Screw-in led lamp

Abstract

A screw-in LED lamp which derives its power from a socket connected to an A-C power line, the lamp being screwed into the socket to produce a light of high intensity useful as a traffic signal or as a warning signal. The lamp includes a screw-in plug connected to a regulator in which the A-C is converted to a D-C voltage which is applied to a bank of LEDs through a power transistor. The power transistor is activated by a pulse generator yielding periodic pulses having a repetition rate of about 20 pulses per second whereby the LEDs in the bank are pulse-activated to produce light flashes which because of visual persistence are seen as a steady light. Each pulse activating the LEDs has a duration of a few microseconds and a voltage magnitude producing a high current flow in each LED whose amplitude is a multiple of the normal current rating of the LED. As a consequence, the intensity of the light flashes is much higher than the normal light intensity, but because of the microseconds duration of the pulses, the high current flow is not damaging to the LED.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.