JPH0332036Y2 - - Google Patents

Description

[Detailed Description of the Invention] [Technical Field of the Invention] This invention relates to an improvement of a compact fluorescent lamp device.

[Technical background of the invention] It is generally known that the efficiency and amount of light emitted by a fluorescent lamp are influenced by the internal mercury vapor pressure. That is, the mercury vapor pressure is required to fall within a certain range, and if it falls outside of that range, the efficiency and amount of light emitted will decrease.

However, since a compact fluorescent lamp device incorporates a fluorescent lamp into an envelope, the ambient temperature of the lamp becomes considerably high, which causes a problem of a decrease in efficiency and luminous amount. As a countermeasure to this problem, there is a method in which a large number of holes are made in the envelope to release the internal heat to the outside. However, this method has the problem of poor appearance due to the large number of holes made in the envelope. For this reason, fluorescent lamps have recently been developed that use amalgam, which has a low mercury vapor pressure even at the same temperature, to light the fluorescent lamp. That is, by using amalgam, even if the temperature around the fluorescent lamp becomes considerably high, the mercury vapor pressure of the fluorescent lamp becomes appropriate, and the efficiency and luminous amount of the lamp can be maintained at a good level.

[Problems with the Background Art] However, when amalgam is used, the mercury vapor pressure does not rise smoothly when the lamp temperature is low at the start of startup, which causes a problem of poor startup characteristics. Additionally, amalgam is usually housed in an exhaust pipe formed at one end of a fluorescent lamp.
During steady lighting, the protrusion containing the amalgam may be located on the upper side or the lower side of the compact fluorescent lamp device depending on the mounting direction. For example, if you set the mercury vapor pressure of a fluorescent lamp to be just right at the ambient temperature of the protrusion when it is placed on the upper side, the ambient temperature of the protrusion will not be high enough when it is placed on the lower side. There was a problem that the efficiency and amount of light emitted decreased.

For this reason, it is conceivable to surround the protrusion with a glass cloth silicone tube or the like to insulate the area, but even such measures are not sufficient to stabilize the mercury vapor pressure. Again, the problem that the efficiency and amount of light emission vary depending on the mounting direction of the device remains unsolved.

[Purpose of the invention] This invention was devised to solve these problems, and it can improve the starting characteristics of fluorescent lamps using amalgam, and
An object of the present invention is to provide a self-ballasted fluorescent lamp device that can always provide stable and good efficiency and light emission amount regardless of the orientation of the fluorescent lamp.

[Summary of the invention] This invention integrates a fluorescent lamp using amalgam and a lighting circuit that controls the lighting of the fluorescent lamp into a translucent envelope, and a cap at one end of the envelope. In a compact fluorescent lamp device equipped with a lamp, the amalgam of the fluorescent lamp is constantly heated during lighting by arranging a heat-generating circuit element constituting a part of the lighting circuit close to the amalgam.
The mercury vapor pressure of the fluorescent lamp is controlled.

[Embodiment of the invention] An embodiment of the invention will be described below with reference to the drawings.

FIG. 1 shows a lighting circuit, in which an input terminal of a full-wave rectifier diode bridge circuit 4 is connected to an AC power source 1 via a filter circuit consisting of a capacitor 2 and a coil 3. The diode bridge circuit 4
A smoothing capacitor 6 is connected to the output terminal of the circuit through a resistor 5. A single-stone inverter circuit 7 is connected to the smoothing capacitor 6.

The inverter circuit 7 includes an oscillation transformer 8 and
An NPN type switching transistor 9 is provided,
A resonant capacitor 10 is connected in parallel to the primary winding 8p of the oscillation transformer 8 to form a resonant circuit, and one end of the primary winding 8p is connected to the positive terminal of the smoothing capacitor 6, and the primary winding The other end of 8p is connected to the collector of the transistor 9. The emitter of the transistor 9 is connected to one end of the feedback winding 8b of the oscillation transformer 8 through a diode 11 in the forward direction. A diode 12 with opposite polarity is connected in parallel to the series circuit of the transistor 9 and the diode 11.

The other end of the feedback winding 8b of the oscillation transformer 8 is connected to the negative terminal of the smoothing capacitor 6, and a parallel circuit is formed by connecting a capacitor 15 in parallel to a series circuit of a diode 13 and a resistor 14, and a base inductor 16. and a resistor 17 connected in series to the base of the transistor 9. The connection point of each of the parallel circuits is connected to the positive terminal of the smoothing capacitor 6 via a starting resistor 18.

The output terminal of the inverter circuit 7 having such a configuration, that is, the secondary winding 8 of the oscillation transformer 8
A fluorescent lamp 20 is connected to s via a chiyoke coil 19.
One end of each filament coil 20a, 20b is connected. An electronic starter circuit 21 and a series circuit of a coil 22 magnetically coupled to the chiyoke coil 19 are connected between the other ends of each filament coil 20a, 20b of the fluorescent lamp 20. An exhaust pipe 24 containing an amalgam 23 is formed at one end of the fluorescent lamp 20.

As shown in FIG. 2, the lighting circuit and fluorescent lamp 20 have a lighting circuit and a fluorescent lamp 20 having a cap 31 attached to one end, a cover 32 having a flap-shaped opening at the other end, and a light-transmitting lamp fitted into the opening of the cover 32. It is housed in an envelope 34 consisting of a hemispherical globe 33.
That is, a chassis 35 is attached to the cover 32, and both ends and the center of the saddle-shaped fluorescent lamp 20 are engaged with the chassis 35. Most of the fluorescent lamps 20 are housed within the globe 33. A circuit board 36 is fixed to the chassis 35, and the smoothing capacitor 6, oscillation transformer 8, and other circuit components 37 constituting the lighting circuit are attached to the circuit board 36.

