Automatic Lamp Detection and Operation for Warm-Start Tubular Fluorescent Lamps

The availability of T5 high-efficiency (HE) and high-output (HO) fluorescent lamp families not only increases the number of commonly used tubular fluorescent lamps from 9 to 18, but more importantly, increases the chance of ballast-lamp mismatch because T5(HO) and T5(HE) lamps have similar physical outlooks and dimensions but vastly different lamp characteristics. The large number of lamp types increases the number of specific ballast designs and users have the new inconvenience of ensuring the correct matching of the lamps and ballasts. In this paper, a survey and analysis of lamp characteristics of all commonly used T5, T8 and T12 tubular fluorescent lamps is presented. Based on the heated lamp electrodes, lamp voltage and lamp current, a classification system that maps the lamp characteristics into various groups for automatic lamp detection is proposed. The successful implementation of this method is explained and demonstrated.