Hi, I am looking for an electronic ballast which could drive 8W fluorescent lamp(s) (UVA tube).
I found some electrical schemes on the web, but I wasn't be able to find the suitable transformer.
Can someone tell me about a good ballast design, please?
Thank you and regards.
You will probably have to have the transformer custom wound, which is normally no big deal
Loads of stuff here
martin
"SBS" schreef in bericht news:45c703b6$0$31680$ snipped-for-privacy@reader1.news.tin.it...
You can drive an 8W fluorescent lamp with a simple circuit that requires no coil or transformer.
petrus bitbyter
petrus bitbyter ( snipped-for-privacy@enditookhccnet.nl) ha scritto:
::: I am looking for an electronic ballast which ::: could drive 8W fluorescent lamp(s) (UVA tube).
:: You can drive an 8W fluorescent lamp with a simple :: circuit that requires no coil or transformer. ::
Thank you veru much. Is it safe for my fluorescent tubes?
Regards.
"SBS" schreef in bericht news:45c72973$0$31670$ snipped-for-privacy@reader1.news.tin.it...
Guess so. I build one and it works fine. A friend of mine has an inpection light with similar circuit. Worked fine as well untill it fell too hard one time. (This broke the tube and the enclosure, not the electronics. I checked it out by myself.) Some say the lifetime of the tube will decrease. Maybe true, but I've had no problems so far. The only drawback is some more flicker compared to a conventional ballast, so it may not be a succes as a reading lamp. I also experimented with the electronics of a worn out electricity-saving lamp. A 8W tube works really fine on the electronics of such a 9W lamp. If you google around, you will also find some sites dealing with this things.
petrus bitbyter
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This circuit looks like a typical 'play around with lots of components but ensure you do not know anything about what you are doing' type circuit. On 220V ac a single series cap will work as a ballast. Since many (but not all) 8W T5 tubes's, at room temp, will begin to arc as low as 250V
- that is all that is needed.
With a capacitive ballast the crest factor is appalling, the cathodes will be stripped etc, life and output reduced. That is why it is not used.
Why do you need an 'electronic' ballast? What is the advantage of an electronic ballast in your application - size, thermals,..... ??
RHRRC ( snipped-for-privacy@connect-2.co.uk) ha scritto:
:: Why do you need an 'electronic' ballast? :: What is the advantage of an electronic ballast in your :: application - size, thermals,..... ??
I need an electronic ballast because I want to reduce size and weight of the resulting device I am building.
Petrus suggested me to use the electronics of an energy saving lamp with about same power consumption of the fluorescent tube I have to use. Other experience with electronic ballast from energy saving lamp?
"RHRRC" schreef in bericht news: snipped-for-privacy@p10g2000cwp.googlegroups.com...
Well, I neither designed nor analysed the circuit but if you want to...
A lot of circuits of commercial available electricity-saving lamps can be found on:
Another experiment:
I myself use the electronics of a 20W electricity-saving lamp to drive a circline 22W tube. Even works with some older tubes that did not start on the original - classic - ballast anymore. (Which was the main reason to drop the old ballast. Tubes became useless much too fast.)
You can buy an electronic ballast as well. Conrad for example sells them:
petrus bitbyter
Been running a normal 8W tube off a ballast from a 9W lamp on our boat for the last year. Must have close to 500 hours running time now with no problems whatsoever. Its far cheaper than you can build it, even buying a decent quality energy saving lamp new.
-- Ian Malcolm. London, ENGLAND. (NEWSGROUP REPLY PREFERRED) ianm[at]the[dash]malcolms[dot]freeserve[dot]co[dot]uk [at]=@, [dash]=- & [dot]=. *Warning* SPAM TRAP set in header, Use email address in sig. if you must.
Maybe the folks on sci.engr.lighting have some ideas.
You might want to provide some additional info. like lamp part number, supply voltage, etc.
-- Paul Hovnanian mailto:Paul@Hovnanian.com ------------------------------------------------------------------ If God is perfect then why did He create discontinuous functions?
As Paul has stated, all 8-watt fluorescent lamps do not have the same electrical characteristics. I suspect you have an
8-watt T5 lamp, which has a diameter of 5/8 inch and a length (end of pin to end of pin) of about 12 inches, but you may have another lamp with different electrical characteristics.Your inability to "find" a suitable transformer is not unusual. Most ballasts I am aware of use custom transformers. The reason for this is that electronic ballasts do not operate at a standard frequency and they run a great variety of lamp loads. So, usually a standard ferrite core is used, but the number of windings and the number of turns on each winding, are customized for each application.
There are also many designs that use only a series inductor, which is easier to design and build than a transformer.
You can find designs that use standard magnetics at
-- Vic Roberts http://www.RobertsResearchInc.com To reply via e-mail: replace xxx with vdr in the Reply to: address or use e-mail address listed at the Web site. This information is provided for educational purposes only. It may not be used in any publication or posted on any Web site without written permission.
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