EP1480496B1 - Controllable lighting equipment with a second communication protocol, and apparatus therefor - Google Patents

Abstract

The electronic voltage adapter (1) enables the operation of the lamp (2) to be controlled by digitally driving the electronic voltage adapter using a communications protocol. The electronic voltage adapter is configured for digital control using at least two communications protocols. It can determine which protocol a received drive signal corresponds to. Independent claims are also included for the following: (a) a controller for electronic voltage adapters (b) a light system with an inventive voltage adapter (c) a light system with a controller (d) and a method of programming inventive devices.

Description

Technical area

The invention is directed to electronic ballasts for lamps, so as ballasts for discharge lamps or LEDs (which are here subsumed under the term "lamp") or transformers or relays for incandescent lamps. It also relates, in addition to or in combination therewith, to control devices for controlling electronic ballasts for lamps. The ballast or the control unit should be designed for digital communication, the ballast should therefore be controlled digitally using a communication protocol and the controller for a digital control of a ballast be designed with a communication protocol.

State of the art

Such ballasts and control devices are known per se. In particular, several manufacturers have recently agreed on a common communication protocol called "digital addressable lighting interface" (= "DALI").

The US 2002/0154025 A1 discloses a method and a device for the wireless addressing of lighting systems EP 0 714 224 A2 describes a method and a device for controlling lighting systems.

The corresponding ballasts, also installed in combination with a lamp, such as an energy-saving lamp, and control units are particularly used in larger lighting systems, in which complex control functions can be achieved by digital addressing.

Presentation of the invention

The present invention is based on the technical problem of providing an improved ballast and an improved control unit, which are designed for a digital control communication with a communication protocol.

The invention is directed to an electronic ballast and a control device for controlling an electronic ballast, which are each designed for a digital control of the ballast with a second additional communication protocol.

The basic idea of the invention is therefore that it offers particular advantages, the devices mentioned, wherein the term device hereinafter means both the control device and the ballast according to the invention to interpret two different communication protocols out. In addition to a given protocol, such as the aforementioned DALI protocol, an inventive device can then communicate so via an additional protocol and exchange further information accordingly.

In addition to the sheer expansion of the communication options over the given by the first communication protocol increase in technical performance, the invention has the considerable advantage that this increase in performance without departing from a predetermined and in practice possibly very common or determined by a certain standardization Protocol can be achieved. The devices according to the invention continue to remain compatible with the first protocol. An additional aspect may be that the second communication protocol, in contrast to a first protocol standardized by manufacturer agreement or otherwise, is manufacturer-specific or in an individual case even application-specific or customer-specific can be set and possibly also with less effort or shorter time intervals changed and in particular can be extended.

However, it remains at an unrestricted functionality of the communication on the first protocol, so in particular at a flawless operability or intelligibility of the associated commands. Instead of the technically basically simpler and more direct replacement of a protocol to be modified or extended by another, the invention thus goes the way of a "two-pronged" communication between the devices.

The devices according to the invention are of course present in combination. The invention is therefore directed in particular to lighting systems in which both the ballasts and control devices are designed according to the invention. On the other hand, advantages are already achieved if only a single device of the invention corresponds or if in a lighting system only the ballasts or control units or a part thereof correspond to the invention. On the one hand this results in an extended retrofittability and functional extension by subsequent connection of suitable inventive devices (control devices to existing ballasts or vice versa). Secondly, the individual devices can be read or reprogrammed by an external service device designed for the second communication protocol without being restricted by the first protocol.

Preferred embodiments of the invention are specified in the dependent claims. The individual features relate both to the device category and the method category of the invention.

An inventive ballast is preferably equipped so that it can determine automatically upon receipt of a drive signal to which communication protocol the drive signal belongs, and accordingly can set to an evaluation of this drive signal. In principle, however, the invention would be so executable that the ballast can be switched by an external signal or a switch on the ballast or in a similar manner from the first to the second communication protocol or vice versa.

