High-power-factor electronic ballast with constant DC-link voltage

This paper presents a high-power-factor (HPF) electronic ballast based on a single power processing stage with constant DC-link voltage. The switching frequency is controlled to maintain the DC-link voltage and the voltage across the switches constant, independently of changes in the AC-input voltage. This control method assures zero-voltage switching (ZVS) for the specified AC-input-voltage range. Besides, with an appropriate design of the fluorescent lamps' drive circuit, the lamps' power can be kept close to the rated value. The power-factor-correction (PFC) stage is formed by a boost power converter operating in the discontinuous conduction mode, which naturally provides HPF to the utility line. The fluorescent lamps are driven by an unmodulated sine-wave current generated from an LC parallel resonant power converter which operates above the resonant frequency to perform ZVS. Theoretical analysis and experimental results are presented for two series-connected 40 W fluorescent lamps operating from 127 V -15% to +10% 60 Hz utility line. The switching frequency is changed from 25 to 45 kHz to maintain the DC-link voltage regulated at 410 V, which leads to a constant output power. The experimental results confirm the high efficiency and HPF of this electronic ballast     

High-power-factor electronic ballast based on a single powerprocessing stage

A new high-power-factor (HPF) electronic ballast is introduced in this paper. The proposed topology is based on a single power processing stage, and provides a high-frequency voltage to the fluorescent lamps in addition to presenting an HPF to the utility line. The power processing stage is formed by a half-bridge circuit operating above the resonant frequency, thus providing zero-voltage switching. The self-oscillating technique is employed, which increases the converter reliability with great simplicity. HPF is achieved by using a nonconventional boost stage operating in discontinuous conduction mode, which results in a lower DC-bus voltage than that produced by the conventional boost. Theoretical analysis and experimental results have been obtained for two 40-W fluorescent lamps operating at 40-kHz switching frequency and 220-V line voltage     

A high-power-factor electronic ballast using a flyback push-pullintegrated converter

This paper describes a high-power-factor electronic ballast for fluorescent lamps. The converter offers a high power factor and a high-frequency supply to the lamp using a single switch. In spite of its simplicity, an excellent performance concerning load and supply is achieved, ensuring a sinusoidal and in-phase supply current. High power factor is achieved by using a flyback converter operating in discontinuous conduction mode. Operating principle, design equations, component stress, and efficiency are presented. Experimental results have been obtained for one 40-W fluorescent lamp operating at 50-kHz switching frequency and 220-V line voltage     

Analysis and experimental results of a single-stagehigh-power-factor electronic ballast based on flyback converter

A new single-stage high-power-factor electronic ballast based on a flyback converter is presented in this paper. The ballast is able to supply a fluorescent lamp assuring a high-input power factor for the utility line. Other features are lamp power regulation against line voltage variations and low lamp current crest factor, both assuring long lamp life. The ballast is analyzed at steady-state operation, and design equations and characteristics are obtained. Also, a procedure for the ballast design is presented. Finally, simulation and experimental results from a laboratory prototype are shown     

A Novel Constant Power Control Circuit for HID Electronic Ballast

This paper presents a constant power control circuit for a three-stage high-intensity discharge (HID) electronic ballast. The three-stage electronic ballast is composed of a boost pre-regulator to achieve a high power factor, a DC/DC buck converter to regulate lamp current with constant lamp power, and a full-bridge inverter to drive the HID lamp with a low-frequency ac squarewave current. The buck converter operating in current mode utilizes current sense level-shift technique to achieve constant power output. The proposed constant power control circuit is easily designed and implemented for the three-stage HID electronic ballast. Finally, a laboratory prototype of a 70 W HID electronic ballast is implemented. The measured results show that the proposed ballast can be applied for various HID lamps with low lamp power variation (less than 0.6%).     

A high power factor ballast using a single switch with both power stages integrated

This paper presents a high power factor electronic ballast used to startup fluorescent lamps employing a single power stage and a single-switch. This topology was obtained combining of a Boost converter and a new inverter topology with coupled inductors. The use of a single active switch reduces the number of components used in the control and power circuits. The equations used for designing the proposed reactor and for choosing the semiconductor devices are presented. A prototype operating at 50kHz was built and used to startup 40-W fluorescent lamps.     

Acoustic-Resonance-Free High-Frequency Electronic Ballast for Metal Halide Lamps

To avoid the acoustic resonance on operating metal halide lamps, an autofrequency-searching method is implemented on the high-frequency electronic ballast. The proposed method allows the use of a high-frequency electronic ballast, making the ballast able to adjust the operating frequency automatically as soon as the acoustic resonance is detected and, consequently, to locate it at a stable frequency. The electronic ballast achieves a high efficiency and a high power density through the employment of a high-frequency resonant inverter with an embedded buck-boost converter for power-factor correction and lamp power regulation. The control strategy is realized by a microprocessor along with the acoustic-resonance detection circuit. The operation of autofrequency searching is illustrated by the experiments on an electronic ballast designed for 70-W metal halide lamps.      

