Independent multi-lamp electronic ballast

This paper presents an electronic ballast to supply four independent lamps. An improved arrangement of the lamps in the half-bridge topology is done, putting one LCC output filter to each lamp of the ballast, distributed between both switches. The advantages of this new arrangement are: if one lamp is damaged, others keep working; it has an efficiency improvement when compared to ballasts that supply less lamps; and it is a low cost electronic ballast to supply a considerable output power. A study about the parameters that will lead the to the best choice of semiconductors is done. In this case the ballast is supplying four lamps, but there is the possibility of using any number of independent lamps, by only increasing the number of LCC output filters and re-dimensioning the semiconductor devices.