In turn, a control unit according to the invention is preferably equipped such that it can send drive signals in accordance with the first communication protocol and further drive signals in accordance with the second communication protocol "at the same time". In this case, "at the same time" means that the transmission takes place without switching by external action, that is to say either actually in parallel, for instance at different carrier frequencies, or in some way time-interleaved, ie with a change according to specific bit numbers or specific command numbers. In particular, it is preferred that the control unit transmits drive signals in a time-interleaved manner in accordance with both communication protocols, the signals alternating in a command-specific manner without a fixed predetermined alternating sequence. The alternation takes place as needed. Thus, for example, commands of the second protocol are interposed as needed between commands of the first protocol. In this case, the already mentioned preferred ballast independently make an assignment to the protocols.

A preferred way of distinguishing between the protocols is that the corresponding instruction words have different word lengths. Preferably, however, the instruction words have identical start bits to initially enable synchronization or triggering. Furthermore, as an alternative to the different word lengths or in addition, it may be provided that the communication protocols differ in their stop bits. With simultaneous use of the two differentiation possibilities, an increased recognition reliability is ensured.

Furthermore, the communication protocols according to the invention are preferred biphasencodiert. This means that the logical 1 and the logic 0 do not correspond to a low or high electrical level or vice versa, but to a given level change. For example, an ascending level jump can mean a logical 0 and a falling level jump a logical 1, and vice versa. This has the advantage that the presence of a bit can be clearly recognized. For this purpose, in addition to the EP 1 069 690 directed.

A particular utility of the invention is to read devices according to the invention by utilizing the second, for example, manufacturer-specific communication protocol with regard to defect analysis or operational history and reprogramming with regard to maintenance or update. In particular, the contents of an electronic memory of a microcontroller can be read out, for example, in terms of operating hours or error messages, or can be described with a more up-to-date operating software or operating software adapted to a newly used lamp type.

In the present invention, in a further aspect, more specifically, it is a lighting system in which at least one gas discharge lamp with preheatable electrodes is contained. In many types of discharge lamps, electrodes are preheatable to improve ignition conditions and extend the life of the discharge lamp. Turning on such a discharge lamp is done via a preheat and subsequent ignition in the lamp.

The invention provides in this respect, by the control unit to the ballast to send a ready command, down to the ballast operates the discharge lamp in such a way that it heats the electrodes at non-burning discharge lamp, so that the control unit by a switch-on the discharge lamp whose Electrodes are heated, can ignite again without delay by a preheating.

In some applications, it has been found that the delay caused by the preheat time can be detrimental between a turn-on command and the actual light generation. This applies in particular to the field of stage and effect lighting, but may also be of interest in other contexts, especially with more complex timing schemes.

Accordingly, the invention provides for a standby state of the ballast and consequently of the discharge lamp in which the electrodes continue to be heated. The heating continues at least to the extent that a new start without damaging the lamp and virtually no time delay is possible. This standby state is caused by a standby command provided for this purpose being sent by the control unit to the ballast. The readiness command can have the consequence, on the one hand, that the ballast does not convert a subsequent switch-off command in the sense of a complete switch-off, but rather in the sense of a transition to the standby state, ie, the electrodes continue to be heated when the discharge lamp is not burning. On the other hand, the ready command can also be received when the lamp is switched off and have a preheating or heating of the electrodes until the next switch-on with a corresponding immediate start result. Third, and this variant is preferred in the invention, the standby command is simultaneously a turn-off, so is sent to a ballast of a burning discharge lamp, whereupon the discharge lamp goes out, but the electrodes remain heated.

The invention thus has the overall advantage of enabling a quasi-instantaneous instant start of discharge lamps in lighting systems by introducing a further command and a corresponding standby state as needed.

Furthermore, it can be provided that the standby state or electrode heating process following the standby command is limited in time and is switched off again, if after a predetermined time no switch-on or renewing another standby command has been received. Thus, the standby state can be prevented from being unnecessarily or even indefinitely long in case of a mis-control or an unexpected end of operation of the lighting system.

This time limit is preferably carried out by the ballast and not by the control unit. In this context, it can also be provided that, in the case of a switch-on command, the ballast is queried as to whether the standby state, that is to say the electrode heating process, is still continuing. Then, depending on the result of the query, a preheat operation may be inserted before a restart or not. This query is preferably carried out by the ballast itself, so it checks the state of the lamp operated by it or its own operating state.

