A high-reliability soft-start igniter for HPS lamps

In this paper, the analysis and design of a new igniter based on half bridge inverter is presented. The proposed igniters can tolerant of the leakage inductance and the parasitic capacitor influence inherent in the transformer, the location of the ignition pulses is near the edge of the square wave automatically. Meanwhile there are enough ignition pulses during a switching period that can ignite high-pressure-sodium (HPS) lamps without any voltage shock. The parameters are given by theoretical calculation, and then verified by PSpice simulation results. At last experimental results of the igniter are presented. Due to the location of ignition pulses, the optimized waveform and high frequency of pulse voltage, the proposed igniter can reliably start most of the lkW HPS lamps without voltage or current surge.