Starting Circuit Adapted to Stabilize HID Lamps and Reducing the Acoustic Resonances

This paper presents an igniter circuit for high-intensity-discharge (HID) lamps based on an inverter and a resonant tank that has been adapted to stabilize inductively an HID lamp by means of applying low-frequency quasi-square waveforms to voltage and current in the lamp in order to reduce the presence of the acoustic resonances. With the proposed improvement, the igniter circuit performs three different functions: 1) the lamp ignition; 2) the arc stabilization; and 3) the acoustic resonances reduction. This proposal allows the use of fewer components, and less energy processing is minimized, so the resulting ballast is cheaper and more efficient than other ballast that avoids the acoustic resonances when they are working with square waveforms in the lamp voltage and current. The circuit was validated experimentally by using a 70 W conventional high-pressure sodium lamp, which is operated with a frequency of 2 kHz. The results were an electrical efficiency of 94%, a crest factor in the lamp current of 1.41, and it was not observed the presence of acoustic resonances.