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:
Oct. 13, 1998
Filed:
Jun. 06, 1995
Mihail Moisin, Lake Forest, IL (US);
Pacific Scientific, Newport Beach, CA (US);
Abstract
An improved ballast circuit for use with a compact fluorescent lamp includes an EMI filter, a rectifier and a voltage amplification stage, an active resonant circuit, a dimming circuit, and a power factor correction stage which is connected in parallel to a lamp load. In one embodiment, the ballast circuit operates in cooperation with a three way switch to adjust the light output of the lamp to three discrete levels corresponding to each setting of the three way switch. In another embodiment the ballast circuit includes a feedback capacitor which provides a feedback path for a portion of the high frequency current to the rectifier and voltage amplification stage. In still another embodiment, the ballast circuit is configured to accept input from a triac or a SCR device. In all of the embodiments, the dimming circuit works with the active resonant circuit to vary the amount of power that is supplied to the lamp load. Further, the ballast circuit embodiments automatically limit the voltage buildup in the lamp filaments at the end of their lifetime to prevent catastrophic failure of fluorescent and compact fluorescent lamps.