Lighting means insertion detection

Abstract

In a first aspect, the invention provides an LED converter, comprising: a resonant converter with a switching regulator, preferably a clocked half-bridge converter, a galvanic barrier, the primary side of which being supplied by the switching regulator and the secondary side of which being arranged for providing directly or indirectly power to terminals for connecting one or more LEDs, a control circuit on the primary side of the galvanic barrier of the resonant converter, a sensing means on the secondary side of the galvanic barrier sensing a secondary side electric parameter indicative of an LED load, when connected to said terminals, a feedback path from the sensing means to the control circuit adapted to feedback the secondary side electric parameter from the secondary side of the galvanic barrier to the primary side of the galvanic barrier, wherein in case no LED string is connected to the LED converter, the control unit is adapted to cyclically control a switching frequency of switching regulator switches, in particular switches of the clocked half-bridge, from a high frequency to a lower frequency, and to monitor whether the secondary side electric parameter reaches a predetermined threshold value, and to, in case the predetermined threshold value is reached, deactivate the switching regulator switches and to activate a voltage protection switch to pull the secondary side electric parameter to ground.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.