Furthermore, it can be provided in the invention that the standby state can be terminated even before the expiration of the time limit or, if this feature is not provided, at all by a standby off command.

An inventive ballast is configured accordingly, that is configured to respond to the standby command according to the invention in the manner described.

An inventive control device, in turn, is designed to be able to send a described ready command, thus providing the relevant additional command. Furthermore, a lighting system according to the invention has at least one corresponding ballast and at least one corresponding control unit in order to be able to work in accordance with the described method.

When installing a lighting system according to the invention, an association must be made between the positions of the individual lamps or lamp groups operated by a common operating device and their address. Clearly speaking, the control unit must therefore know which address is to be controlled if a particular lamp or lamp group is to be influenced in their function.

The invention further includes in this respect the aspect that the ballasts are provided before installation in the lighting system with individual for the respective ballasts, externally signal technically addressable codes, read these codes during installation of the lighting system and the control unit are entered so that they the control unit are assigned to the installation positions of the respective ballasts, the control unit assigns respective control addresses to the respective ballasts for activation and the control unit controls the ballasts using the control addresses.

In addition, however, the invention also relates to a correspondingly manufactured and put into operation lighting system and finally to a manufacturing method for a ballast, in which the ballast is provided in a manner adapted to the invention with an externally signal technically addressable code.

The essential point here is the individual encoding of Vorschaitgeräten to make them distinguishable when installing the lighting system. Conventionally, the ballasts - whether by themselves or already implemented as a module with lamp - in principle indistinguishable among themselves. Therefore, for example, when assigning a ballast address in the controller via the controller, the installer must drive the appropriate ballast and actually check which lamp or lamps have been turned on. Only then can the assignment between address and position in the lighting system take place.

This can be extremely cumbersome in larger lighting systems or distributed over several rooms or even buildings lighting systems.

In contrast, the invention provides that during installation of the lighting system, d. H. During assembly of the ballast, the code is read out, that is detected in any way to enter it together with the installation position to the control unit. For example, during assembly of the ballast, the installer may write off a code written thereon and create an appropriately coded installation plan that can be used during programming of the controller. However, he can also type the code into a file or, for example, read it with a bar code reader or record in other ways data or electrical. Now, if the controller is programmed, there is already an association between the codes of the ballasts and their positions in the lighting system, because the installer has made this assignment already during assembly of the ballasts, so at this time in knowledge of the positions of the lighting system.

The control unit now only has to assign control addresses to the respective ballasts, which could also be the codes themselves and in the future will address and control the ballasts with these control addresses.

Above, we talked about ballasts and not lamps, although in the lighting system ultimately the lamp operation should be controlled. However, pure lamps without ballast per se are not addressable. It is assumed that the term "ballast" here means the operating devices, which are, as it were, directly assigned to the lamps, that is to say those devices which are only connected via electrical lines or other simple electrical devices without their own data-related function and meaning, are connected to the lamps. In this sense, therefore, the ballasts are connected directly to the lamps.

This is not in the way that also indirectly connected to the lamps devices, ie those that in turn are connected via ballasts with the lamps, addressed and coded in the manner according to the invention.

Incidentally, the connections between the control unit and the ballasts can be without line, that is to say based on radio links, for example. Furthermore, the term lighting system is to be understood here very generally and is not limited to lighting in the classical sense, so the above-mentioned examples of room or exterior lighting with conventional lamps. Rather, z. B. also LED applications are installed according to the invention, provided appropriate control devices and ballasts are present. The term "externally signal-technically addressable" is also to be understood generally and may mean, on the one hand, that the codes in the ballasts can be read from the outside, so that the control unit or a service unit can interrogate which code has a ballast. However, "responsive" can also mean that the ballasts are code-specific selectable, so the corresponding ballast "addressed" when a control command is received with the appropriate code.

The inventive method thus has the advantage of a clear and relatively labor-intensive installation and address assignment. Of course, these benefits also apply to the appropriately manufactured and commissioned lighting system. By their applicability in the described manufacturing process, these advantages are also transferred to the appropriate ballasts and thus to a manufacturing process for a ballast in which an integratable in the above manner in an address-sensitive lighting system ballast with one of outside signal technically addressable code is provided in the above sense.

