"William Sommerwerck" wrote in message
...

I use a few of them around the house, driven by standard
wall-plate residential dimmers.

Rheostats? Triacs?

Something solid state and cheap. Probably triacs.

I'm not familiar with the current technology. (X-10 is
triac-controlled, I believe.)

Something like triacs, I'm sure.

BTW I've found that there is now a middle ground in lighting, now that DMX
hardware is so deadly cheap. I've paid as little as $39.95 (sale) for a quad
dimmer pack that can handle the full load that a residential lighting
circuit can handle. There's a lot to be said for low voltage copper control
wiring.

As you say, the color temperature is very constant over a
usable range of intensities compared to incadescent PAR bulbs.

Actually, I didn't say that, but you'd expect it to be so, given that a
fluorescent lamp is a quantum device.

Exactly.

While they start pretty much on the dime, they do get about
50% brighter the first minute or two of operation.

That's what I noted with the Home Despot lamps.

The extended warm-up can be a bit disconcerting. Some bulbs can start out
pretty dim. They are lit OK, but they are pretty dim.

It was startling at first to
see a fluorescent lamp come on faster than an incandescent.

Try a CFL on a really cold Michigan morning, say in an unheated garage. ;-(