0-10 V Lighting Control - Advantages and Disadvantages

Advantages and Disadvantages

The simplicity of the lighting system makes it straightforward to understand, implement and diagnose, and its low current (typically 1 mA) means it can be run along relatively thin cables with little voltage drop. However, since it requires one wire per control channel (plus a common return wire), a sophisticated system could have hundreds of wires, requiring expensive multicore cables and connectors. Over a long cable, the voltage drop requires every channel of the receiving device to be calibrated to compensate for the voltage losses. (This is only a theoretical limitation as the resistance of the thinnest practical wire is around 20 Ω/1000 m.) Interference from nearby ac power cables can affect the signal to the fitting and even cause flickering. Signal wire running parallel to power cables for a fair distance would need to be screened.