Rheostat: A resistor for regulating a current by means of variable resistance. Sometimes called a potentiometer (pot), volume control, wirewound resistor, etc. Comes in many shapes and sizes according to need and design....see picture on right.......
If you're older than you think, you might remember that dashboard light dimmer in your Dad's '56 Chevy, which was attached to the headlight pull switch. When you dimmed the dash lights, you turned that rheostat clockwise and limited the current to the dash lights, but the rheostat got pretty warm behind the dash. The reason for this warmth is the fact that the rheostat's design (resistance) was holding back some of the current, and the excess current created HEAT.
The same thing happens to some predator lights when they are hooked up to JUST a rheostat. If the full current isn't heading to the bulb, it's going somewhere else, and that other "somewhere else" is the rheostat, which sucks up the current and creates.......you guessed it...HEAT, which STILL drains your battery!
Electronic Dimmers:
Several years ago an electronic engineer figured out that he could control the brightness of a bulb (or the speed of a motor) by using specially designed circuitry, now known as PWM (Pulse Width Modulation) which would trigger a power pulse to whatever you wished to control. Depending upon how slow or fast this pulse was, according to the setting, your light, motor, etc., would be fully adjustable within certain ranges. Without going into the fine details, the electronic dimmer was born!
Owing to advanced electronics and components, efficiency of over 90% was obtained and there was LITTLE OR NO HEAT generated, which meant that battery operated devices such as our predator lights that have electronic dimmers weren't using up power in heat/wasted energy!
My dimmers use this same theory, and I've made improvements to mine which ensure reliability and long life.
This now means that unless you're heading to many and several stands a night your battery should last a good long time. So if you're going to buy a new predator light, get one with a 6 or 12 volt setup, use an electronic dimmer and vehicle charger.
For older lights that need to be modified, that's why we're here!
