Inventors:
Timothy Chen - Aurora OH, US
Wei Xiong - Lakewood OH, US
Bruce Roberts - Mentor on the Lake OH, US
Assignee:
General Electric Company - Schenectady NY
International Classification:
H05B 37/00
Abstract:
The embodiment disclosed herein relates to systems and methods to provide improvements to power delivery systems employed with lamps in general and fluorescent lamps in particular. In accordance with one exemplary embodiment, cathode current is controlled to a maximum level to quickly bring the cathode temperature up to thermionic emission temperature. After lamp ignition, a cathode voltage reduction circuit is employed to reduce voltage of the external cathode heating. Power is supplied to a power factor correction circuit via an IC, in accordance with a second exemplary embodiment. Finally, a third disclosed embodiment addresses desensitizing the lamp from various deleterious parasitic capacitive effects associated with the power delivery to one or more lamps.