Fluorescent Circuits

If you are tired of replacing small night light lamps, try this circuit. The line powered circuit uses a long life cold cathode fluorescent lamp. A simple charge pump technique runs the lamp without any transformer.

If you are tired of replacing small night light lamps, try this circuit. The line powered circuit uses a long life cold cathode fluorescent lamp. A simple charge pump technique runs the lamp without any transformer.

This is a low-cost project for 20 or 40 watt fluorescent tubes. However the most efficient is to use a 40 watt tube (or two 20 watt tubes in series). It's a circuit you can put together from junk box components or build from a kit. It's very simple to build and requires no printed circuit board.

A number of people have been unable to find the transformer needed for the Black Light project, so I looked around to see if I could find a fluorescent lamp driver that does not require any special components. I finally found one in Electronics Now. Here it is. It uses a normal 120 to 6V stepdown transformer in reverse to step 12V to about 350V to drive a lamp without the need to warm the filaments.

A number of people have been unable to find the transformer needed for the Black Light project, so I looked around to see if I could find a fluorescent lamp driver that does not require any special components. I finally found one in Electronics Now. Here it is. It uses a normal 120 to 6V stepdown transformer in reverse to step 12V to about 350V to drive a lamp without the need to warm the filaments.

The circuit is built around the IR2520D Ballast Control IC. The IR2520D provides adjustable preheat time, adjustable run frequency to set the lamp power, high starting frequency for soft start and to avoid lamp flash, fault protection for open filament condition and failure to strike, low AC line protection and auto-restart after line brownout conditions. The IR2520D is a low-cost solution with only 8 pins and allows the component count for the complete solution to be reduced down to 19 components.

This 40W fluorescent lamp inverter allows you to run 40W fluorescent tubes from any 12V source capable of delivering 3A. This is basically a larger version of the 12VDC Fluorescent Lamp Driver and can be used to light regular or blacklight tubes.

The CFL-2 is an electronic ballast design for driving a 42 watt compact fluorescent lamp from a 120 or 230 volt AC line. The circuit was designed using the IR2156 Ballast Driver IC. The main features of the circuit are programmable frequency, preheat time, over-current threshold and dead time. A circuit board was designed and tested to verify reliable functionality under actual operating conditions.

The circuit was designed to experiment with using small fluorescent lamps as a broad pattern source of modulated light. The circuit hits the small lamp with narrow 1us pulses at a rate of 10KHz. Each pulse launches about 10 watts of visible light. The lamp starting method is a bit crude but the circuit does work.

The circuit was designed to experiment with using small fluorescent lamps as a broad pattern source of modulated light. The circuit hits the small lamp with narrow 1us pulses at a rate of 10KHz. Each pulse launches about 10 watts of visible light. The lamp starting method is a bit crude but the circuit does work.