Toshiba Lighting & Technology Corporation

Tokyo Shibaura Denki Kabushiki Kaisha

Masayuki Morita

Kyoji Yamazaki

Mitsutoshi Kimura

Yuichi Watanabe

An illumination control apparatus is constituted by a main operation panel for performing dimming control of a plurality of different lighting units, a plurality of dimming terminals for receiving dimming data from the main operation panel, and a pair of transmission lines for connecting the plurality of dimming terminals to the main operation panel. In the dimming terminals, the types of different lighting unit are selected in accordance with the dimming data from the main operation panel. Upon selection of the types, the dimming characteristics of the lighting units are converted into desired dimming characteristics, respectively. Dimming signals corresponding to the lighting units are formed on the basis of the dimming characteristics obtained by the conversion. The formed dimming signals are output to the lighting units. With this operation, dimming outputs from the plurality of different lighting units are controlled in accordance with the dimming data from the main operation panel.

Illumination control apparatus

An illumination control apparatus includes a control slave unit, a master unit, a supervisory slave unit, and a photosensor slave unit. The supervisory slave unit has an operation switch, and outputs a first signal representing an operation change of the operation switch and the supervisory slave unit. The photosensor slave unit outputs a second signal representing a change of a level of an illuminance detected by a photosensor and the photosensor slave unit. The control slave unit controls at least one illumination load. In addition, the master unit controls the control slave unit assigned in a memory in response to the first signal from the supervisory slave unit and the second signal from the photosensor slave unit. When the master unit receives the first signal representing the supervisory slave unit, the illumination load is inverted. When the master unit receives the second signal representing the photosensor slave unit, and the illuminance is higher than a preset level, the illumination load is turned off. Only when the illuminance is lower than the preset level and the operation switch of the supervisory slave unit is ON, the illuminination load is turned on.

There is disclosed an operating circuit for an electric discharge lamp in which a first DC operating circuit for starting an electric discharge lamp, a second DC operating circuit for making the electric discharge lamp operative by a voltage near a rated lamp voltage and by a current near a rated lamp current, and a third DC operating circuit for supplying a relatively large current to the electric discharge lamp immediately after the electric discharge lamp is started and for stabilizing the lamp luminous flux in a short time, are connected in parallel. A switching circuit for cutting off the first DC operating circuit after the electric discharge lamp is started is provided at the output terminal of the first DC operating circuit. In addition, reverse current preventing circuits for preventing the currents from reversely flowing from the operating circuits at higher voltages are provided at the output terminals of the second and third DC operating circuits.

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Yokohama, Japan

Masayuki Morita