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Ballastronic,
Inc. is a small R&D company in Florida
developing high quality and energy
efficient electronic ballasts for HID
lamps. Founded in 2001, the company's
principal focus has been in the
development of low frequency square wave
electronic ballast technology for pulse
start metal halide lamps, especially in
medium power and wide temperature
range.
Ballastronic's
founder, Janos Melis who is also the
designer of our ballasts, has a master
degree in power electronics (Technical
University of Budapest). After spending
seven years as assistant professor
teaching physics and theoretical
electronics, he started to work in the
switchmode power supply area. In the early
nineties he came to the United States and
started to work on electronic ballasts for
HID lamps. He has written several
papers,
studies
and patents in electronic ballast
subject.
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Why
is your company focusing mainly on special
industrial applications?
Our
strategy based on developing a
technology that can satisfy the most
demanding reasonable requirements.
Hence, our ballast exceeds the existing
ballasts on the market in several
crucial technical parameters and
features, making it particularly suited
for special industrial applications.
However, our most recent component
pricing clearly indicates that our 400W
low frequency square wave electronic
ballast is price competitive even for
the general commercial
applications.
Apart
from energy saving, why does your company
emphasize the importance of high
efficiency?
There
is an important reason why a ballast's
efficiency should be as high as
possible. Higher efficiency means lower
power loss. Lower power loss means
lower temperature rise of the
components with respect to the ambient
temperature. Therefore, the average
failure rate of the components in our
ballast decreases resulting higher
reliability and longer life time.
Because it can operate at higher
ambient temperature, our ballast also
has the advantage in demanding
industrial applications over the
available ballasts on the
market.
How
does your ballast handle the acoustic
resonance?
For
metal halide (MH) lamps the best method
to avoid acoustic resonance is the
application of low frequency (100Hz -
200Hz) square wave current. Many
existing ballasts on the market follow
this method, but their high frequency
lamp current component is still high in
the most cases. One of the reason is
technical, it is problematic to create
small amplitude high frequency current
harmonics with simple methods (for
instance, cost effective integration of
a buck converter with a square wave
inverter). Our ballast has a unique
solution providing extremely low high
frequency ripple current. It is
significantly lower than the available
ballasts on the market have.
Furthermore, the main unit of the
ballast handles the special load
characteristic of the MH lamps very
well. For instance, practically
instantaneous dimming of the lamp
between full and half power can be
done. This feature generally is only
for demonstration since there is no
need for it (we do not want to send
digital light signals with the lamp).
Furthermore, slower dimming is better
for the HID lamps, especially for the
old ones.
Almost
all electronic ballasts in the market are
presently advertised as microprocessor
controlled. Does your ballast have
microcontroller
(microprocessor)?
The
basic unit of our ballast is a very
unusual one, using only a few and low
cost components where the application
of a microcontroller is not justified
neither technically nor economically.
However, it has other units where the
application of high integration
technology (ASIC, Microcontrollers) is
definitely advantageous. We consider
the microprocessors more significant,
than a simple substitution for the "old
style" control circuits.
Do
you think the microprocessor controlled
ballasts are better than those
without?
It
is an interesting situation. From
technical viewpoint the application of
microprocessors is not even a necessary
condition to provide high quality for
an electronic ballast. Several crucial
parameters (efficiency, reliability,
temperature range, high frequency lamp
power harmonics, etc.) of an electronic
ballast, or more generally a switchmode
power supply, are mostly independent of
the microprocessor controllers. A high
quality powerful ballast needs more
than what a microprocessor could
provide. A low frequency square wave
ballast is a complex device, and its
overall quality (reliability, etc.) is
determined by the weakest part(s) of
the ballast and that is surely not the
microcontroller. This can be
demonstrated if one compare our
prototypes to the available
microprocessor controlled electronic
ballasts on the market.
Some
special applications for your ballast were
mentioned. Do you know of other special
applications your low frequency square
wave ballast technology is suited
for?
We
are sure that our powerful low
frequency square wave ballast
technology will open up several
industrial applications. There is one
very special application we like to
mention here not related to the general
market, but would be welcomed by the
lamp manufacturers, and ballast
designers: a low cost testing ballast.
With a minor modification of our low
frequency square wave circuit, we can
design an almost ideal square wave
ballast where a built in extra unit
will inject high frequency sinusoidal
current into the lamp and its amplitude
and frequency can be changed in
appropriate discrete steps. Therefore,
the acoustic resonance diagram of a
given lamp in a certain frequency range
can be visualized and saved in a
database. The whole testing process can
be controlled by a simple computer
program. The importance of the acoustic
resonance diagrams for the lamp
manufacturers, and especially for the
ballast designers cannot be
overestimated.
How
do you see the future of your
company?
We
have achieved our basic goal developing
a state of the art powerful electronic
ballast technology. Furthermore, as a
small R&D company engaged only in
development, we have limited financial
resources, experience in marketing and
production. Therefore, we would like to
establish business relationship with a
company in the lighting industry with
marketing power and production
experience interested in our electronic
ballast technology. In addition, we are
also willing to share our theoretical
and practical knowledge with the new
generation of talented engineers of
that company.
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