CN102103978B - Mercury-free fluorescent lamp and its driving method - Google Patents

Abstract

The invention provides a mercury-free fluorescent lamp tube and a driving method thereof, wherein the lamp tube is assisted by an external electrode to emit light so as to achieve the aim of mercury-free lamp tube; the mercury-free fluorescent lamp tube comprises a lamp tube, two internal electrodes and two external electrodes; the two internal electrodes are respectively arranged at the two closed ends in the lamp tube, the two external electrodes are respectively arranged on the outer side surface of the lamp tube, and inert gas is filled in the lamp tube; wherein, the step of driving the mercury-free fluorescent lamp tube comprises: starting the two internal electrodes to excite part of the inert gas in the lamp tube to generate ionization; starting the two external electrodes to enable the inert gas in the lamp tube to generate plasma, so that the lamp tube is conducted to emit light; the two external electrodes are turned off and the lamp tube is maintained to emit light.

Description

Mercury-free fluorescent lamp and its driving method

technical field

The invention relates to a mercury-free fluorescent lamp tube, in particular to a mercury-free fluorescent lamp tube including an external electrode and an internal electrode; the invention also relates to a driving method of the mercury-free fluorescent lamp tube.

Background technique

The invention of tungsten filament and incandescent light bulbs allowed humans to reproduce light in the dark, which has since changed human life patterns and extended the daytime; while fluorescent tubes have improved the luminous efficiency and lifespan of traditional tungsten filament bulbs, greatly accelerating human life. The pace of civilization and progress.

The prior art fluorescent tube is filled with low-pressure argon or argon-neon mixed gas and mercury (mercury) vapor, and the inner surface of the glass tube is coated with a phosphorescent fluorescent layer. When the electrodes at both ends of the fluorescent tube are activated by power input, the heated electrodes will release a large number of thermal electrons and move rapidly due to the potential difference between the electrodes at both ends of the tube. When these hot electrons move, they hit mercury atoms in the tube and dissociate them to generate ultraviolet light. The fluorescent layer inside the fluorescent tube absorbs the above ultraviolet light and releases longer-wavelength visible light, causing the tube to emit light. The color temperature of the light emitted by the fluorescent tube can be controlled by the phosphorous composition of the fluorescent layer formula, while the glass tube prevents the leakage of harmful ultraviolet rays and toxic mercury inside.

Mercury in fluorescent tubes is harmful to the environment and difficult to recycle. When the tube breaks, the overflowing mercury vapor may even cause human poisoning. Therefore, the recent development and research of fluorescent tubes all aim to be mercury-free. However, if only inert gas is used instead of mercury vapor as the ultraviolet supplier, the luminous efficiency of the lamp tube is very low, which cannot meet the needs of lighting; moreover, for the above-mentioned ones with larger tube diameters or longer lamp tubes, the starting voltage must be A large increase, the use of extremely high voltage causes the inert gas to dissociate and generate ultraviolet light to emit light, which will increase energy costs; on the other hand, high voltage may burn out the lamp tube in addition to dangerous energy consumption.

China Taiwan Patent No. M326613 and No. M330420 "mercury-free fluorescent tube" disclose a mercury-free fluorescent tube in the form of an ellipse, and a reflective film is arranged on the outer surface of the lamp tube, through which part of the light is reflected by the reflective film to increase Luminous brightness in the same direction. However, the way of reflecting light by the reflective film cannot substantially increase the luminous efficiency of the lamp tube and improve the luminous brightness of the lamp tube, and the projection direction of the light source is limited due to the setting of the reflective film.

Contents of the invention

To sum up, the purpose of the present invention is to provide a mercury-free fluorescent lamp, so as to achieve the lighting goal of mercury-free lamp and meet the safety goals of environmental protection and non-toxicity.

Another object of the present invention is to provide a driving method for the above mercury-free fluorescent lamp, so as to solve the problem that the lamp is difficult to drive and light after mercury-free, and further improve the problem of poor brightness of the traditional mercury-free fluorescent lamp.

In order to achieve the aforementioned purpose, the mercury-free fluorescent lamp proposed by the present invention includes: a lamp tube filled with an inert gas and sealed at both ends; end, and two external electrodes, the two external electrodes are respectively arranged on the outer surface of the lamp tube. The driving steps of the mercury-free fluorescent lamp are as follows: start the two internal electrodes to excite part of the inert gas in the lamp tube to generate ionization; start the two external electrodes to cause the inert gas inside the lamp tube to generate plasma, and then make the lamp The tube is turned on to emit light; the two external electrodes are turned off to keep the tube glowing.

Through the activation of the external electrode of the present invention, the inert gas can be assisted to form plasma to cause the lamp tube to emit light, and the brightness is good, the light is uniform, and the environmental protection goal of no mercury is achieved. The detailed technical contents and preferred embodiments of the present invention will be described below in conjunction with the accompanying drawings.

Description of drawings

Fig. 1 is a cross-sectional view of an embodiment of the mercury-free fluorescent tube of the present invention; and

2-1 to 2-3 are flow charts of the driving method of the mercury-free fluorescent lamp of the present invention.

