Regulated power supplies for electroluminescent lamps

A power supply that provides an operating voltage to an electroluminescent lamp from a battery, comprising:

• an inductor,
• a first circuit that alternately connects and disconnects the inductor to the battery in a manner to generate voltage pulses having a magnitude significantly higher that a voltage output of said battery,
• a second circuit that applies said voltage pulses to the lamp with an alternate polarity,
• a third circuit including a voltage divider formed of a plurality of capacitors connected in series to sense an effect of the voltage pulses within the power supply, and
• a fourth circuit that turns off said first circuit in response to said divided voltage exceeding a predetermined magnitude.

A method of providing an alternating polarity voltage to a load having an inherent capacitance, comprising:

• alternately connecting and disconnecting an inductor to a battery in a manner to generate a series of voltage pulses with a magnitude significantly in excess of a voltage output of the battery,
• applying a series of the voltage pulses to the load in each of two polarities in sequence in a manner to accumulate charge in said inherent load capacitance with an alternating polarity,
• applying across a plurality of series connected capacitors a voltage resulting from the accumulated charge and monitoring a divided charge voltage therefrom, and
• terminating application of the voltage pulses of one polarity to the load upon each occurrence of the monitored divided charge voltage reaching a given magnitude and restarting application of the voltage pulses to the load upon each occurrence of the polarity of the voltage pulses being switched.

A power supply that provides an increased voltage from a d.c. voltage source to an output, comprising:

• an inductor,
• a first circuit that alternately connects and disconnects the inductor to the source in a manner to generate voltage pulses having a magnitude significantly higher than the voltage of said source,
• a second circuit that is responsive to the generated voltage pulses to provide the increased voltage to the output,
• a third circuit including a voltage divider formed of a plurality of capacitors connected in series to sense an effect of the voltage pulses within the power supply, and
• a fourth circuit that turns off said first circuit in response to said divided voltage exceeding a predetermined magnitude.