Solid-State Lighting With A Control Gear Cascaded By A Luminaire

Abstract

A light-emitting diode (LED) lighting system comprising a luminaire and an LED luminaire control gear is used to replace the luminaire operated with alternate-current (AC) mains. The luminaire coupled to the LED luminaire control gear comprises LED arrays and a power supply. The LED luminaire control gear comprises a rechargeable battery, a current-fed inverter, and a relay switch. When a line voltage from the AC mains is unavailable, the LED luminaire control gear is automatically started to provide a high output voltage within an input operating voltage range of the luminaire and a low direct-current (DC) voltage to control the power supply to provide an LED driving voltage greater than a forward voltage across the LED arrays, eliminating operating instability of the power supply. The relay switch is configured to couple either the line voltage or the high output voltage to the power supply to operate thereon.

Description

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS[0001]The present disclosure is part of a continuation-in-part (CIP) application of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 16 / 458,823, filed 1 Jul. 2019, which is part of CIP application of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 16 / 432,735, filed 5 Jun. 2019 and issued as U.S. Pat. No. 10,390,396 on 20 Aug. 2019, which is part of CIP application of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 16 / 401,849, filed 2 May 2019 and issued as U.S. Pat. No. 10,390,395 on 20 Aug. 2019, which is part of CIP application of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 16 / 296,864, filed 8 Mar. 2019 and issued as U.S. Pat. No. 10,390,394 on 20 Aug. 2019, which is part of CIP application of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 16 / 269,510, filed 6 Feb. 2019 and issued as U.S. Pat. No. 10,314,123 on 4 Jun. 2019, which is part of CIP application of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 16 / 247,456, filed 14 Jan. 2019 and issued as U.S. Pat. No. 10,327,298 on 18 Jun. 2019, which is part of CIP application of ...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

The LED lighting system described in this patent text is designed to replace traditional fluorescent or LED lamps that are powered by the AC mains. It includes a luminaire and a control gear that work together to regulate the power supply to the LED arrays. The control gear includes a rechargeable battery, a line voltage detection and control circuit, and a current-fed inverter. The system also includes a power switching converter that operates at a high output voltage and a low output voltage to ensure stable operation of the LED arrays without strobing. The power supply unit is designed to provide a stable and efficient power supply to the LED arrays at low power conditions.

Problems solved by technology

But the fact is that total cost of ownership for this approach is high regardless of very low initial cost.

If the existing ballast is not compatible with the ballast-compatible LED lamp, the consumer will have to replace the ballast.

Some facilities built long time ago incorporate different types of fixtures, which requires extensive labor for both identifying ballasts and replacing incompatible ones.

Maintenance will be complicated, sometimes for the lamps and sometimes for the ballasts.

The labor costs and long-term maintenance costs will be unacceptable to end users.

In this sense, any energy saved while using the ballast-compatible LED lamps becomes meaningless with the constant energy use by the ballast.

In the long run, the ballast-compatible LED lamps are more expensive and less efficient than self-sustaining AC mains-operable LED lamps.

Meeting OSHA requirements takes time and investment, but not meeting them could result in fines and even prosecution.

In other words, when the LED luminaire control gear is cascaded by the luminaire powered by the LED luminaire control gear that only provides a fraction of power compared with a rated power of the luminaire, there exists an operating uncertainty that a driving voltage and current provided by the LED luminaire control gear to drive the one or more LED arrays may fall into an unstable operating situation.

That is, when the one or more LED arrays require more current than a predetermined maximum, the fifth DC voltage drops below the forward voltage of the one or more LED arrays, resulting in an operating failure of the one or more LED arrays.

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