Detailed ways

The detailed description and technical contents of the present invention are described below in conjunction with the accompanying drawings.

Please refer to FIG. 1 , which is a cross-sectional view of an embodiment of a mercury-free fluorescent lamp 1 applicable to the present invention. The mercury-free fluorescent lamp tube 1 includes a lamp tube 11, two internal electrodes 12, 13 and two external electrodes 14, 15; Electrodes 12, 13; the inner surface of the lamp tube 11 is also coated with a fluorescent layer 111, the fluorescent layer 111 can absorb the ultraviolet rays generated by the gas inside the lamp tube 11 and emit visible light to form an illumination source; these two external electrodes 14, 15 are arranged on The outer surfaces of the lamp tube 11 are respectively defined as a cathode and an anode. The inert gas filled inside the lamp tube 11 can be selected from helium (He), neon (Ne), argon (Ar), krypton (Kr), xenon (Xe), radon (Rn) Any one or a combination of these groups, in order to achieve the environmental goal of mercury-free.

Please refer to the driving flowchart shown in Fig. 2-1 to Fig. 2-3, the method for driving the above-mentioned mercury-free fluorescent lamp 1 in the present invention includes: starting the internal electrodes 12, 13, exciting part of the inert gas in the lamp tube 11 to generate ions activating the external electrodes 14, 15, causing the gas inside the lamp tube 11 to generate plasma; closing the external electrodes 14, 15, and maintaining the lamp tube 11 to emit light. The above three steps are described in detail below.

Step 1: As shown in Figure 2-1, first start and conduct the internal electrodes 12, 13 at both ends, at this time, the current heats the filaments 121, 131 of the two internal electrodes 12, 13, and passes through the filaments 121, 13 The electron emitters attached to 131 release free electrons; these free electrons can assist the part of the inert gas in the excitation tube to dissociate, so that the voltage of the external electrodes 14 and 15 in the next stage can be reduced, and the effect of preheating the lamp tube 11 can be achieved at the same time ; That is to say, at this moment, the inside of the lamp tube 11 is not actually conducting. It should be noted that the so-called internal electrodes 12 and 13 in the present invention refer to those disposed at both ends of the lamp tube 11 and in contact with the inert gas inside the lamp tube 11 .

Step 2: Start the external electrodes 14, 15, as shown in Fig. 2-2. The external electrodes 14 and 15 are used to supply a high volt voltage to excite the inert gas inside the lamp tube 11 to form plasma, so that the inside of the whole lamp tube 11 is in a conduction state, and the light source is stably released. The above-mentioned "plasma" refers to the ionization of the filled inert gas to generate free electrons and positively charged gas ions, and the external electrodes 14 and 15 are activated to increase the number of free electrons instantaneously, thereby generating a steady-state plasma. After the inert gas atoms are excited, the electrons will jump from a low-energy level to a high-energy level and be in an unstable state. Therefore, when the electrons in the high-energy state return to a more stable low-energy state, they will emit ultraviolet wavelengths, and then pass through the fluorescence Layer 111 converts this ultraviolet light into a visible light source. It is explained here that: the high volt voltage used by the above-mentioned external electrodes 14, 15 is compared with the voltage of the internal electrodes 12, 13; The starting voltage of the electrodes 12, 13 (tens to hundreds of volts), that is, the internal electrodes 12, 13 are started with low voltage and high current, while the external electrodes 14, 15 are started with high voltage and low current.

Step 3: Turn off the external electrodes 14 and 15 to keep the inside of the lamp tube 11 in a conduction state. At this time, the lamp tube can emit a bright and stable visible light source, and the output of the light source does not change due to the closure of the external electrodes 14 and 15, as shown in Fig. 2-3.

It should be further explained that since the mercury-free fluorescent tube 1 lacks mercury gas to induce the ionization of the inert gas to make the inside of the tube conductive, the voltage of the internal electrodes 12 and 13 must be greatly increased to drive the tube, and because of the high voltage input It is very easy to cause damage to the tungsten wire. Generally speaking, due to the small diameter of the cold cathode fluorescent lamp and the use of metal cups (Ni-Cup, nickel cups) for the electrode parts, it can withstand high-voltage discharge to drive the lamp through its special structure; however, the cold cathode fluorescent lamp The electrode structure of the tube is not suitable for large-diameter fluorescent tubes. With the increase of the tube diameter and tube length of the lamp tube 11 structure of the present invention, the conduction voltage and current of the internal electrodes 12, 13 will increase exponentially with the size of the tube diameter and tube length, so that the ballast will be The high cost will also increase the danger of use. Therefore, the above-mentioned problems can be improved by assisting the ionization of the gas in the tube by the external electrodes 14 and 15 .

Accordingly, the present invention can be applied to hot cathode fluorescent lamps, especially those whose diameter is too large to be activated by the internal electrodes 12 and 13 alone, such as lamps above T4 (diameter 4/8 inch), but not based on other limit.