A preferred embodiment of the invention provides that the codes of the ballasts are addressed via lines to the ballasts from the outside, which lines connect the ballasts to the controller. However, these cables can also be optical lines, such as fiber optic cables, in addition to conventional electrical lines.

The codes contained in the ballasts can there preferably be stored in a semiconductor memory. Furthermore, according to the invention, they can preferably be mounted on the ballast in an optically readable manner, that is to say in the described manner as a barcode print or sticker or as an alphanumeric label.

A particularly preferred application of the invention provides discharge lamps and / or LEDs as lamps, whereby, of course, other types of lamps can occur in addition. Discharge lamps and LEDs or LED modules are within lighting systems i. d. R. can not be operated without ballasts. However, relays or dimmers for incandescent lamps may be ballasts within the meaning of the invention.

More complex control options in lighting systems are in demand especially in the field of interior lighting, so that the invention is preferably directed to this area. Examples are conference and event rooms, theaters and the like.

The lighting system according to the invention can in turn be part of a larger system, the control unit can therefore in turn be connected to a building control system in the sense of a more general home automation control and controlled by this system. The associated with the mentioned addressing function commands can of course ultimately by the Building control system generated and entered by the lighting system control unit only in the lighting system.

The invention also makes it possible to upgrade an existing lighting system in a particularly simple manner. The inventive method thus also includes the case that an existing lighting system is expanded by adding at least one ballast and thus produced in the expanded form. Both the case is conceivable that the previous smaller lighting system was already designed according to the invention, as well as the case that by conventional retrofitting or replacement of the controller, a conventional lighting system is made compatible with the inventive method. The conventional smaller lighting system then already has an address assignment, so that the advantages of the invention for the present or future expansion stages can be used.

A simple and advantageous in the event of later troubleshooting, complaints or statistical data collection type of ballast is that the code date and / or place of manufacture of the ballast and / or information on the ballast type, the connectable lamp type or the connectable Number of lamps contains or even exclusively consists of this information. Also in the later retrofitting, for example, software updates in microcontroller controls or in the search of parts to be replaced or to be tested parts of the affected ballasts can be particularly easily selected in this way.

Brief description of the drawings

Fig. 1

shows a schematic block diagram of a ballast according to the invention.

Fig. 2

shows schematically a lighting system according to the invention.

Fig. 3

shows a second embodiment of a lighting system according to the invention.

Fig. 4

shows the ballast off Fig. 1 from the outside.

Fig. 5a - 5c

schematically shows the word structure of control commands according to the invention.

Fig. 6

shows schematic timing diagrams for explaining the standby state according to the invention.

Preferred embodiment of the invention

In the following the invention will be explained in more detail with reference to an illustrative embodiment, reference being made to the attached figures. The disclosure, as well as the above description, already relates both to the device character and to the method character of the invention. The individual features may also be essential to the invention in other combinations.

Fig. 1 shows a schematic block diagram of a ballast according to the invention for a discharge lamp in a lighting system.

The numbered with 2 discharge lamp is started and operated by the figured with 1 electronic ballast and has in particular preheatable electrodes. The electronic ballast (in the following for the sake of brevity ECG) has, on the one hand, a mains connection 31 for connecting a mains supply line 32 and, on the other hand, a control connection 41 for connecting a control line 42.

In the following, conventional devices are described only cursorily, because the person skilled in the art knows their technical structure anyway and they are only of minor importance to the understanding of the invention.

The power supply 31 leads via a radio-protection filter 11 and a rectifier with power factor correction circuit (PFC circuit) to a smoothing capacitor 13, which supplies an inverter 14, such as half-bridge topology, with DC power. The inverter 14 essentially contains the functional blocks lamp circuit 14a and heating circuit 14b and is connected to the lamp 2 via a transformer 15 with taps for heating the electrodes (as indicated graphically).

