Whoever it is that posts as "John J. Bengii" is both a fountain of misinformation and apparently unwilling or unable to competently search the very newsgroup he is polluting with his nonsense.
The topic of how to dim a dimmable Philips compact fluorescent lamp (CFL) with an X-10 WS467 (see thread Subject) was addressed as early as February
1999 -- nine (9) years ago ! -- in comp.home.automation (c.h.a).
See:
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JVHRoberts wrote on February 3 1999 in comp.home.automation: "OK, folks, I did it!! I added a white neutral wire to the WS467, and it turns on, off dims, and everything, with the Philips dimmable compact fluorescent."
My experience also. There are several effects that make the dimming of a CFL a different experience from dimming a typical incandescent lamp.
In my mind, there are at least three different 'regimes' in the dimming effect of an incandescent lamp:
1) A range near maximum output in which the output diminishes, but the change in color temperature is minimal
2) A greatly dimmed range in which the increased warmth (decrease in color temperature) is part-and-parcel of the 'dimming' effect
3) a range near extinction in which the apparent illumination of distant objects may be negligible depending in large part on the status of our eyes' dark adaptation, but the lamp filament produce a candle-like effect and provides a local "point of light" which may be all that is needed or desired for some purposes.
(I suspect that there are technical terms for these phenomena of which I am ignorant (for now ;-)
By and large, dimming of CFLs don't have these 'regimes' so the actual decrease in light output _seems_ less. Quantitative comparisons with a light meter are illuminating (pun intended).
These effects are one of the reasons why LED lighting is becoming more exciting with each incremental technological advance. The use of Red Green Blue (RGB) arrays, sometimes controlled as in the entertainment lighting arena by DMX512 (DMX-512 ; DMX-512a) make it possible to control color temperature and illumination level _independently_.
In our kitchen we have both ceiling cans (which can be either/and incandescent and CFLs, and dimmed, 12VDC MR26 lamps which can be either LED Halogen incandescent. I 'spect that in the not too distant future I'll be experimenting with RGB LEDs in that location.
Maybe with something like akin to this remote-controlled 5watt RGB Full Color Mr26 LED Spotlight
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... Marc
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