12 Volt DC Dimmer for LED, Halogen, Incandescent - RV, Auto, Truck, Marine, and Strip Lighting - Long Shaft - Black

Product was used in an RV (30’ travel trailer) to dim led lights mounted on the rail of the awning. It was installed inline with the existing power switch for the LED lights, and mounted in the cabinet near the panel. First, let me say that this switch was so good I purchased it twice. I have used it to dim the outside led lights on my awning rail, and when it worked so well, I purchased a second one to install for the overhead lights inside my camper. We were able to install this switch with the simple installation method, with the red and white wires together. After using a multimeter, I determined that my awning LED lights drew 1.5A and my interior lights drew 2A. I purchased this switch since it was rated to handle twice that amperage. Installing was simple, or as simple as working with wiring ever is. The supplied wire nuts were perfect to marry this switch into my existing wiring. I did add a section of heavy duty lamp cord to allow the switch to be placed where I wanted it in the cabinet near the existing switch of my lights. In other words, the wiring on this switch is abou 4 inches long, so if you want this dimmer to be located more than a couple inches away from an existing switch it will be working in conjunction with, you may need to splice in some extra wire to give you the distance you need to relocate this dimmer. If you are wiring this as your only switch, you will need no other wiring, other than what comes in the package. I wanted to keep the original on/off switch and have it work in conjunction with the dimmer, so I need to move the dimmer a little farther away to where I had a place to mount it. The switch is very small and the locking ring that holds it in place worked perfectly, and tightened down sufficiently such that the dimmer switch itself doesn’t move when you are rotating the dimmer knob. I expect that the LED lights on my camper are not dimmable per se, since they were not orginally installed with a dimmer, but the brains of this dimmer worked perfectly to allow a full range of light from very dim to full brightness. It is nice to have the ability to have a hard click “off” position, although I don’t expect I will use that feature since I still have the original on/off switch inline. Mostly, I want to say that installing this dimmer makes my camper lights usable. The outside LEDs on the awning were WAY too bright for calm evening lounging ina campground, without lighting up the site next to me and being a nuissance. This swithc makes it so we can have enough light to lounge, and still be able to have lots of light if we need it. Regarding the inside LEDs, our camper’s lights were so bright that watching TV inside was difficult with them on. With them off, the TV would hurt our eyes. With this dimmer installed, we can adjust the interior LEDs down so that there is ambient lighting for every situation. I am so pleased at how this will make our lights so much more usable and perfect for our next trip. There is ABSOLUTELY NO FLICKERING with this switch. The LEDs dim and hold their brightness wherever it is set, with no flashing, flickering, twinkling, or other annoying nonsense, although I guess twinkling might be a nice effect at times.... :) I bought this switch because the comments and reviews seemed to indicate that the company was very helpful, but I ended up not needing them after all. Buy it. Install it. Enjoy it. Perfect.

I used this controller with a smd LED strip light. I'd say the strip light draws about 12 to 24 watts. For a 12 volt circuit that is 1 to 2 amps. That is well within the stated 4.5 amp rating of this dimmer. It does exactly what I wanted it to do. It has a slight detent (a slight click like a radio volume knob) that cuts the power completely off. Then you turn it clockwise past the click and the lights slowly come up to full bright. I felt the amount of dimming seemed proportional to the sweep of the dimmer. I put my finger on the small case and it never felt warm to the touch. I consider that a good indicator that the unit is not being asked to power too much. I will say this, the instructions are a little confusing. There are different drawings for LEDs vs. other lights and it could be confusing for some - it was for me. But I found in the written setup verbage a step-by-step description of exactly what went to what. I used that and everything went perfectly. Three wire nuts were included, but they were too large for the wires I was using. I used smaller wire nuts I already had. A diode was also enclosed if you wanted to use it to control a motor. Thus far, I am quite pleased with the dimmer. I had bought two less expensive dimmers before. One worked about a week then quit. The other has no position that completely turns off the power. That means the unit is drawing battery power all the time. This one is a bit costly, but it seems to be a quality product. One caveat I'll mention. A sealed unit of this size cannot have but so much ability to dissipate heat. It is only my opinion that those who push this unit to the outer limits may cause it to fail. FYI: I've learned something over many years of working with LEDs. Some of them just do not lend themselves for use with a dimmer - any dimmer. It isn't the fault of the dimmer. It has to do with the wiring and design of the LED. Blaming the dimmer and rating it poorly in such circumstances is simply unfair IMHO. I'm writing this on June 29, 2018. I'll post an update if this thing fails.

This switch took care of a problem I had with a Dorman heater/ac control head I purchased for a 2004 Suburban. The illumination lights in it were obviously LED and did not balance well at all with all the other illumination lights in the instrument panel. You had to turn all the other lights like the speedometer illumination light down so low you could hardly see it at night. If you had it where you’d usually run it the heater control illumination lights were so bright they were very distracting and annoying. I removed the heater control and with a test like determined which wire was the feed wire for the illumination. I then install this switch in the line and mounted it right under the lip of the dash panel above the gas pedal. Works perfectly! You can now balance all the illumination lights. It’s nice and small so it’s not hard to find a place to mount it and it has a really good feel to it. Velvety smooth. Haven’t used it very long as I just installed it but it will get a lot of use as it will be utilized every time the headlights are on!

