded that the costs involved weren't worth the benefits. It's not only the initial outlay to get it up and running, but also the extra power consumption of incandescent bulbs over flouros. 25 x 60 watts versus 25 x 12 watts is a big difference over 12 months. In the end, I installed a flouro in each aviary and 2 central flouros for the cabinets. I have one low wattage night light on a timer that comes on just prior to the others going off.

If you come up with a cheaper alternative, I'd love to know!

So I could have low wattage coming on before the fluros in the morning?I need it over winter when its dark when I go to work in the morning.luckily I only work 7 days a month,the down side is 7 are nights as well.

I know this is not a dimmer lighting set up that I have, but I use a string of mini-Christmas lights hung on the wall behind the cages that come on just before the other lights in the bird room go off. These mini-lights stay on all night (as a night light) and go off just after the other day lights come on in the morning. There is about a 5 minute overlap at both ends of the timer.

Mini-lights on at 7:10pm - Day lights off at 7:15pm
Mini-lights off at 5:15am - Day lights on at 5:10am

I do believe there are now CFL bulbs that are dimmable. Finally. As I have some natural light entering my aviary I just let timers switch between overhead lights and night light a half hour before/after dusk/sunrise, and let nature handle the dimming.

This is an OLD thread but I have an idea that might help partially.

The problem is, the dimmer does not work properly to turn the lights ON, it goes to full brightness, then you set the dimness. So it goes; ON, dim10, dim20, dim30 ... dim100. Yeah that is a dumb way to do it.
But the dim to OFF works just fine. You can set the dim % to whatever you want, example: dim90, dim80, dim70 ... dim10, then OFF. The lamp will actually turn off before you hit the dim10, just try that with a dimmer in your house and you will see what I mean. The lamp will turn off before you reach the lowest dimmer setting.

The product is called X-10, and you program the command module with your computer. Then it will control various remote modules. The dimmer module will ONLY work with incadescent lamps, not flourescent lamps. Flourescent lamps are controlled by an ON/OFF module w/o dimming capability.

BUT, the X-10 system is not w/o issues. Electrical noise on the circuit can interfer with the signals. And the control module has to be on the same side of the circuit as the receivers. What this means is for example, my control module will only control receivers on half the house. The other half of the house is on a different side of the circuit. So put the control module and receivers in the same room and you should be OK.

I have not done this...yet. But I plan to, as soon as I get my act together.

The way I plan to do it is something like this:
- ON/OFF module turn ON the florescent lamp at 7am.
- dimmer module turns ON the incandecent lamp at 650pm.
- ON/OFF module turns OFF the flourescent lamp at 7pm.
- dimmer module turns dimmer to 80% at 710pm, 60% at 715pm, 40% at 720pm, 20% at 725pm
- dimmer module turns OFF at 730pm

Sounds good,had seen something similar on the net in the USA.made by 3m cant think of its name Smart switch?

Already got the auto dimmer now.