Wow, what an educational thread!

JJP

"if it is non buffered, that means that when the relay contact is open 0 volts is getting to the equipment. When the relay is closed 115 volts is getting to the equipment. As soon as that relay closes and you SLAM the power supply with all that current and voltage"

"Buffered will vary the voltage from 0 to 115 volts in small steps or increments so fast that you really can,t tell. "

Thes are your words, Larry....i see you're trying to backpeddle now...how sad.

By the way, i did get the ASCII insult directed at me...it's written in decimal, not hex...but maybe that birdsnest got in the way...too much for your little brain i assume.
Thank you for giving up on you 'AC buffering', it was a stupid thing to begin with. Hope you've finally learned something here.
Have a nice day.

Here's the thing with AC. Well, with the dimmers that I have been programming for the past 6 years. They have the ability to handle 255 presets each. The program I write for the microprocessor controlled dimmers, goes like this. I can over a 8 second period macro 100 presets to ramp the voltage from 0 to 110. In 1 volt steps. If I use it to control a light or lamp for example. Like a softstart. The program uses a form of binary code to do this. Not a true binary but almost. It also takes buffers to carry out the higher functions of the protocol also. The buffers used with the dimmers to control the ramping of the AC don't really exist. They are simply for the means of directing the binary signal flow in and out of the microprocessors. They only exist in cyber space figurelivety speaking. Without these buffers in my Panja dimmers or even X10 for the sake of talking, the switches will not work. If I just try to send the information into the microprocessor it will not know what to do with this information. The string needs to be buffered to put the code in the right order for the processor to act upon it's protocal.

If I want to I could write a 2 second macro to do 50 preset's to ramp the voltage from 0 to 110 in 3 volt increments so the input rail is not slammed with all that voltage. Do you see where I am going with this. As an engineer do you see the benifit of doing this.
It happens so fast that the stero equipment really has no time to react to the ramping of the voltage upon start up. Thus giving a fair amount of time for the power supply caps to charge and not be slamed either.

This technology is nothing new. Nor is it even cutting edge either. But it is a very cool way to control stuff not using X10 or a standard wall dimmer made by Leviton or others. This technology is not cheep either. You most likely will not see it in a house although it exsist in houses. I have 32 of them all doing closser to the 255 presets . And it is all controlled from my stero remote control. And various 12" touch screen's through out my house.

Good luck Robby...

"I can over a 8 second period macro 100 presets to ramp the voltage from 0 to 110. In 1 volt steps"

What electronic element does this...yes i can see the benefit of 'ramping the voltage up'. but i am asking how. How do you ramp a voltage, in 1 volt steps, over an 8 second period, from 0 to 110V? when the voltage in question is already being ramped up from 0 to 186Vp, 120 times per second.
Unless you've patented some secret device to do this, the only way it could be done is if the controling element was a linear device, such as a transistor, variable resistor, or variac...all but the latter are very inefficient at doing this, and the variac is big heavy and expensive.So, please explain to me HOW this is done.
On the topic of buffering, you called 'ramoing the AC voltage up, buffering. Now you're talking about data buffers etc...they're not related.

The Micro processor has 255 presets each preset is defined as a 1 volt addition up to 120 = 120 volts.
I can program a variable into the program that asks the preset to ramp from 0 to 110 in 8 seconds. to do this takes a lot of code to perform this task. It is easer to write the program to vary or step up the voltage in steps of 10. 0 to 10 to 20 to 30 ect. If I define a variable in a percent factor and tell it to ramp to 25% and hold untill it is told else wise. That would be preset 135 if I remember right. 25% of actual volts at the wall socket. e.g. 25% of X = ??? X=110. I have never asked what is the method how this works. So I can not give you a for sure answer. Butit is a good question. The first I might add too.

The answer in your thread is right on your last statement, Iwas a little missleading. I should have gone into more detail on the matter.

What ever happen to Tim. Looks like he gave up on us.