On Tue, 20 Dec 2005 23:00:43 -0800, philkryder wrote:

"....It depends how you count "steps"."

Indeed.

I suppose something like "the number of distinct voltage changes per
cycle" might be a good first approximation of something to call steps
and to count.

In your example I would count something like "3" or maybe "2" or "4" -
I always have trouble with boundary conditions...

Heh. Programmers run into this all of the time - it's called "the
fencepost effect". If you have a 100' fence, and there's a post
every 10', how many posts do you need?

Or this one: Imagine a short staircase, say to a "sunken living
room" or some such, of 3 steps:


------------
|
-----
|
-----
|
---------------------------

Now, if you had three apples, you'd be able to count them, 1, 2, 3, and
point at the middle one.

OK, now go up those three steps, counting along, and point at the middle
one. Then go down, counting again, and _now_ point at the middle one.

Isn't that cute? ;-)

In any case, it seems that the device you had was effective.
And the only thing I could imagine as having fewer steps would be a
similar device that didn't have the pause at zero...

And yet it was effective -
I wonder if it would have worked with the light dimmer mentioned
above...

I think very probably not very well, if at all, based on what others have
said.

But, if you're on an inverter already, I think there'd be a more efficient
kind of light dimmer that you could find, maybe that runs off the battery
voltage. Or sync up your triac or SCR dimmer to the inverter itself -
hmmmm.... (this one had a sync in/out so that they could be paralleled.)

Thanks!
Rich