SELF-OSCILLATING ELECTRONIC BALLAST DESIGN FOR BIPOLAR

TRANSISTOR
I. INTRODUCTION

Nowadays, the uses of electronic ballasts are helping save energy that is consumed worldwide for

feeding fluorescent lamps. One solution to reduce this consumption is the use the typical self-oscillating

command circuits shown in Fig. 1(a) or (b). Besides significantly reducing electric energy consumption,

the low cost, reliability, and simplicity are the main attractiveness for electronic ballast application.

Despite the simplicity of this electronic ballast with bipolar transistor the design can become intricate. In

order to overcome this drawback, a design procedure will be proposed.

In the literature, is well known that the self-oscillating circuit presents a behavior as a relay control

system [1]. Therefore, the nonlinear feature shall be considered to determine the parameters of the

command circuit and overcome its drawbacks. In this paper is proposed a design procedure of self-

oscillating electronic ballast that uses bipolar transistor, which is having an increasing in the switching

speed, besides it is generally cheaper than Mosfet. The self-oscillating electronic ballast is shown in Fig.

2. The key point that will be consider is that the linear and nonlinear elements will be represented by

blocks diagrams, and an analysis involving control tools will be made.

The remainder of this paper is organized as follows. Section II presents the purpose of this work.

In Section III an analysis of the proposed design will be made. Section IV preliminary results will be

demonstrated. Finally, in Section V some conclusions are drawn based on the results obtained.

II. PURPOSE OF WORK

The self-oscillating electronic ballast employing bipolar transistor is shown in Fig. 2. In the

traditional design have been considering a linear analysis to obtain the parameters of the command circuit

[2], [3]. Although some approximations are valid, the nonlinear features must be considered.

(a) (b)
Fig. 1. Typical self-oscillating command circuit employing with (a) Mosfet and (b) Bipolar Transistor
 Fig. 2. Self-oscillating electronic ballast with BJT

Therefore, this work will consider the behavior of the employed saturable core. Besides to

determine the parameters of the command circuit the possibility to obtain dimming capability will be

explored. The wave shape of BxH curve of the saturable core used in the self-oscillating electronic

ballast with bipolar transistor is shown in Fig. 3.(a)[6]. The curve in Fig. 3(a) may be represented by an

on-off relay with histeresis as shown in Fig. 3.(b).

Therefore, we may obtain the describing function from an on-off relay represented by

4 BS
N= . (1)
H Sπ
Representing the remainder of elements of the circuit by block diagrams and representing all self-

oscillating electronic ballast as a relay control system in Fig. 4(a), the nonlinear feature may be consider.

Therefore, to determine the parameters of the command circuit an analysis using describing function

method and extended Nyquist criterion may be used [1], [4].

(a) (b)
Fig. 3. Wave shape of BxH curve of the employed core material

(a) (b)
Fig. 4. Block diagram of the self-oscillating electronic ballast
 Fig. 5. Nyquist diagram plot

III. DESIGN PROCEDURE

The design procedure may be conduced involving three steps: 1) determination of the values of the

resonant filter elements, 2) representation of self-oscillating electronic ballast by block diagram, 3) an

analysis involving describing function method and extended Nyquist criterion, and 4) finally the stability

analysis will be made. The step 4 will determine if the obtained parameters are valid, and if the self-

oscillating electronic ballast will operates at a self-sustained switching frequency.

The resonant parameters were obtained using the fundamental approximation and guarantying the

lamp starting and the steady state power in the lamp. The parameters are summarized in Table I.
TABLE I
SUMMARIZED PARAMETERS
Resonant Filter Parameters
CS Polypropylene capacitor, 147nF/250 Vac
CP Polypropylene capacitor, 14nF/600 Vac
L Resonant inductor, 3700 µH, 150 turns on core EE20 IP12-Thornton

Self-Oscillating Drive Parameters

nP 5 turns on core
nS1,S2 2 turns on core
Rb1, Rb2 22 Ω
Cb1, Cb2 3.3n F
CZ Capacitor to guarantee ZVS 2.2 nF
CQ Ceramic Capacitor 100nF / 60 V
RQ Resistor 330 kΩ/1/8W
Toroidal core NT 15/9.5/8 TH50
DQ High Frequency Diode UF4007
Others
S1, S2 Bipolar Transistors BUT11Ax
D1, D2, D3, D4 Rectifiers Diodes 4x1N4004
RLamp Tubular Fluorescent Lamp TLD 32W, Philips
CB Electrolytic Capacitor 22 µF / 350Vdc

The remainder components value obtained in the design of the self-oscillating electronic ballast

employing bipolar transistor are summarized in Table I.

Through the reduced block diagram in Fig. 4(b) the Nyquist plot of G(s) confronting with –1/N

determines if a self-sustained frequency exists with the parameters obtained. According Fig. 5 the point P

is encircled by G(s), thus P represents a possible self-sustained frequency, in this case 25 kHz. Thus, the

parameters of the command circuit summarized in Table I are valid.

 (a) (b)
Fig. 6. Self-oscillating electronic ballast experimental results: (a) Voltage and current in the lamp, 50V/div, 200mA/div, 20us
(b) Voltage and current in the switch, 50V/div 100mA/div, 10 us.

The possibility to obtain dimming capability similar as presented in [5] will be explored adding a

block diagram paralleled with the block 1/Rb in Fig. 4. Thus, as a result a frequency variation may be

obtained changing the stable operation frequency point P in the Nyquist diagram shown in Fig. 5.

IV. EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS

A self-oscillating electronic ballast to feed 32 W fluorescent lamp operating at a switching

frequency of 25 kHz was implemented. Fig. 6.(a) shows the voltage and current in the lamp. Fig. 6.(b)

shows the ZVS operation through the voltage and current in the switch in the bipolar transistor.

V. CONCLUSION
This work proposed a development of the design of the self-oscillating electronic ballast with

bipolar transistor. It shows that the circuit presenting nonlinear behavior must be analyzed as a relay

control systems. Therefore, some properties of linear systems cannot be used. Thus, an analysis involving

the self-oscillating electronic ballast with bipolar transistor as a control system may be conveniently used.

The characteristic of low pass filter of LCC filter allows uses the describing function method and

extended Nyquist criterion becoming valid the results obtained. Therefore the preliminary results obtained

are valid since the resonant filter has low pass characteristic.

Final version: A complete analysis of the proposed work will be made, besides to verify the possibilities
to obtain dimming capability. Additional experimental results will be presented to validate the work.
REFERENCES
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