Power factor correction device including electronic ballast function

1. Field of the Invention

The invention relates to a power factor correction device. In particular, the invention relates to a power factor correction device including electronic ballast function, which adds a control circuit to produce the electronic ballast action to reduce harmonic interference, save power and space, and increase system reliability.

2. Description of the Related Art

Electronic ballast power factor refers to an efficient power percentage of an input current actually used in an electronic ballast circuit. In general, an electronic ballast circuit driven by the high-frequency voltage to light a lamp has a higher light output, i.e., to save more power. Hence, the electronic ballast circuit is in widespread use, e.g., various projectors, to replace the conventional ballast circuit and starter. Typically, a projector's lamp lighting circuit separates a power factor correction converter and an electronic ballast circuit as shown in FIG. 1 . FIG. 2 is a circuit diagram of a conventional ballast system. In FIG. 2, the system includes a rectifier 21 , a power factor correction (PFC) circuit 22 , an energy storing capacitor C 3 , an electronic ballast circuit 24 , an ignitor 25 and a lamp. The rectifier 21 includes a full-bridge rectifier comprised of diodes BD 1 -BD 4 to produce a DC output, for example, converting 110 VAC into 150 VDC or 220 VAC into 300 VDC, and a filter capacitor C 1 to filter the DC output in order to avoid noise interference coming from rectifier 21 . The PFC circuit 22 mainly includes a transformer T 1 , start resistors R 1 , R 2 , a T 1 -waveform sensing resistor R 3 , an integrating filter capacitor C 2 , a block diode D 1 , a metal-oxide-semiconductor field-effect transistor (MOSFET) switch Q 1 and a controller CTRL 1 . The output of the rectifier 21 is coupled to an end of the start resistor R 1 and an end of a first inductor TL 1 of the transformer T 1 . Another end of the start resistor R 1 is coupled to an end of the start resistor R 2 . Another end of the first inductor TL 1 is coupled to the source of the switch Q 1 and a forward-biased diode D 2 . Another end of the start resistor R 2 is coupled to the input of the controller CTRL 1 , the grounding integrating filter capacitor C 2 , and the reverse end of the block diode D 1 (node A). The forward end of the block diode (node B) is coupled to an end of the resistor R 3 and an end of a second inductor TL 2 of the transformer T 1 . Another end of the second inductor TL 2 is to the ground. Another end of the sensing resistor R 3 is coupled to the input of the controller CTRL 1 . The output of the controller CTRL 1 is coupled to the gate of the switch Q 1 through a resistor R 4 . The drain of the switch Q 1 is coupled to the input of the controller CTRL 1 and a grounding resistor R 5 . In such a configuration, the circuit 22 uses the controller CTRL 1 to receive the output voltage sensing from the transformer T 1 by the resistor R 3 and a feedback signal FB from the drain of the switch Q 1 . The feedback signal FB is used to modify the output voltage from the two inductors of the transformer T 1 to selectively change the ON duty ratio and/or the frequency of the switch Q 1 so as to output a correct power factor. The block diode D 1 blocks the reserve current from the capacitor C 2 discharge to avoid affecting the sensing value of the sensing resistor R 3 . Hence, the controller cannot output the correct power factor. Similarly, the diode D 2 has the same block function as the grounding capacitor C 3 storing the DC output from the PFC circuit 22 . The load condition will influence the output phase coherence of the current and voltage, for example, in a projector with an incandescent lamp only able to have the same output phase on the voltage and current and the 100% output power factor. However, in practical, load is more complicated, such as, for example, when a high voltage mercury lamp is used, a capacitor (C 3 ) to store the power and an electronic Ballast to keep the power factor output in a steady state, for example, over 0.95, are a must. Typically, as shown in FIG. 2, the circuit 24 includes an MOSFET switch Q 2 , a shunt LC resonant circuit, a block diode D 3 and a controller CTRL 2 . The source of the switch Q 2 connects to the free end of the capacitor C 3 , the gate to an input signal from the controller CTRL 2 through the resistor R 6 , the drain to the reverse end of the diode D 3 and an end of the inductor L 1 in the shunt LC circuit. The inductor L 1 connects to an end of an external lamp LAMP and the free-end of the grounding capacitor C 4 in the shunt LC circuit. The forward end of the diode D 3 connects the ground and an end of the resistor R 7 . Another end of the resistor R 7 connects to the controller CTRL 2 to produce a feedback signal BFB. Another end of the resistor R 7 also connects to an end of the ignitor 25 including a transformer T 2 to ignite and a controller CTRL 3 to control the transformer T 2 . Another end of the ignitor 25 connects another end of the lamp LAMP. The controller CTRL 2 outputs a control signal to adjust the Q 2 output frequency based on the feedback signal BFB, so as to control the output power from the LC resonant circuit having the DC—DC conversion function to the lamp LAMP. The diode D 3 having the same function as mentioned the diode D 1 above can avoid the feedback signal affected by the reversed current and voltage from the drain of the switch Q 2 . Further, the reversed current and voltage influence the voltage supply to the lamp LAMP, so as to affect the lighting (projecting) stability of the lamp (i.e., Flicker Index (FI) for light). For example, the lamp's FI over 0.01 can cause vibration on the projecting frame. To solve this problem, the PFC circuit 22 typically keeps the output voltage of the rectifier 21 around 380 VDC and decreases the output voltage to about 85 VDC by the LC resonant circuit in the ballast circuit 24 to provide the lamp LAMP the required voltage. However, this makes the circuitry complicated so as to waste power, space and cost.

