Panic protection from fault conditions in power converters
AssigneeKoninklijke Philips Electronics N.V.
InventorDemetri Giannopoulos
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Abstract
A method and apparatus for fault condition protection for a lighting control circuit is presented. The method consists of a hybrid software and hardware solution to take advantage of the useful attributes of both. In the event of a fault condition being detected the software set driving signals to the light are rapidly blocked via hardware. In the event the fault condition persists, software modifies the driving signals to the light.
Claims18
A method of controlling a lighting device comprising the steps of:
- supplying pulse trains during normal operation, the pulse trains having characteristics to determine the intensity of the lighting device;
- and
- causing the pulse trains to be:
- blocked in response to an overload condition, and
- modified if said overload condition persists;
- wherein said blocking is done for a defined time interval while the pulse trains continue to be supplied, and said modification is done if the overload condition persists after a defined number of blocking cycles have been executed.
Apparatus for providing fault protection to a lighting device, the apparatus comprising:
- a controller which blocks the light driving signals in response to a fault condition, while the light driving signals continue to be supplied, and modifies said driving signals if said condition persists.
A circuit for controlling a lighting device comprising:
- a pulse generator for generating at least one pulse train having parameters indicative of a power level at which said lighting device should operate;
- at least one logic gate to block said pulse train upon hardware detection of a specified fault condition while the pulse train continues to be generated;
- and
- a microprocessor for executing software that causes said pulse generator to operate in accordance with user control to set the parameters of said pulse train if said fault condition persists.
A method of controlling a lighting device comprising the steps of:
- supplying pulse trains during normal operation, the pulse trains having characteristics to determine the intensity of the lighting device;
- and
- causing the pulse trains to be:
- blocked in response to an overload condition, and
- modified if said overload condition persists;
- wherein said blocking is done in hardware, and said modification is accomplished in software, and wherein said blocking is done for one switching cycle of the driving pulses, and said modification is done if the overload condition persists after a defined number of blocking cycles have been executed.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.