On the other hand, the control terminal 41 is connected to a digital electronic interface 17 and provides via this a control signal to a microcontroller 16 with memory 16a. This microcontroller 16 is used to control the inverter, d. H. ultimately, to control lamp operation including preheat, ignition and dimming.

Fig. 2 again shows in a schematic way a lighting system according to the invention, wherein with 1-11 to 1-n and 1-21 to 1-m ECGs of in Fig. 1 of the type shown and having discharge lamps corresponding to the lamp 2 connected thereto at 2-11 to 2-n and 2-21 to 2-m Fig. 1 are designated. The approximately in the middle of the Fig. 2 Dashed horizontal line symbolically divides a first space above it from a second space below it. Some of the ECGs and lamps are located aiso in the first room and another in the second room. In reality, of course, more rooms and possibly also other electronic ballasts and lamps are provided so that you can Fig. 2 can continue thinking downwards. In the left area are provided with 7a and 7b controls for operating the lighting system, the controls are connected to two controllers 3a and 3b. Both controllers are in this example in the first room. There are also the controls 7a and 7b top left. However, there is a similar second operating element 7a, which is interconnected with the upper control element 7a and has identical functions, also in the second room. The control unit 3a thus fulfills functions that can be operated from both rooms, while the control unit 3b is accessible only in the first room.

The control devices 3a and 3b are connected with control signal outputs to two bus signal lines 42, whose branches of in Fig. 1 drawn control line 42 correspond. The control signal line 42 is thus bipolar and designed as a pure bus, because both controllers 3a and 3b and all ECGs are connected to it. The respective network power supply 32 of the ECGs is in Fig. 2 not shown and carried out according to the invention not of interest principles locally. It is thus clear that functions of the individual lamps or electronic ballasts can be controlled purely by signal technology via a bus line 42 via the operating elements and control units, wherein the control signals will be discussed in more detail below.

Fig. 3 shows an alternative to Fig. 2 , wherein identical reference numerals designate corresponding elements. The difference from the embodiment Fig. 2 is that here a control unit 3 is used for inputting control commands in the control signal line 42, which in turn receives commands via a bus system in the form of the symbolic line 6 of a more general building control system. In this case, the control unit 3 designates the interface or the gateway between the building technology control system shown on the left side thereof by the line 6 and the actual lighting installation beginning with the control unit 3. The design of the building control system and in particular the command input are not shown here in detail; it is only a question of demonstrating that the lighting system according to the invention can be integrated into such a system.

Fig. 4 shows a concrete example of an ECG 1 according to the Fig. 1-3 , Here, a cuboidal sheet metal housing is shown, in which the basis Fig. 1 closer circuit explained is housed. On the left, one recognizes the network connection 31 and the control connection 41; on the right four individual connections for the lamp 2 are shown, but not numbered. The electronic ballast 1 can easily be fixed in luminaires via visible recesses on the left and right.

In particular, the TOE has 1 Fig. 4 an imprint 8 with a barcode and an alphanumeric representation of the corresponding code. These are the individual coding of the individual electronic ballasts already explained in the introduction to the description, which the installer uses when installing the lighting system Fig. 2 or 3 or can be detected when retrofitting the ECG 1 in an existing lighting system via a bar code reader or by retyping. The corresponding code is in the in Fig. 1 shown semiconductor memory 16a of the microcontroller 16 stored in the ECG. It reflects the place of manufacture, time and line (at the factory) of the TOE and can also contain information about the device type, such as the number of lamp outputs and operable lamp types.

The installer can now in a correspondingly generated installation plan on paper and / or a corresponding file (reading by a bar code reader or typing in a notebook) between the predetermined by its installation position of the individual electronic ballast 1 in the lighting system according to Fig. 2 or Fig. 3 (ie whether it is there, for example, the electronic ballast 1-12 to the discharge lamp 2-12, for example, the back right on the ceiling of the first room or the ECG 1-21 to the discharge lamp 2-21, for example, on the flurseitigen wall of second space), and make an assignment to the codes 8 and make this database available to the programmer of the control units 3. During programming, the control unit (s) is now informed which ECG code 8 corresponds to which position. Via the ECG code 8, the corresponding ECG 1 is then signal-technically addressable, ie responds to appropriate commands with the correct code input or indicates the code to general request the control unit off. The control unit can therefore assign the respective ECGs 1 or codes 8 internal control addresses (in principle, also use the existing codes 8 as addresses).