On the other hand, the external electrodes 14, 15 of the present invention are not continuously activated to maintain the conduction inside the lamp tube 11, but are only turned on simultaneously for a preset time after the two internal electrodes 12, 3 are conducted, and are passed through the external The high-voltage discharge of the electrodes 14 and 15 assists the ionization of the inert gas to form plasma. Therefore, when the two external electrodes 14, 15 are turned off, the internal electrodes 12, 13 are still in the conducting state, so that the inert gas inside the lamp tube 11 maintains a stable ionization state, and then the mercury-free fluorescent lamp 1 maintains the luminous effect. Because the external electrodes 14 and 15 of the present invention do not need to be continuously conducted, they are only used as an auxiliary effect for starting, which can avoid the concern of ozone pollution or energy consumption.

In the above-mentioned embodiment, the two external electrodes 14, 15 can both be conductive layers, and the conductive layer is substantially attached to the outer surface of the lamp tube 11; in addition, the conductive layer can be a metal film, such as Silver glue or conductive glue is coated on the outer surface of the lamp tube, or directly pasted with copper film, and there is no special limitation here. The two external electrodes 14, 15 can be arranged separately in consideration of the light emitting direction or efficiency of the mercury-free fluorescent lamp tube 1; furthermore, the two external electrodes 14, 15 can be arranged on the outer surface of the lamp tube 11 oppositely (as shown in FIG. 1 shows that they are respectively located at both ends of the diameter of the lamp tube 11), and the inert gas is excited by opposing discharges to form plasma; the external electrodes 14, 15 can be arranged along the extending direction of the lamp tube 11, and their width dimensions are such that no ozone is generated or less shielding The light source is standard, without special limitation; in other embodiments, the inner surface of the lamp tube 11 corresponds to the two external electrodes 14, 15, and can be coated with an insulating layer, for example, the material is indium tin oxide (ITO) The dielectric layer, since the material of the dielectric layer is well known in the prior art, it will not be described in detail here.

It should be noted that the circuit symbols and switches in Fig. 2-1 to Fig. 2-3 are only used for illustration; in fact, the startup and shutdown of the inner and outer electrodes of the mercury-free fluorescent tube 1 can be controlled by an electronic ballast. control.

The mercury-free fluorescent lamp provided by the invention has uniform light emission and good brightness, and does not need to use high energy to activate internal electrodes to consume energy. The above descriptions are only preferred embodiments of the present invention, and are not intended to limit the scope of protection of the patent of the present invention. All equivalent changes or improvements made according to the description of the present invention and the accompanying drawings should be included in the rights of the present invention. within the scope of protection.

Claims (10)

1. the driving method of a non-mercury florescent lamp pipe is used so that fluorescent tube (11) is luminous; Said fluorescent tube (11) is inner fills inert gas, and is provided with two internal electrodes (12,13) at two ends, and the outer surface of said fluorescent tube (11) is provided with two outer electrodes (14,15); It is characterized in that the step that drives said non-mercury florescent lamp pipe comprises: start said two internal electrodes (12,13), excite the part inert gas in the said fluorescent tube (11) to produce ionization; Start said two outer electrodes (14,15), cause the inner inert gas of said fluorescent tube (11) to produce plasma, and then make said fluorescent tube (11) conducting luminous; Close said two outer electrodes (14,15), and keep lamp luminescence.

2. the driving method of non-mercury florescent lamp pipe according to claim 1 is characterized in that, the starting resistor of said two outer electrodes (14,15) is greater than the starting resistor of said two internal electrodes (12,13).

3. the driving method of non-mercury florescent lamp pipe according to claim 1 is characterized in that, the switch of said two outer electrodes (14,15) and said two internal electrodes (12,13) is controlled by an electric stabilizer.

4. non-mercury florescent lamp pipe is characterized in that comprising:

One fluorescent tube (11), its inner inert gas and closed at both ends of filling;

Two internal electrodes (12,13), said two internal electrodes (12,13) are arranged at two blind ends in the said fluorescent tube (11) respectively;

Two outer electrodes (14,15), said two outer electrodes (14,15) are arranged at the outer surface of said fluorescent tube (11) respectively;

Wherein, after said two internal electrodes (12,13) start and after keeping conducting, can start said two outer electrodes (14,15) Preset Time, close, make said inert gas plasmaization and cause said non-mercury florescent lamp pipe stabilized illumination.

5. non-mercury florescent lamp pipe according to claim 4 is characterized in that, said two outer electrodes (14,15) are relatively arranged on the surface of said fluorescent tube (11).

6. non-mercury florescent lamp pipe according to claim 4 is characterized in that, the inner surface of said two outer electrodes (14,15) corresponding said fluorescent tubes (11) comprises an electric inducing layer.

7. non-mercury florescent lamp pipe according to claim 6 is characterized in that, the material of said electric inducing layer is a tin indium oxide.

8. non-mercury florescent lamp pipe according to claim 4 is characterized in that, said non-mercury florescent lamp pipe is a thermal cathode fluorescent tube.

9. non-mercury florescent lamp pipe according to claim 4 is characterized in that the caliber of said non-mercury florescent lamp pipe is greater than 4/8 inch.

10. non-mercury florescent lamp pipe according to claim 4 is characterized in that, the switch of said two outer electrodes (14,15) and said two internal electrodes (12,13) is controlled by an electric stabilizer.

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