A New Energy-Recyclable Burn-in Technology for Electronic Ballast Industry

High efficiency power processing is of vital importance in today’s energy-saving conscious world. Eco-friendly electronic products can help save the environment and save consumers money by using less electricity. However, saving energy is not only about reducing the electricity consumption of a product; it should also encompass the electricity consumed in the production of the product. After manufacturing of a product begins, it has to go through a burn-in process for weeding out infant mortalities and thus improving the product reliability.The concept of using energy recycling technique in conducting burn-in process has become increasingly popular in power conversion industries, such as the power supply industry. The idea is to use an energy recycling device to recycle the energy output from the power conversion units through the use of grid-interactive inverter technology. This approach can effectively reduce the electricity consumption in the burn-in process. Although much progress has been made in improving the efficiency of the energy recycling devices, their applications are limited to testing products outputting low-frequency power under fairly constant loading condition. Therefore, those devices are inapplicable for electronic ballast manufacturing because they cannot emulate the nonlinear electrical characteristics of a discharge lamp from its ignition stage to steady-state operation. Moreover, they are unable to handle and recycle high-frequency power.Since the development of high-voltage, high-frequency energy recycling technology is less impressive, existing burn-in process for electronic ballasts still remains conventional. The method is energy-inefficient and costly. The produced ballasts are operated at the rated condition by connecting lamps or resistors at their output. All electrical energy is converted into heat and light. Not only does this method waste electricity, it also raises room temperatures in the factory, which results in installing ventilation systems to release the excessive heat.The objective of this research is to explore an energy-recyclable burn-in technology for electronic ballast industry. The technology can emulate the nonlinear characteristics of a discharge lamp, process high-frequency ballast output power and recycle the power back into the grid. It is beneficial for the industry because many countries have recently implemented policies and measures to promote using electronic ballasts and self-ballasted compact fluorescent lamps. The new technology will effectively reduce post-production cost, increase product competitiveness and improve the reliability and quality of the ballasts. Most importantly, it can help solve the imminent need of reducing the utilization of energy and greenhouse-gas emission.