Compact Fluorescent Plug-In Ballast-in-a-Socket

Technical Report · Fri Dec 21 04:00:00 EST 2001

DOI:https://doi.org/10.2172/894517· OSTI ID:894517

Voelker, Rebecca ^[1]

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1. General Electric

The primary goal of this program was to develop a ballast system for plug-in CFLs (compact fluorescent lamps) that will directly replace standard metal shell, medium base incandescent lampholders (such as Levition No. 6098) for use with portable lamp fixtures, such as floor, table and desk lamps. A secondary goal was to identify a plug-in CFL that is optimized for use with this ballast. This Plug-in CFL Ballastin-a-Socket system will allow fixture manufacturers to easily manufacture CFL-based high-efficacy portable fixtures that provide residential and commercial consumers with attractive, cost-effective, and energy-efficient fixtures for use wherever portable incandescent fixtures are used today. The advantages of this proposed system over existing CFL solutions are that the fixtures can only be used with high-efficacy CFLs, and they will be more attractive and will have lower life-cycle costs than screw-in or adapter-based CFL retrofit solutions. These features should greatly increase the penetration of CFL's into the North American market. Our work has shown that using integrated circuits it is quite feasible to produce a lamp-fixture ballast of a size comparable to the current Edison-screw 3-way incandescent fixtures. As for price points for BIAS-based fixtures, end-users polled by the Lighting Research Institute at RPI indicated that they would pay as much as an additional $10 for a lamp containing such a ballast. The ballast has been optimized to run with a 26 W amalgam triple biax lamp in the base-down position, yet can accept non-amalgam versions of the lamp. With a few part alterations, the ballast can be produced to support 32 W lamps as well. The ballast uses GE's existing L-Comp[1] power topology in the circuit so that the integrated circuit design would be a design that could possibly be used by other CFL and EFL products with minor modifications. This gives added value by reducing cost and size of not only the BIAS, but also possibly other integral CFL and future dimmable integral and plug-in versions of the EFL products.

• Research Organization: General Electric
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE
• DOE Contract Number: FC26-99FT40630
• OSTI ID: 894517
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATION
36 MATERIALS SCIENCE
DESIGN
FLUORESCENT LAMPS
INTEGRATED CIRCUITS
LIFE-CYCLE COST
LIGHT BULBS
MANUFACTURERS
MARKET
MERCURY ALLOYS
MODIFICATIONS
PRICES
TOPOLOGY