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:
Aug. 08, 2000
Filed:
Apr. 29, 1999
Charles H Titus, Newtown Square, PA (US);
Other;
Abstract
An electronic ballast has a unique inverter design which eliminates a large percentage of the required components, thereby simplifying and increasing the reliability of the ballast, while decreasing its costs. The ballast can operate both as a non-dimmable ballast and a dimmable ballast. The ballast can provide power for either two or four fluorescent lamps in a single light fixture, or for a plurality of such light fixtures connected in a daisy chain fashion. The ballast incorporates additional safety and protection features which are not available in existing ballasts, such removing the lethal danger of the 50/60 Hz power that is typically present at the lamps during lamp replacement. Furthermore, the electronic ballast supplies a constant high frequency output voltage to the light fixture independent of the frequency. There is very little distributed capacitance at the connections from the electronic ballast to the lamps. This feature eliminates points of resonances over the range of frequencies for dimming, thereby eliminating sudden changes in brightness as the frequency is varied.