Yf. Ji et R. Davis, STARTING PERFORMANCE OF HIGH-FREQUENCY ELECTRONIC BALLASTS FOR 4-FOOTFLUORESCENT LAMPS, IEEE transactions on industry applications, 33(1), 1997, pp. 234-238
With the rapidly increasing number of electronic ballast manufacturers
and ballast products entering the market recently, the compatibility
of fluorescent lamps with electronic ballasts has become one of the ma
jor concerns among specifiers and users In 1993, the American National
Standards Institute (ANSI) published ANSI C82.11-1993, which describe
s recommendations for high frequency operation of fluorescent lamp bal
lasts, to address compatibility issues for lamp starting, ANSI C82.11
limits the average value of the rms glow current to a maximum of 25 mA
and lamp preheat time to a minimum of 500 ms. Tbe ANSI's definitions
of flow current and preheat time are made on an ideal lamp starting cu
r, e. In reality, some electronic ballasts produce lamp starting curl
es very different from ANSI's definition, creating difficulties in pra
ctical measurements of glow current and preheat time. This research wo
rk tested lamp starting characteristics of 17 different electronic bal
lasts on 2-F40T12 lamps The results showed that the starting performan
ce of electronic ballasts varied; some met ANSI's requirements, but so
me did not, ?he results also showed that using electrode voltage can b
etter define preheat time and glow current, which can better character
ize the starting performance of electronic ballasts and ensure reliabl
e testing procedures.