High frequency electronic ballast provides line frequency lampcurrent

Most electronic ballasts for fluorescent lamps provide a sinusoidal lamp current at the switching frequency. The high-frequency current flowing through the lamp can generate significant radiated noise, which is unacceptable in noise-sensitive applications, such as fluorescent lights in airplanes. Using shielded enclosures for the lamps may solve the problem, but it is expensive. A discontinuous conduction mode (DCM) electronic ballast topology is presented which drives the lamp with line frequency current, just like a magnetic ballast. However, compared to a magnetic ballast, its weight is substantially reduced due to operation at 40 kHz switching frequency. The topology also ensures unity power factor at the input and stable lamp operation at the output     

Acoustic-resonance-free electronic ballast for automotive HID lamps

A novel cost-effective and acoustic-resonance-free electronic ballast used to drive automotive high intensity discharging (HID) lamps that utilise a constant lamp power control scheme is proposed. The presented ballast is comprised of a buck-boost flyback converter to provide negative DC voltages and a half-bridge-type inverter to supply the lamp with low-frequency, square-wave AC voltage/ current. Owing to its low-frequency operation, no acoustic resonance occurs on the automotive HID lamps. Design guidelines and experimental results are demonstrated for a 35 Wautomotive HID lamp prototype ballast operating at 400 Hz switching frequency with battery input DC voltage of 12 V.     

A single-stage electronic ballast with high power factor

A single stage electronic ballast with high power factor (HPF) is proposed in this letter. The single-phase boost-type rectifier provides HPF. A saturable transformer constituting the self-oscillating drive limits the lamp current and dominates the switching frequency of the ballast. Experimental results obtained on a 40 W fluorescent lamp are discussed     

TRIAC dimmable ballast with power equalization

A two-stage, two-wire TRIAC dimmable electronic ballast for fluorescent lamps is presented in this paper. It is constructed by using a flyback converter as the input power factor corrector to supply a half-bridge series-resonant parallel-loaded inverter to ballast the lamp. The flyback converter is operated in discontinuous conduction mode so that the filtered input current profile is the same as the TRIAC-controlled voltage waveform. The switches in the inverter are switched at a constant frequency slightly higher than the resonant frequency of the resonant tank. Based on the constant average input current characteristics of the inverter, the dimming operation is simply achieved by pulsewidth modulation control of the magnitude of the flyback converter output voltage. No synchronization network is required between the input and output stages. In addition, a linear power equalization scheme is developed so that the dc-link voltage (and hence the lamp power) is in a linear relationship with the firing angle of the TRIAC. The average output voltage of the dimmer controls the equalized flyback converter output voltage. Modeling, analysis, and design of the ballast will be described. A prototype was implemented to verify the experimental measurements with the theoretical predictions.     

An improved charge pump power factor correction electronic ballast

An improved charge pump power factor correction (CPPFC) electronic ballast using the charge pump concept is proposed in this paper. Circuit derivation, principle of operation, and the conditions for achieving unity power factor are discussed. The proposed electronic ballast is implemented and tested with two 40 W fluorescent lamps. It is shown that 84% of overall efficiency and 1.6 of crest factor can be achieved with 200-V line input voltage. The measured line input current harmonics satisfy IEC 1000-3-2 Class C requirements. The lamp power variation range is automatically limited within ±15% for ±10% line input voltage variation without feedback control     

A novel single-stage high-power-factor electronic ballast with symmetrical topology

This paper proposes a novel single-stage high-power-factor high-efficiency electronic ballast with symmetrical topology for fluorescent lamps. The circuit topology originates from the integration of two half-wave rectifiers with buck-boost power-factor-correction converters and a half-bridge series-resonant parallel-loaded inverter. A high power factor at the input line is assured by operating the buck-boost converters in discontinuous conduction mode. With symmetrical operation and carefully designed circuit parameters, zero-voltage switching on the active power switches of the inverter can be retained to achieve high circuit efficiency. The design equations are derived from the analyzed results based on fundamental approximation, and then an easy-to-use design tool is provided accordingly under considerations of filament heating and ignition. A prototype circuit designed for two T9-40W rapid-start fluorescent lamps is built and tested to verify the analytical predictions. Satisfactory performance is obtained from the experimental results.     