This dimmer works great once wired properly. I own a 2020 Grand Design fifth wheel which has One Control or also called Compass Connect. I wanted a dimmer for the main living area and hallway lighting which is controlled by one switch on the main control panel. I soon realized the dimmer would not dim the lights due to the one control set up. The switch for the lights on the control panel triggers the one control module to provide voltage for the led lights. The wire coming out of the one control module that provides the voltage for the led lights which was green is the wire that must be used to dim the led lights for the main living area. I fished a wire from the control panel down to the one control module and was able to properly wire the dimmer. All works well now but it definitely took some research to figure this out. There are probably other ways to wire it but this seemed the easiest way to run the wire and maintain the dimmer switch at the control panel. The only issue I notice is if you use the compass connect app to turn on the lights the lights come on full power but if you turn off the lights and back on with the dimmer it dims the lights. I don't use the app all too much so not a big issue for me.

I wanted a dimmer for the LED light bar under the awning on my RV. Unfortunately, I could not find both the + and - leads to the light bar which meant all the other dimmers I could find wouldn't work since they need + and - in and then + and - out. This dimmer can be wired anywhere in the line and on either side of the light. I merely replaced the on/off toggle switch with this dimmer and it works great. The light is only 97-98% as bright at the brightest but that is plenty bright. This dimmer is also small enough that I can replace the built in switch in the LED fixtures that were installed in my RV if I want. It works so well that I bought 4 more to use in other places. 8/20/2019 update The dimmers are working fine but I did discover that when the voltage in my RV gets lower the max setting on the dimmer causes the lights to blink rapidly. This seems to be also dependent on how much load the dimmer has. When on a single low-power LED light fixture flickering happens sooner than it does on the LED light bar under the awning. When the voltage gets low enough, even the LED light bar begins to flicker. Turning the setting down until the flicker stops gave a brightness close to full so it isn't an issue, just a characteristic of these dimmers. As soon as I plug in my RV and the voltage goes back up the flickering goes away at all settings.

I installed some RGB strip lights in my boat and wanted an easy way to set the color on them. I didn't want to rely on a remote that could never be found. I wanted permanently mounted and easy to access knobs. These fit the bill perfectly. They fit in the tight space that I needed them to fit in. They have an "off" dent when turned all the way down (awesome). They make it really easy to dial in the three colors to get what you are in the mood for. For my application, they work fine as far as power handling. I have about 25' of lights total, and only pulling about 2 amps per dimmer, so they work great for me. Just pay attention to your current draw for your application and make sure they are within the rated 4.2 amps. Even though these are the "long shaft" version that I got, they still don't allow for very much thickness on the bulkhead you are mounting them to... Like only about 1/8". Much thicker then that and you won't be able to catch threads on the shaft. Would be nice if they had an "extra long shaft" option that went up to 1/4 or 3/8" to allow more mounting options. I thought they were a bit pricy, especially since I had to buy three of them! But they are compact enough to fit where I wanted them to go, and they work great. Would buy again.

This is a fantastic dimmer - high quality parts and yet very small in size for such a capable dimmer! I purchased 2 of them, and am using them to dim multiple LED's in an automotive application. To those who gave this product a bad review, be aware that dimming LED's is not as simple as putting an inline switch between the power source and an old incandescent bulb, for example - there are lots of electronic "things" that need to happen correctly, and your LED not dimming as well as you had hoped is likely not the fault of this dimmer but your wiring of the dimmer, your LED chip, or your application itself. So instead of giving this product a bad review, either do the research on how to wire it up for your specific purpose, or call the company. I did both, and talked with a very kind and helpful gentleman who confirmed that my project wasn't what this dimmer was designed to do, but that if I wired it in a certain way (2 wires together, and the third alone - and the "flow" of electrons would need to be in a certain direction through the dimmer...), that he thought it just might work. Sure enough, it works PERFECTLY. I'm thrilled to find a company that not only makes high quality and efficient devices, but also understands how they work and is willing to take the time to help their customers install them properly. Thank you PCA Electronics - I'd give 10 stars if I could!

Bought this dimmer switch to replace an existing dimmer switch controlling 3 small LED lights. The old one after several years just stopped dimming. This new dimmer switch worked for a bit but past the 30 day return window it just flickers no matter setting. This switch is costly and for the money you would think it would work more than a month. So do you give it another chance or look elsewhere?

I've installed this in the instrument panel of my Experimental Aircraft. I use it to dim all of the instruments and switches which are too bright at night. Because they are all on separate circuits, I have it wired with power-white, ground-black and instrument ground-red. The ground circuit for all of the LED lights is dimmed, while the power circuits can all individually be switched on/off.

Should be sending detailed diagram ,etc for info how to hook up switch not have to look up on utube for help.

I bought this for my living room lights in my rv and the hardest part was unscrewing the panel it goes into. So much better now with a dimmer.

This dimmer is small and compact and can be installed in the smallest places. Perfect for what I need it for, in my boat. It feels very sturdy and easy to install with the included instructions. Highly recommended.

They work great in our 2019 Solitude, many adjustments to get just the right light.