Drop the Hammer

 

Ed pointed out that one of the huge, almost unrecognized advantages of high frequency ballasts was that they produced flicker-free light! There had been health effects, such as headaches, eye strain etc, with using magnetic ballasts. The use of high frequency ballasts cuts down on these issues as they create a constant continuous light stream.

The new high frequency ballasts also led to a lower loss in the cores and no longer needed transformers that became extremely hot. They could use smaller cooler inductors for the ballasts. Using the new ballasts it was possible to decrease the total number of ballasts by 50% and double the number of lamps (compared to magnetic ballasts).

From about 1975-1980 the new high frequency ballasts were still failing. They needed to make them as reliable as the magnetic ballasts that were used in order to make progress to begin switching them. In about 1980 the high frequency ballasts had equal reliability to the best electromagnetic ballasts.

Rebates from utilities helped cfl sales using the new ballasts to grow at this time. However, there was a curious problem at that time that people were encountering. In some of the rebate areas, people would have issues with their televisions cycling channels – the remote control seemed to be not working properly. They would take them to be repaired, pay high repair costs, get their tv home and still have the same issue! It turned out that the frequency from these initial high frequency ballasts was the same as the frequency from the televisions – causing interference when cfls and televisions were simultaneously used.

This created the need to keep the ballasts out of same frequency as tv remote controls. The problem was eventually solved when they got together with the television companies and figured which frequencies were being used. Another example was at the grocery store, there would be a high frequency bulb used above the register, causing the scanner to ring up the incorrect prices. Eventually these issues led to frequency standards being set up within the industries, so that different products would not interfere such as these instances.

Listen To The Audio Podcast –

 

Tags: CFL, CFL History, compact fluorescent light bulbs, electromagnetic ballasts, energy efficient, flicker-free light, high frequency ballasts, incandescent light bulbs, magnetic ballasts, reduced heat

This entry was posted on Thursday, April 10th, 2008 at 9:29 am and is filed under CFL History, ballast. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.