Patent ID: 7259524

Claim:
A dimmer for regulating the delivery of electrical energy from a source of electrical energy to a lighting load, the dimmer comprising: a controllably conductive device including an input adapted to be coupled to the source of electrical energy, an output adapted to be coupled to the load, and a control input; and a control circuit having an input coupled to either the input or the output of the controllably conductive device and an output coupled to the control input of the controllably conductive device, wherein the control circuit is operable to sample an electrical waveform at a sampling rate to produce a sampled waveform, the sampling rate chosen such that the human eye cannot discern light fluctuations of the lighting load due to the sampling rate; generate an integration value by integrating a signal representative of a square of the sampled waveform; determine whether the integration value has exceeded a threshold value; and cause electrical energy to be delivered to the load until it has been determined that the integration value has exceeded the threshold value.