The electrician’s word for a rheostat or ‘resistance’.[...]

Wilfred Granville

01/01/1912

Eng

The electrician’s word for a rheostat or ‘resistance’. It reduces the voltage in a circuit and so dims the light according to the requirements of the lighting plot. Dimmers vary in type, but the commonest in use today employs a moving contact arm which varies the amount of resistance wire in series with a circuit. This type of dimmer is wire-wound and can be of the rotary, radial or slider type. The oId-fashioned liquid dimmer, though still used in the older theatres, is obsolescent. There is also a resistance called a reactance dimmer which uses an electronic valve to control the voltage.

Wilfred Granville, A dictionary of theatrical terms, Andre Deutsch, 01/01/1912, London
tipologia
ambito

p. 61

Dimmer (Eng)

electrician, rheostat, resistance, voltage, circuit, lighting plot, wire-wound, reactance dimmer, valve