Fig. 5a and 5b schematically show the word structure (frame) of control commands between the control units 3 and ECGs 1 according to the two biphase-coded protocols. In the Fig. 5c the biphase coding is explained, wherein the left falling edge is to correspond from the high level to the low level of the logical 1 and the right complementary rising edge to the logical zero.

The upper protocol 1 in this embodiment corresponds to the already mentioned DALI protocol and consists of a start bit (logical 1) and subsequently 16 information bits no. 15-0 and finally a stop bit, which is a two bit lengths (plotted as T _BIT ) persisting high level equivalent. MSB and LSB stand for the most significant or least significant bit.

Including the second protocol, namely in the present case OSRAMspecific communication protocol, drawn, which corresponds to the start bit the DALI protocol 1, but has a lengthened by one bit word length and an inverse inverse stop bit. The ECGs 1 can therefore unambiguously determine whether it is a DALI command or an OSRAM-specific command both by means of the word length and by the nature of the stop bit.

This makes it possible, in particular, independently of the functioning and operation of the DALI communication between the control devices 3 and ECGs 1 to make manufacturer-specific additional commands or queries as well as programming operations in the illustrated lighting systems.

Fig. 6 Finally, shows one of the various uses of the additional communication protocol, namely with a vendor-specific standby command. Links are the meanings of horizontal running Plotted diagram lines, wherein a high level of the line means a "turned on" and a low level means "off". In the illustrated diagram, the time sequence running from left to right thus begins with the standby mode switched off.

Starting from the left, a helical preheat state for the time duration T _P first follows with an on command, to which duration an ignition and thus a lamp operation (lowest horizontal line in the diagram jumps to "on") follows. During the now for a certain time continuous lamp operation, an inventive standby command takes place (top line jumps to "on"), which initially does not change the lamp operation itself. He has the consequence, however, that after a again indeterminate, but not over a certain maximum duration time, following Ausbefehl leads on the one hand to an end of the lamp operation, but on the other hand at the same time to a restart of the filament heating. If after a certain time, again not over a certain maximum time, a new command follows, the lamp can unleash immediately in contrast to the first command (far left) without having to wait for a new preheat phase T _P.

In the illustrated example, a new standby command follows during turn-on, which in turn leads to a transition to the standby state, that is, to the filament heater, to the next exit command and the simultaneous lamp end of operation. In this example, however, the standby state, ie the filament heating, is to end after another specific time because either after the standby command or after the command has expired a time period exceeding a certain predetermined maximum time or a command to terminate the standby state has been received. The filament heater goes out. Consequently, as shown on the right-hand side, a preheat preheat must be carried out again at the next command.

Overall, the lighting system is thus able to enable an immediate restart of the lamp with virtually no time delay by switching on a standby state by the standby command provided with the second protocol. This comes to light systems according to the invention, especially in the field of effect lighting to good.

Claims (7)

1. Electronic ballast (1) for a lamp (2), in which the operation of the lamp (2) can be controlled by a digital drive for the ballast (1) by means of a communication protocol, characterized in that the ballast (1) is designed to be driven digitally to allow interchanges of further information by means of at least one further communication protocol, with the communication protocols occurring alternatively during operation.
2. Appliance (1) according to Claim 1, which, on reception of drive signals, can determine the communication protocol to which the drive signals correspond, and can evaluate the drive signals in accordance with the determined communication protocol.
3. Appliance (1) according to one of the preceding claims, in which the first and the second communication protocol have an identical start bit.
4. Appliance (1) according to one of the preceding claims, in which the first and the second communication protocol have different word lengths.
5. Appliance (1) according to one of the preceding claims, in which the first and the second communication protocol have different stop bits.
6. Appliance (1) according to one of the preceding claims, in which the first and the second communication protocol are biphase-coded.
7. Lighting system having an electronic ballast (1) according to Claim 1 or 2, in conjunction with one of Claims 3-6 as well.

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