[sdiy] outlet as variac? calling all EEs...

[harry]

NOOOO !!!!

The Variac passes a sine wave... the light dimmer chops the AC into nasty
shapes.  The light dimmer is for resistive loads only. Hooking it to a
transformer
can cause unbalanced firing, saturation, death of transformer...

Don't do it!

H^) harry

Alex Dickey wrote:

> okay, here's a weird question.  i've got an old apartment that has kinda
> weird wiring.  there's an outlet in the living room that's on the light
> switch, but said light switch has a dimmer on it.  this has always been
> annoying for me because to use anything on that outlet, you have to turn the
> lights on full bore, regardless of available light.
>
> this outlet came to mind after i realized that i need some kind of variac to
> bring up my newly re-capped tube amp.  if i plug the amp into the outlet,
> and turn the dimmer up slowly, is this the same idea as a variac?
>
> what's wrong with the logic on this one?  it can't be that easy...
>
> alex