紧凑型荧光灯高频工作特性研究

利用自行研制的荧光灯高频工作参数测试系统，测试了几种紧凑型荧光灯的高频工作光电参数，阐明了高频电子镇流器的频率、波形对灯的光通、光效、功率因数等光电参数的影响情况，并找出了灯的最佳工作频率，为生产高质量的灯管和电子镇流器提供了理论依据。     

Design and Implementation of a Single-Stage High-Frequency HID Lamp Electronic Ballast

We present a single-stage electronic ballast with a high power factor feature for driving high-intensity discharge (HID) lamps. A new frequency-modulation technique is proposed to eliminate the acoustic resonance problem in HID lamps under high-frequency operation. The proposed method has the merits of simple circuit and low cost; thus, it is suitable for use in commercial applications. The conducted emission caused by the high-frequency electronic ballast can be also effectively reduced. The operating principles and design considerations of the proposed electronic ballast are analyzed and discussed in detail. A 35-W laboratory prototype is designed and implemented. Simulation and experimental waveforms are given to verify the feasibility of the proposed method. The results are satisfactory.     

Self-oscillating dimmable electronic ballast

This paper presents a simple alternative for an electronic ballast operating in self-sustained oscillating mode with dimming capability for fluorescent lamps. A simple modification in one of the gate drivers side circuit allows the lamp to dim without compromising the simplicity, reliability, and low cost which characterize the self-oscillating electronic ballast (SOEB). A qualitative analysis is presented to explain the behavior of the proposed self-oscillating electronic ballast with dimming feature. In addition, the stability and the key equations for the design are derived using the extended Nyquist criterion and describing function method. Experimental results from two 40-W electronic ballasts are presented to demonstrate the performance and to validate the analysis carried out.     

Novel Automotive High Intensity Discharge(HID) Lamps with Electronic Ballasts

A new scheme of automotive high intensity discharge(HID) lamps with electronic ballasts is proposed. The design of the proposed ballast and some experimental results are presented. The proposed scheme is consisted of the high frequency DC-DC converter and the low frequency DC-AC inverter. This system separates the input voltage of the ignitor from DC link voltage using auxiliary winding, then it could use the lower voltage rating power devices for HID lamp ballast system and reduce the size of HID lamp ballast. The proposed ballast controller using micro-controller unit(MCU) controls the frequency to operate the DC-DC converter in critical conduction mode, which reduces the noise of the circuit and improves the efficiency by 2%~4%.     

Current-source charge-pump power-factor-correction electronicballast

A current-source charge-pump power-factor-correction (CS-CPPFC) electronic ballast is presented in this paper. Unity-power-factor condition and principle of operation using the CP concept are derived and analyzed. Based on the steady-state analysis, the design considerations are discussed in detail. It is shown that the power switch only deals with the resonant load current, which is the same as in the two-stage approach so that small-current rating devices can be used. The developed CS-CPPFC electronic ballast can save one inductor and has a potentially low cost. The CS-CP electronic ballast with switching frequency modulation to improve crest factor is developed, implemented, and tested. It is shown that 0.99 power factor, 11.3% total harmonic distortion (THD), and 1.54 crest factor can be achieved for 85-W fluorescent lamps     

A Three-Phase Dimmable Lighting System Using a Bidirectional Power Electronic Transformer

This paper presents a single-stage bidirectional power electronic transformer (PET) for lighting systems as a three-phase electronic ballast. The lighting system supplies multilamp units that are controlled simultaneously by a bidirectional PET using a pulsewidth modulation scheme. The PET contains a single-input multioutput high-frequency isolating transformer to control the illumination of the lamps as well as providing galvanic isolation in each unit simultaneously. The high-frequency operation, direct ac to ac conversion, and bidirectional power flow capabilities help the PET to operate without any bulky storage elements. So good efficiency, and low weight, volume, and cost of the power conversion system can be achieved. The control strategy promotes the ballast performance to let fluorescent lamps operate free from both voltage flicker and disturbances. As a result, improved dimmable illumination, lamps protection, and increasing lifetime of lamps can be achieved. A design procedure based on equivalent circuit is presented to determine the resonant output circuit parameters. The experimental results of the prototype, which converts 110 V/3phi/50 Hz input voltage to 130 V/1phi/25 kHz and 70 V/1phi/25 kHz output voltages, show the practical aspects of the proposed PET.     

HID Lamp Electronic Ballast With Reduced Component Number

A reduced-component-number single-stage power-processing electronic ballast to drive high-intensity discharge lamps is presented in this paper. A dc–dc buck converter, which controls the current and the power of the lamp, a power factor preregulator based on a discontinuous conduction mode boost converter, and the inverter are combined in a boost integrated with buck rectifier/energy storage/dc–dc converter. It operates with a line-frequency square-wave current driving the lamp. The signals of the power stages are provided by a dedicated microcontroller. Ballast for sodium vapor lamps of 70 W without acoustic resonance was implemented, resulting in a $pf = 0.97$ with 22% total harmonic distortion and $eta = 84%$.