Insteon 600W dimmer pushed to 700-800W

[mhunterdts]

Rigging up the Christmas lights and this year the tree is around 700W all incandescent.  I have a 600W Switchlink in a metal box connected to a cord plugged into the box (so the dimmer is in free space not in a wall.) I see the triac is rated for 10A.  Anyone know of a hard limitation to 600W.  If I can keep it cool enough, 700W should work??  That's "only" 6 amps.

Thoughts?

[Guy Lavoie]

600W would be more of a heat limitation than just amperage through the triac. That's close, but would probably be ok if well ventilated. Just a personal hypothesis...  Will you be dimming it? Otherwise a relay switch would be better. 

Maybe add a box fan to the enclosure?

[Brian H]

Depending on if the metal frame of the switch is mounted on a surface that will help remove the generated heat. Incandescent loads also may have a current surge when starting with a cold filament. To consider.

Relay type as pointed out would be better if you don't need dimming.

[Guy Lavoie]

Even better would be to split up the load between two switches. Depending on what you have available, a few lamplincs could be plugged into a power strip. They're only rated for 300 watts though so you'd need 3 or more.