I have dimmer switches on just about every light in my house. I really love it. We were setting up some of our many Christmas trees around the house and I knew there had to be dimmer switches for Christmas lights that you could buy at any local mart.
To my surprise there were no such products readily available. I did later on find some online, but who wants to wait? When you can build one yourself cheap and easy!
I found a site that detailed exactly what I wanted to do. I followed their directions to the letter.
You need a basic dimmer switch, probably around $6, a short household extension cord $1.50, and an electrical box, these are about 45 cents. You will also need 2 wire nuts, I already had those, but will only cost you a few cents if you need to buy some.
Basically you want to spice the dimmer between one of the wires on your new extension cord and enclose the wiring inside the box.
It took only about 5 minutes of "wiring" it was done and worked just as I had imagined.
The other bonus to having your lights running at a dimmed level is it increases the life of your lights, and saves you some $ on electricity!
Want to make one too? Check out this site for the directions that I followed.
http://www.myramp.us/diy/
Check out the video below to see some dimming in action!
Buy one from Amazon already made:
Wow, that is perfect. I have always wondered the same thing with Christmas lights. Sometimes at night you want just a nice glow, not a blinding light. Thanks!
How much money can you save by using a dimmer for your Christmas tree?
I am sure nothing real significant, but I am sure it will save some energy.
Would be a great test to run to see how long the “payback” would be from the cost of the parts.
Wow, thanks… I just hooked up this dimmer to the Christmas lights on my patio. It’s great because now I can have 6 strings of the big lights and dim them to just the right brightness.
Fantastic!
I just built a more industrial one by using metal double gang box, Lutron dimmer, and an industrial extension cord. It is grounded and safer too. Oh, Lutron does sell a device for this:
The Credenza is only $12.00! http://www.lutronstore.com/dimmers/p-76-credenza-lamp-dimmers.aspx
I have a few of these on order, but I wanted to build my own since I had a few extra dimmers lying around the workshop.