US 2014/0232286 A1 · ELECTRONIC BALLAST

Abstract

The present invention discloses an electronic ballast for operating a gas discharge lamp which includes (i) a rectifier bridge circuit; (ii) a power factor correction (PFC) network that includes an electrolytic capacitor that charges by means of a circuit comprised by an inductor, diode and capacitor; and (iii) a switched inverter circuit that converts rectified DC voltage to a high frequency current AC voltage. The electronic circuit has a switch that switches on the aforementioned electronic elements making the (PFC) circuit consume energy continuously from the network, while the electrolytic capacitor remains connected to the voltage of the rectifier bridge, through the inductor and the diode, even if the inductor has no energy stored. From the storage capacitor the inverter is powered by a constant voltage and noise-free, allowing the inverter to power the luminous load properly.

Claims16

Dependent claims

An electronic circuit for operating discharge lamps, comprising:

a—a rectifier bridge connected to an AC power source;
b—a power factor correction (PFC) network connected to the output of the rectifier bridge, which contains a storage and filtering capacitor;
c—an inverter connected to the output of the PFC network, containing a switching element;
d—a control module that receives and processes current signals from the discharge lamp current and the voltage over the storage and filtering capacitor, in order to control the switching element;
wherein the PFC network and the inverter share the switching element;
and
wherein the storage and filtering capacitor is permanently connected to the rectifier bridge under DC conditions.

4 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.

Electronic ballast

Life of this patent

Electronic ballast

Life of this patent

Abstract

Claims16