AN IMPROVED ELECTRONIC BALLAST FOR FLUORESCENT LAMP

Ballast is a device needed to energize fluorescent lamps during operation. In
fluorescent lighting systems, the ballast provides the proper voltage to start the lamp
and then regulates the electric current flowing through the lamp to stabilize output.
There are two types of ballast for fluorescent lamp: electromagnetic ballast and
electronic ballast. Even though the electronic ballast has many advantages compared
to electromagnetic ballast, it has high purchase cost and can only connect to one or
two lamps. Therefore this project will be focusing to design electronic ballast which
has high efficiency, cost effective and can operate multiple lamps. The end result of
this project is the simulation result and the prototype of the product. The design
process will include procedures such as research, calculation, simulation of Pspice
and construction of the electronic ballast circuit. After some research, it was found
that the combination of power factor correction (flyback converter) and selfoscillating
inverter can build the electronic ballast which meets this project's
requirement. The combination of all the circuits has been successfully simulated in
Pspice software and result was obtained. The electronic components such as resistors,
inductors, capacitor, and MOSFETs were bought and the prototype of the electronics
ballast was built. The cost used to build the circuit is calculated and compare with the
price of the electronic ballast in the market. The efficiency of the electronic ballast
was calculated.