Embedded System Design EE712

Project Report
Group 7
Multi Load Dimmer
Chandan Mithur (153079032)
Meet Haria (153079029)
Sadaf Parwaiz (153079016)

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Table of Contents

Contents Page No.

1. Abstract 03
2. Introduction 04
3. Problem Statement 04
4. Litrature Review 04
5. Design 05
5.1Block Diagram 05
5.2 Power Supply Section 05
5.3 Zero crossing detector implementation 07
5.4 ESP8266 and Arduino Microcontroller 08
5.5 Fractional Cycle control circuit 09
5.6 ESP8266 NodeMCU Wifi Module 10
5.7 NodeMCU Lua Script 11
5.8 Arduino App 12
5.9 Voltage Compensation 12

6. Conclusion 13
7. References 13

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 1. Abstract
This paper presents the development of multi load dimmer using a TRIAC control
circuitry. TRIAC is a bidirectional semiconductor controlled rectifier which can be turned on
in either of the direction by providing triggering pulse at its gate. In this dimmer, the current
is not passed through the load in entire positive and negative cycles but in fractions of the
cycles. The fractions of the cycles are controlled by providing firing pulse to its gate terminal
with respect to zero crossing pulse. The firing angle for load is provided by the user through
an android app. It is received by the wi-fi module over the wifi network and it is then
processed by the arduino microcontroller. The firing pulse generated by the microcontroller
turns on the TRIAC for specific fraction of cycle. This eventually controls the average
voltage across the load. This dimmer has replaced the traditional resistive and capacitive
dimmer. These dimmer are efficient as losses will be only present only at the time of
switching.

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 2. INTRODUCTION
A dimmer is a power electronic device for controlling average voltage across the load. It
is typically used for lighting , motor speed control and home appliances. The use of dimmers
offers many advantages to customers. One advantage is that dimmers provide way to adjust
the lighting level of a bulb or lamp. Dimmer circuit also provides energy conservation. In
these dimmers the TRIAC is triggered into conduction after some delay with respect to zero
crossing detector. That delay information is provided by the user through an android app. The
user sends delay information over the wifi network. So after zero crossing is detected, the
arduino microcontroller gives firing pulse after the delay as provided by the user. This gives
chopped sine wave. This mechanism controls the average area under the sine curve. This
eventually controls the average voltage across the load.

3. Problem Statement:
To develop a Multi-load Electronic Dimmer Circuit for controlling average value of
voltage across the load.

4. Literature review
 R. Baris Dai et al [1] proposed dimmer circuit for controlling three different light
sources incandescent bulb, CFL and LED. Different kind of light sources are studied
and tested with AC and DC sources. Experiments were performed in order to observe
the electrical characteristic of the dimmer and optical characteristic of the lighting
devices when they are used with the dimmer circuit. The experimental results showed
that the proposed dimmer can be used with these kinds of lighting devices within
specific output voltage ranges.
 Jong-Hyun Kim et al [2] proposed a simple dimmer using a MOSFET for AC driven
lamp such as AC LED and incandescent lamp. The control method of the proposed
dimmer is pulse width control (PWM) method. Compared with the conventional
phasecontrolled dimmer, the proposed PWM dimmer can produce sine wave and it
does not cause harmonics problem.

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5. Design
5.1 Block Diagram

Fig. 1 Block Diagram

5.2 Power Supply Section

The 230V 50Hz ac main supply is stepped down by a step down center tapped
transformer (12V - 0 - 12V). The output of center tapped transformer is provided to to
full wave rectifier circuit. The output of full wave rectifier circuit is given to filter and
voltage regulator 7805. This provides stable 5V dc supply. This is used to power up zero
crossing detector circuit, arduino microcontroller and ESP8266 wifi module.

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Fig. 2 Power Supply Voltages

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 5.3 Zero crossing detector implementation

Fig. 3 Zero Crossing Detector

Zero crossing detector is implemented by optocoupler H11AA1. It is a bidirectional
optically coupled isolator consisting two inverse parallel LEDs. When the output of center tap
transformer is between ± 1.2V, both the diodes are off and enventually BJT is off. So the
output of ZCD at zero crossings is at 5V. When input voltage goes above 1.2V or below -
1.2V, one of the LED will turn on. This makes opto transistor turns on and eventually output
of ZCD will be zero volt. The amplitude of ZCD pulse is independent of the fluctuations of
ac mains. If it would have dependent on amplitude of ac mains, then any fluctuations on
mains would have impact of zero crossing pulse amplitude. This would have damaged the
microcontroller pins

Fig. 4 ZCD output

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5.4 Wifi Module ESP8266 and Arduino microcontroller.

