testing a alternistor triac

[fuseshut]

I would like to test a triac, isolated, rated for 8A @400V. The triac is used in a light dimmer application. I am triggering the gate terminal with an optoisolated triac driver, Fairchild MOC3010M integrated chip. The end product is that a microcontroller will handle the zero crossing detection input and drive the optoisolated triac (which then drives the main triac). My question is this: I am testing subcircuits, my triac drive circuit, zero crossing detection circuit. I do not have a microcontroller programmed as of yet. How can I test my main triac circuit. I thought of taking the digital output from my zero crossing detection circuit and feeding it into a function generator, sync input, and setting the fcn generator to output a 1V, 20usec pulse to trigger the gate of the optoisolated triac. That the triggering would be synchronized with the AC zero crossing.

 

[fuseshut]

I did forget to mention that my dimming application is AC voltage not DC.

 

[itsmoked]

fuseshut; There is no reason why you cannot run your trigger circuit with a function generator.

HOWEVER... You will not see the results you are expecting!

Reason: Your function generator will not be synchronized with the line voltage. This means that at settings below about, umm... 30% pulsewidth your output will start galloping strangely. If this doesn't bother you then don't worry about it.