High power factor electronic ballast with intelligent energy saving control for ultraviolet lamps drive

A new design of high power factor low cost electronic ballast with intelligent energy saving control for water-treatment system ultraviolet lamps (UVL) drive is described in this paper to obtain truly pure and safe drinking water. Accurate knowledge of the characteristics of the UVL is essential for the ballast design. An automatic identification system is developed to obtain the characteristic parameters, the emissive theorem, the dynamic and steady state profiles of the UV lamps with various power ratings. According to the measured characteristics, a half-bridge series-resonant circuit is used to implement the driver topology. In order to design a high performance ballast for UVL drive, a full-automatic general circuit components design platform and post verification system are implemented. Cooperating with the developed graphic user interface (GUI), the design performance and effectiveness can be predicted in this integrated GUI environment through the computer simulation and data computation. The validity of the realized ballast can also be verified using this system. For the purposes of energy-saving, bacteria killing factors, and light lifespan extension, an intelligent green mode control is presented to dim the luminance of the UVL according to the sensed flow and illumination signals. In addition, a warning alarm will be set to alert users when the ballast or lamp is going down.