Performance analysis of electronic ballasts for compact fluorescent lamp

This paper presents a detailed performance analysis in the most common electronic ballasts for compact fluorescent lamps. Electronic ballast characteristics are presented, as following: power factor, input current THD, crest factor, and ballast efficiency. This analysis is done to the electronic ballasts using both drivers: self-oscillating circuit and dedicated integrated circuit (IR 2151). Electronic ballast topologies present: no power factor correction, PFC using the valley-fill filter, and PFC with boost converter. Therefore, a detailed losses analysis and how to minimize these losses is presented.