Lighting Control is a must for every audiophile and theater junkie

[pfslai]

The dimmers and especially if you use compact fluorescent bulbs generates a lot of noise on the lines.

Originally Posted by kennyt

I enjoy shopping and buying things.. I happen to be really good at talking myself into buying things!

I have been toying with this project for a while now and have talked myself out of it so many times. I fear interference into my power lines from the units but with the dedicated lines I now have that should be less of an issue so maybe it's time to do it.

The wife gave me the green light if I want to do it, and I am actively looking into it now, so it likely will be done in the next few months as time permits.

[kennyt]

Fluorescent gone except for the bathrooms until I remodel them, dimmers are notorious for line noise. Currently I run my gear off a power regenerator so I don't know if they are affected by that anymore, shouldn't be but...

BTW I talked myself out of the lighting system, I just didn't see it as necessary for my 3,500 sg-ft house, not light switch is that far away!

[deacongreg]

Well, that only means you now have the green light for something else. Maybe another watch?

[MatrixDweller]

I have a 2 zone Lutron Grafik Eye and I can control with my harmony remote. I wished I had bought a 3 or a 4 zone to give more lighting control. I have one zone for the 8 pot lights and the other for the 4 wall sconces. In hind sight splitting the front 2 lights would have added a lot of value. I could have ran the wires for the zones and joined them at the box for the time being until my budget allowed for a 3 or 4 zone controller. A star topology would have been best. Hind sight is 20/20 though right.

Since I have 12 lights powers by the dimmer they are on one dedicated circuit. This would reduce the possible feedback. It's not a good idea to have the lighting on the same circuit as your gear anyway. One thing I found out the hard way was that the BR bulbs tend to hum when dimmed. Replacing them with PAR halogen bulbs stopped that.

I would definitely recommend a Lutron Grafik Eye or similar to anyone constructing a home theater. It adds an extra wow feature when you can gradually dim the lights down to a set level remotely when your movie starts. Good planning is vital though to set up zones.

Many electricians aren't that savvy when it comes to lighting layout. A lot of the time they just do the basics and/or wire things to a schematic that's already been laid out for them. A skilled interior decorator or lighting consultant is a better bet. They can recommend the number and type of lights needed and zones to use.

[rlpiii]

I have a 4 zone Lutron Grafik Eye. I like it a lot. It was ~$1k for just the Grafik Eye, so be prepared to spend some $ you if want to go this route.

[MatrixDweller]

I guess X10 can give you comparable functionality for a lot less money. It can also be retrofitted in many cases so you don't need to redo any drywall (or very little). Conceivably for ~$1K you could do the better part of your home rather than one room. X10 can basically turn your home electrical grid into a network with controllable nodes. If I ever have to do it again I'll probably go the X10 route.