Sensing and control for dimmable electronic ballast

摘要

A sensing circuit for a triac dimmable gas discharge lamp ballast uses the duty cycle of the output waveform of a conventional triac dimmer as the parameter representing a set point for controlling the degree of clamping applied to the ballast circuit, and thus the amount of light produced by a fluorescent lamp. The sensing circuit may include a comparator that receives a rectified output waveform of a triac dimmer and produces output pulses corresponding in width to the duty cycle of the waveform, and a capacitor averaging the values of the pulses produced by the comparator to produce a set point signal representing a dimming level of the lamp. A triac dimmable ballast circuit using this sensing circuit has reduced sensitivity to line voltage and a wide mechanical range over which the light level of the fluorescent lamp is controlled by the user. The sensing circuit also enables a preheat timing circuit that eliminates the timing capacitor of prior art preheating circuits. A gas discharge lamp ballast and a method for its operation are also disclosed.