Fig. 5 Wi-Fi and Microcontroller interface

ESP8266 wifi module allows to host the application and wifi networking
functions from another application processor. It serves as a wifi adapter. The user
sends the firing angle data depending upon requirement. The data is sent in the form
of string. The string consist of which load is to be comtrolled, its on/off status, and
delay of firing pulse. The string is received by wifi module. It processes the string and
communicates with microcontroller via TxD/RxD pin. Microcontroller also receives
zero crossing pulse. The firing pulse is given out of microcontroller to TRIAC circuit
with respect to zero crossing pulse after specified delay as provided by the user. The
variation in firing angle can control the average voltage across the load.

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5.5 Fractional cycle control circuit.

Fig. 6 Fraction Cycle Control Circuit

The fractional cycle control circuit consist of opto triac MOC3021 and triac
BT136. The firing pulse is given to the base of BJT BC547. BJT provides current
boosting as required by MOC3021.This will turn on opto triac thereby providing
triggering pulse to the gate of BT136. It will then remain on for that fraction of the
cycle.

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5.6 ESP8266 NodeMCU wifi module
NodeMCU is a board with wifi and processor. It needs to be loaded with firmware
version 0.9.6 . It uses arduino IDE (Esplorer). The code for nodeMCU is written in
lua script. It takes ID, status and firing angle information and processes and outputs
string to the arduino via UART communication.
In nodeMCU communication takes place in three ways
 AT commands
 HTTP URL
 MQTT

Here HTTP URL protocol is used for communication between nodeMCU and mobile
device. Selected HTTP URL uses GET method for communication. NodeMCU acts
as the access point (server) and mobile device acts as the client.

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5.7 NodeMCU Lua script
Flow Chart

Fig. 7 Flow Chart

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5.8 Android App
Android Application is created using Android Studio IDE. The user gives the data using
the GUI interface. This information given by the interface is sent through the wifi
asynchronously.

There are 3 functions implemented in the application

1. Slider: The range of values is set from 0 to 100. If the value is less than 10, it is
considered the appliance need to be switched off. Else if the value is used to set the
power level.
2. Reset: The time for which the appliance need to reduce the power level gradually is
set in this implementation.
3. Communication: The value set from the slider and reset profile setting is reformatted
to https://URL form and sent to the wifi server through an asynchronous function.
This function is used to send URL through mobile to the server.

We are using GET method wherein, the user data is encoded with parameters, these
parameters are concatenated and prefixed with the server IP address.

5.9 Voltage Compensation

Line voltage compensation is very important for dimmer circuit. If ac main voltage
fluctuates, then firing angle needs to be controlled accordingly otherwise the average
voltage across the load will also vary which is undesirable. So we have adopted a
mechanism which ensures that average voltage across the load remains constant.
Using this concept we can proceed as follows.

The average voltage across the load is given by,

Vavg = (Vm/π)(1+cosα )

where Vm is the peak voltage of the ac mains.

α is the firing angle.
α is also given as (πd/10) , d is the delay wrt zero crossing detector in milli sec.

Let Vm1 is the fluctuated mains voltage and corresponding new firing angle be α1 and
d1 be the corresponding new delay wrt zero crossing detector.

The average voltage should remain constant. So we can write as

(Vm/π)(1+cosα ) = (Vm1/π)(1+cosα1 )

d1 = (10/ π) cos-1 [(Vm/ Vm1)(1+cosα) -1] ……………………. (1)

The above equation is implemented in arduino code. The filtered output of the power
supply section is stepped down to 3.19V using voltage divider. The voltage
compensation is designed for 230 ± 50 V. The stepped down voltage is read into

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 arduino microcontroller and converted by an internal ADC between 0 to 1023. 5V
corresponds to 1023. So accordingly, the ADC ouput value at 230 ± 50 V is known.

Vrms (Volts) Voltage after resistor Output of ADC

divider circuit
180 2.49 795

230 3.19 653

280 3.88 511

Ideally ADC output should remain at 653 if there is no voltage fluctuation. If there is
any fluctuations in the ac mains voltage, then there would be corresponding change in
ADC output value. The new value of ADC output is employed in the equation (1) to
calculate the new delay.
So equation (1) is modified as
d1 = (10/ π) cos-1 [(653/k)(1+cosα) -1]
where k is the ADC output.

6. Conclusion
Control of voltage across load is achieved using multi load dimmer by controlling it
through mobile using an android app. Line voltage compensation is also achieved.
This allows multi load dimmer to be robust against line voltage fluctuations.

7. References
[1] R. Baris Dai et al, A Dimmer Circuit for Various Lighting Devices, IEEE conference
paper.

[2] Jong-Hyun Kim , Jee-Hoon Jung , Myung-Hyo Ryu, and Ju-Won Baek , A Simple
Dimmer Using a MOSFET for AC Drive Lamp, IEEE conference paper.

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