Accordingly, an object of the invention is to provide a power factor correction device including electronic ballast function, which adds a control circuit to produce the electronic ballast action to reduce harmonic interference, save power and room, and increase system reliability.

The invention provides a power factor correction device including electronic ballast function. The device includes a lamp; an ignitor, connected in series with the lamp, to start the illumination; a voltage and current controller, connected in parallel with the cascade lamp and ignitor, to receive the voltage across the lamp and output a feedback signal according to the received voltage; and a power factor correction (PFC) circuit, connected in parallel with the voltage and current controller, to adjust an output power according to the feedback signal to protect the circuit and increase the stability.

The invention can be more fully understood by reading the subsequent detailed description in conjunction with the examples and references made to the accompanying drawings, wherein:

FIG. 1 shows a schematic diagram of the ignitor circuit of a lamp in a typical projector;

FIG. 2 shows a circuit diagram of a portion of the ignitor circuit in FIG. 1;

FIG. 3 shows a diagram of an inventive power factor correction circuit including electronic ballast function; and

FIG. 4 shows a block diagram of FIG. 3 .

The same element function denotes the same reference number throughout the description.

FIG. 3 shows a diagram of an inventive power factor correction circuit including electronic ballast function. In FIG. 3, a ballast circuit re-designed from FIG. 2 is used to connect the power factor correction circuit 22 , the ignitor 25 and the lamp LAMP in FIG. 2 in order to form the invention. Therefore, the invention can have the electronic ballast function without the complicated electronic ballast circuitry. As shown in FIG. 3, an additional voltage and current control circuit 31 is used, in addition to the inherent rectifier 21 , the power factor circuit 22 , the ignitor 25 and the lamp LAMP. The rectifier 21 is responsible to convert an AC from an external power line into a DC. The circuit 22 is responsible to adjust the power factor. The ignitor 25 is responsible to light the lamp LAMP. The lamp LAMP is responsible to illuminate. The voltage and current controller 31 includes a storage capacitor Ce, sensing resistors R 36 -R 39 to measure the voltage difference between the two ends of the lamp LAMP, an external control switch SN and a controller CTRL 4 . As shown in FIG. 3, the two ends Cvcc and Bvcc of the storage capacitor Ce are connected between the output of the rectifier 21 and the output OUT of the PFC circuit 22 . It is noted that the storage capacitor Ce implementation is different from that in the prior art. The capacitor Ce has a positive end connected to the output of the rectifier 21 and a negative end connected to the output OUT of the PFC circuit 22 . However, in the prior art, the negative end of the capacitor C 3 is connected to the output of the PFC circuit 22 and the positive end of the capacitor C 3 is grounded as shown in FIG. 2 . Next, the node Cvcc is connected to an end of the sensing resistor R 36 and the ignitor 25 . Another end of the sensing resistor R 36 is connected to an end of the sensing resistor R 37 and an input end of the differential amplifier (not shown) in the controller CTRL 4 . Another end of the sensing resistor R 37 is connected to an end of the sensing resistor R 39 and the feedback signal of the PFC circuit 22 . Another end of the resistor R 39 is connected to an end of the sensing resistor R 38 and another input end of the differential amplifier. Another end of the sensing resistor R 38 is connected to the node Bvcc and an end of the external control switch SN. Another end of the control switch SN is connected to the positive voltage end of the lamp LAMP.

In the inventive configuration, when the resistance R of the lamp LAMP changes as using time passed, the supplies of the current I and voltage V are adjusted according to the resistance R in order to output fixed power to the lamp LAMP. Hence, the power consumption and brightness on the lamp LAMP are fixed. For this purpose, the controller CTRL 4 uses the sensing resistors R 36 -R 39 to input the voltages on two ends of the lamp LAMP respectively to the differential amplifier in the controller CTRL 4 and obtain the voltage value across the lamp. The obtained voltage value is fed back into the controller CTRL 1 in order to adjust the output and the stored charge in the storage capacitor Ce. The voltage adjustment range is between 20 to 90 VDC. As such, stable output power is produced to keep the lamp's brightness in a steady state and avoid the flicker effect. The external control switch SN is connected to an external control circuit (not shown) to provide an alternative option to light the lamp. The switch SN can be a relay, a MOS or a thyristor.

FIG. 4 is a functional block diagram of FIG. 3 . As shown in FIG. 4, using a rectifier converts an input AC voltage with 110 or 220 VAC into a DC voltage 150 or 300 VDC desired by the operation. The voltage and current control circuit in the PFC circuit is used to produce a feedback control signal FBC to control the PFC circuit to directly supply an output voltage with about 85 VDC to the lamp. As such, a step-down circuit for the ballast circuit is not needed, so as to lower cost, save space and reduce power consumption. When the lamp is an AC lamp, an additional DC-AC inverter (not shown) is needed to provide AC voltage to the lamp. The DC-AC inverter can be implemented by any identical technique in the prior art. For example, a full-bridge or a half-bridge circuit can be used.

While the invention has been described by way of example and in terms of the preferred embodiment, it is to be understood that the invention is not limited to the disclosed embodiments. On the contrary, it is intended to cover various modifications and similar arrangements as would be apparent to those skilled in the art. Therefore, the scope of the appended claims should be accorded the broadest interpretation so as to encompass all such modifications and similar arrangements.