The dimmable magnetic ballast which applies the variable inductor needs a switching process for the dimming process, and it consists of mechanical relays because of costs and reliabilities. However, it is hard to operate with correct timing in mechanical relay, so relays reduce their own life time in inductive applications. Moreover this creates a destructive problem at the switching process. The life time reduction of relays means the life time reduction of the ballast. Thus, in this paper, we described the problem at the witching process in the dimmable magnetic ballast with a variable inductor, which consists of relays and the soft AC switching method in order to solve the problems. As result, we achieved the improvement of the life time and reliability of the ballast.