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US 2010/0134035 A1Published application
Fluorescent dimming ballast with improved effieciency
AssigneeGeneral Electric Company
InventorsAvi Shertok, Bruce Roberts
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
Dimming ballasts and methods are presented for powering a plurality of fluorescent lamps in which at most one of the lamps is selectively dimmed while all the remaining lamps are turned on or off according to a dimming level setpoint to allow dimming to match a user's desired lighting level while maintaining high efficiency.
Claims19
A dimming ballast for operating a plurality of lamps, comprising:
- a DC power source operative to provide DC electrical power;
- a DC-AC converter coupled to receive the DC electrical power from the DC power source and operative to provide an AC output to drive a plurality of lamps;
- a controller operatively coupled with the DC-AC converter to control power applied to the lamps, the controller being operative at least partially according to a dimming level setpoint to selectively dim at most one of the lamps while controlling all the remaining lamps to be substantially at 0% or 100% power.
A method of powering a plurality of fluorescent lamps in a dimming ballast, the method comprising:
- receiving a dimming level setpoint value or signal indicating a desired dimming level for the dimming ballast;
- and
- selectively dimming at most one of the lamps while controlling all the remaining lamps to be substantially at 0% or 100% power at least partially according to the dimming level setpoint.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.