Electronic Ballast
Electronic Ballast is a kind of ballast, which uses electronic technology to drive the electric light source to produce the required lighting. Corresponding to it is the inductive ballast. More and more modern fluorescent lamps use electronic ballasts, which are light and compact, and people can even integrate electronic ballasts with lamps.
Electronic Ballast?is a device which controls the starting voltage and the operating currents of lighting devices built on the principle of electrical gas discharge. It refers to that part of the circuit which limits the flow of current through the lighting device and may vary from being a single resistor to a bigger, complex device. In some fluorescent lighting systems like dimmers, it is also responsible for the controlled flow of electrical energy to heat the lamp electrodes.
Working of Electronic Ballasts:
The primitive electronic ballast employed a general principle of rectifying the input power and smoothening the waveform by passing it through a simple filter like an electrolytic capacitor. The rectifier converts AC into DC waveform. Improved Electronic ballasts are now generally based on SMPS topology as shown in figure above. The first step is to rectify the input power and then the signal is chopped to increase frequency. This type of ballasts operates between 20 to 60 kHz. Other ballasts like magnetic ballasts generally operate at the line frequency which is about 50-60 Hz. They suffer from problems like flicker and a humming sound which is sometimes a nuisance to ambience
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Electronic Ballast Advantages
1. Energy-saving. The fluorescent ballast is of the frequency of 20-60khz to supply the lamp tube so that the luminous efficiency of the lamp tube is about 10% higher than that of the power frequency(assume the tube length is 4 feet). Its own power consumption is low so that the total input power of the lamp is reduced by about 20%, which has a better energy-saving effect.
2.?Eliminate?strobe flash?and make light emission more stable. The electronic ballast can improve visual resolution and efficiency. It can also reduce visual fatigue after continuous operation, which can protect our eyesight.
3.?The starting point is more reliable. After the starter successfully started after preheated once, avoiding starting several times.
4. High power factor. Fluorescent lamps above 25W that meet the national standards have a power factor higher than 0.95. However, it should be noted that the national standards set a high harmonic limit for lamps below 25W, so that its power factor drops to 0.7-0.8.
5. Stable input power and output luminous flux. High-quality electronic ballasts have good voltage stabilization performance. When the power and voltage deviations are large, the light source can still maintain constant power and stabilize the illuminance, which is conducive to energy saving.