The starting resistor 18 is provided close to the exhaust pipe 24 of the fluorescent lamp 20. That is, as shown in FIG. 3, a cylindrical resistor 18 is used, and the exhaust pipe 24 is inserted and fixed into the hollow part of the resistor 18.

In the embodiment of the present invention having such a configuration, when the power supply 1 is supplied, a current is supplied to the inverter circuit 7 through the resistor 18, and the inverter circuit 7 starts an oscillation operation. When a current flows through the resistor 18, the heat generated heats the amalgam 23 housed in the exhaust pipe 24. At the time of starting, a high voltage is applied across the fluorescent lamp 20, the electronic starter circuit 21 is activated, a preheating current flows through each filament coil 20a, 20b of the fluorescent lamp 20, and the switching operation causes the fluorescent lamp 20 to heat up. Each filament coil 20a, 2
A high voltage pulse is applied between 0b. By repeating this operation several times, the fluorescent lamp 20 starts lighting up. and fluorescent lamp 2
0 starts lighting, its tube voltage decreases and the operation of the electronic starter circuit 21 is stopped. Even while the fluorescent lamp 20 is lit, current continues to flow through the resistor 18 and the amalgam 23 in the exhaust pipe 24 continues to be heated.

In this way, even at the time of starting, the amalgam 23 is heated by the heat generated by the resistor 18, so the fluorescent lamp 20 is started in a state where the mercury vapor pressure is relatively good, and the starting characteristics are improved.

Furthermore, since the amalgam 23 continues to be heated by the resistor 18 even during lighting, even if the atmospheric temperature distribution inside the envelope 34 changes, the exhaust pipe 23
The temperature state can always be maintained at a substantially constant temperature state. Therefore, under this temperature condition, the fluorescent lamp 2
If an amalgam is used that has a good mercury vapor pressure within 0, the mercury vapor pressure will not change even if the installation direction of the device changes, and the fluorescent lamp 20 will always emit the same amount of light. It can be operated stably. In other words, the efficiency and amount of light emitted by the fluorescent lamp 20 can be maintained at a good level at all times.

In this embodiment, as a means for attaching the resistor 18 close to the exhaust pipe 24, the resistor 18 is made into a cylindrical shape, and the exhaust pipe 24 is inserted and fixed into the hollow part of the resistor 18, but various shapes can be considered for this purpose. For example, as shown in FIG. 4, a resistor 18 may be attached to the exhaust pipe 24 and it may be integrally solidified with silicon 38.

Next, another embodiment of this invention will be described with reference to the drawings. Note that the same parts as in the above embodiment are given the same reference numerals, and detailed explanations will be omitted.

As shown in FIG. 5, a resistor 40 is connected to the tertiary winding 8c of the oscillation transformer 8 via a positive temperature coefficient thermistor 39, and the resistor 40 is connected to the tertiary winding 8c of the oscillation transformer 8 using the method shown in FIG. It is fixed close to the exhaust pipe 24.

In this device, the ambient temperature state near the exhaust pipe 24 in the envelope 34 is detected by a thermistor 39, and when the ambient temperature is high, the resistance value of the thermistor 39 increases, suppressing the amount of heat generated by the resistor 40, and vice versa. When the temperature is low, the resistance value of the thermistor 39 decreases, causing the amount of heat generated by the resistor 40 to increase. Therefore, when the temperature is low, such as during startup, the amalgam 23 can be rapidly heated to immediately bring the mercury vapor pressure of the fluorescent lamp 20 to a favorable state, thereby further improving the startup characteristics. Furthermore, even when the lighting is on, the amount of heat generated by the resistor 40 can be variably controlled depending on the ambient temperature, so the temperature of the exhaust pipe 24, that is, the amalgam 23, can be stably maintained at an appropriate temperature even better than in the previous embodiment, and the fluorescence The light emitting characteristics of the lamp 20 can be further improved.

In this embodiment, a self-heating type thermistor may be used in place of the thermistor 39 and the resistor 40, and in this case, the resistor 40 can be omitted.

[Effects of the invention] As detailed above, according to this invention, the starting characteristics of fluorescent lamps using amalgam can be improved, and the efficiency and luminous intensity are always stable and good regardless of the orientation of the fluorescent lamp. It is possible to provide a self-ballasted fluorescent lamp device that provides the following.

[Brief explanation of the drawing]

Figures 1 to 3 show an embodiment of this invention; Figure 1 is a circuit diagram, Figure 2 is a sectional view, and Figure 3 is a partial sectional view showing how the resistor is attached to the protrusion. 4 is a partial sectional view showing another example of how to attach the resistor to the protrusion, and FIG. 5 is a circuit configuration diagram showing another embodiment of this invention. 4...Full wave rectifier diode bridge circuit, 6...
...Smoothing capacitor, 7...Inverter circuit, 18
...Starting resistor, 20...Fluorescent lamp, 23...
Amalgam, 24... Exhaust pipe, 31... Base, 3
4...Envelope.

Claims (1)

[Scope of utility model registration request] A compact fluorescent lamp device in which a fluorescent lamp using amalgam and a lighting circuit for controlling the lighting of the fluorescent lamp are integrated into a translucent envelope, and a base is provided at one end of the envelope. In this method, the amalgam of the fluorescent lamp is constantly heated during lighting by arranging an exothermic circuit element constituting a part of the lighting circuit close to the amalgam, thereby controlling the mercury vapor pressure of the fluorescent lamp. A compact fluorescent lamp device featuring: