The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Feb. 18, 1997
Filed:
Mar. 31, 1995
Sreeraman Venkitasubrahmanian, Torrance, CA (US);
Gert W Bruning, North Tarrytown, NY (US);
Paul Veldman, Oss, NL;
Thomas Farkas, South Euclid, OH (US);
Raj Jayaraman, Rancho Palos Verdes, CA (US);
Yongping Xia, Torrance, CA (US);
Philips Electronics North America Corporation, New York, NY (US);
Abstract
A dimming ballast for use with a phase control dimmer, and particularly a triac dimmer, includes an EMI filter selected with a high impedance to avoid excessive voltage and peak currents in the filter due to resonance with the phase controlled AC waveform at low conduction angles, when the load presented by the lamp is low. The EMI filter includes a filter capacitor connected at the output of a rectifier. The ballast also includes circuitry to sense the rectified DC voltage and to discharge the filter capacitor when the rectified voltage is at or near zero, to thereby keep the EMI filter loaded and prevent misfiring of the triac dimmer. In a favorable embodiment, the sensing and discharge function is carried out by a pre-conditioner of the switched-mode type.