New soft-switching inverter for high efficiency electronic ballast with simple structure

Abstract

A new electronic ballast is proposed for a fluorescent lamp using a high frequency inverter having zero-voltage and zero-current mixed switching poles to regulate the fluorescent lamp light power for high efficiency and long lamp life. The inverter circuit satisfies almost all of the requirements for starting, dimming and high light-output operation of the fluorescent lamp with a simpler scheme compared with the conventional electronic ballasts. Simulations and experiments are carried out for a FL40 fluorescent lamp drive using a 20 kHz operating frequency.