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:
Apr. 22, 1997
Filed:
May. 14, 1996
Applicant:
Inventor:
Robert E Rector, McKinney, TX (US);
Assignee:
Gulton Industries, Inc., Plano, TX (US);
Attorney:
Primary Examiner:
Assistant Examiner:
Int. Cl.
CPC ...
H05B / ;
U.S. Cl.
CPC ...
315102 ; 315106 ; 315107 ; 315225 ;
Abstract
A ballast arrangement is disclosed for use in powering fluorescent and other gas discharge lamps. The ballast arrangement controls the arc voltage provide by an arc voltage oscillator independent of the filament voltage provided by a filament voltage oscillator. In this manner, safe maintenance condition during fault and interrupt condition are obtained. The full arc voltage is only applied to the lamp when the lamp filaments are warm or after a time period during which they are warmed. The filament pre-warming time reduces sputtering when an excitation or arc voltage in subsequently applied to induce lamp arcing.