JP2003257683A - Electric discharge gap and lamp lighting device - Google Patents

Abstract

<P>PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide a lamp lighting device for an anti-weather light testing device having a discharge lamp such as a xenon lamp or metal halide lamp and an electric discharge gap to be provided in the circuit of the lighting device, assuring easy assembly in the manufacture, easy maintenance and management, a compact construction, a high heat radiation performance, and capable of keeping the discharge surface new at all times to eliminate any failure in lighting and thereby of performing a stable discharging. <P>SOLUTION: On a base board, a plurality of columnar electrodes are arranged in the horizontal direction with thin gaps reserved at a constant spacing between the electrodes and engaged rotatably centering on the axis of the electrodes, and a curved surface portion on the side face of each electrode is allowed to serve as a discharge surface. <P>COPYRIGHT: (C)2003,JPO

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

TECHNICAL FIELD The present invention relates to a discharge gap and a lamp lighting device. More specifically, the present invention relates to a lamp lighting device used for lighting a weather resistance test apparatus having a discharge lamp such as a xenon lamp or a metal halide lamp, and a discharge gap arranged in the circuit thereof.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Artificial light sources used in a weathering test apparatus are roughly classified into two types: a carbon discharge type using a carbon electrode and a discharge lamp type such as a xenon lamp, a metal halide lamp, and a fluorescent lamp. In the case of the discharge lamp type, a high voltage is required at the beginning of lighting the discharge lamp. For example, in the case of a 7.5 kW xenon lamp, a high voltage of about 70,000 V is applied to cause a discharge and the lamp is lit. Therefore, a lighting device having a lighting circuit according to the rated voltage of each discharge lamp is mounted on the discharge lamp type weatherproof light testing device. As such a lighting device, for example, JP-A-9-
As described in Japanese Patent No. 50894, a high frequency oscillation circuit is typically used. When using a high frequency oscillation circuit as a lighting circuit, a discharge gap is usually mounted in the circuit.

A conventional discharge gap is disclosed in Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 59-20.
As described in Japanese Patent No. 3388, a pair of upper and lower discharge electrodes are opposed to each other with a gap having a predetermined length. That is, the terminal portion is provided at the center axis of the disk shape, that is, at the center of the upper and lower surfaces of the discharge gap. 53-
There is also one in which electrodes are arranged above and below via a trigger electrode like the start gap described in Japanese Patent No. 4416. Although there is an electronic type, it is not suitable for all discharge lamps because the voltage is too high and it is costly to use for a weather resistance tester. Since the discharge gap is used only during lighting, it is a component that requires compactness in the device.

In addition to being compact, the discharge gap is required to be capable of discharging uniformly between electrodes. However, the conventional discharge gap as described above is
The disk plane of the electrode and the plane of the protrusion must be parallel. Moreover, it was not possible to confirm the distance between electrodes or the parallelism after assembly. Therefore, there is a problem that the manufacturing process is very difficult and the yield is low.

Further, when the work of removing the oxidized electrode after the discharge, polishing and reassembling is required, accurate embedding and parallel holding are required, and there is a problem that maintenance management is difficult.

Further, there is a problem that it is difficult to constantly maintain the discharge surface on a new discharge surface due to surface deterioration due to discharge, which causes lighting failure and eventually unstable discharge. In addition, there is a problem that the heat dissipation is poor because it is incorporated in the insulator.

[0007]

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION The present invention has been made in view of the above problems. Therefore, the object of the present invention is to assemble it easily in manufacturing, maintain it easily, and make it compact. It is therefore an object of the present invention to provide a discharge gap and a lamp lighting device that has high heat dissipation and that can always hold the discharge surface on a new discharge surface to eliminate lighting failure and perform stable discharge. The present inventors have completed the present invention as a result of earnest studies to achieve the above object.

[0008]

In order to achieve the above object, a discharge gap according to the present invention comprises a plurality of columnar electrodes on a substrate and a plurality of slits at equal intervals between the electrodes to provide horizontal discharge. It is characterized by arranging in a direction and rotatably locking around the central axis of the cylindrical electrode, and using the curved surface portion which is the side surface of the cylindrical electrode as the discharge surface.

In addition, the slit is 0.1 mm or more and 0.3 m
It is preferably m or less. This is because the discharge tube will not light if the gap is opened too much due to the relationship between the internal booster transformer and the capacity of the capacitor.

Further, in the discharge gap of the present invention, it is preferable that each of the cylindrical electrodes has an arrangement angle of more than 60 ° and 180 ° or less with an adjacent electrode. Here, the arrangement angle means a case where three or more electrodes are used, and the angle formed by two lines connecting the centers of the circular portions of the adjacent electrodes is the narrow angle. . The smaller this angle is, the more compact the longitudinal direction can be, but 6
If it is less than 0 °, there is a drawback that the electrodes collide with each other when the electrodes are made uniform in size. Further, in the case of 60 °, the three adjacent electrodes have a triangular positional relationship, the three gaps between the electrodes are the same, and no discharge occurs.

In the present invention, the electrode is preferably a conductor, especially tungsten or molybdenum. This is because these are high temperature resistant materials. Further, as the substrate, an insulator, particularly a glass epoxy resin which is a high insulator is preferable.

In the present invention, the number of electrodes arranged on the same plane is preferably 2 or more and 6 or less, and particularly preferably 5. The number is determined by the circuit design multiplier, that is, the LCR constant, but the larger the number, the greater the variation in the gap between the electrodes.

The thickness of the electrode, that is, the height of the electrode is
It is preferably 2.0 mm or more and 6.0 mm or less, and particularly preferably 3.4 mm or more and 6.0 mm or less. If the surface area of the electrode is large, the cooling rate is high, but it becomes difficult to discharge. On the other hand, if it is too small, the electrode becomes warm and becomes difficult to discharge.

The diameter of the electrode is 8 mm or more and 12 mm or less,
Particularly, 10 mm is preferable. If it is too small, the number of electrodes will increase and the gap will vary. On the other hand, if it is too large, the entire size will be large and compactness will be lost, making it unusable.

Further, the electrode has a chamfered cylindrical shape. This is because the surface area is increased to release heat and the discharge surface is reduced to facilitate sparking. The height of the side surface of the cylinder, that is, the height of the discharge surface is preferably 2 mm.

The lamp lighting device of the present invention is characterized by having a pulse boosting transformer, a leakage transformer, and the discharge gap according to any one of claims 1 to 3.

[0017]

Embodiments of the present invention will now be described in detail with reference to the drawings.

In the discharge gap of the present invention, a plurality of columnar electrodes are arranged on a substrate in the horizontal direction with slits at equal intervals, and the center axis of the columnar electrodes is the center. Is rotatably locked, and a curved surface portion which is a side surface of the cylindrical electrode is used as a discharge surface.

FIG. 1 is a sectional view of a discharge gap according to the first embodiment of the present invention. The discharge gap (19) of the first embodiment of the present invention shown in FIG. 1 includes electrodes (1a, 1b, 1c, 1d,
1e), the substrate (2), and a metal fitting (3) for rotatably locking each electrode to the substrate.

The substrate (2) is an insulating plate made of glass epoxy resin, and the electrode (1) is molybdenum.

Further, the number of electrodes was 5, the thickness of the electrodes was 3.4 mm, the diameter of the electrodes was 10 mm, and the length of the side surface portion of the electrodes in the height direction was 2 mm. That is, the electrodes are chamfered by 0.7 mm above and below the electrodes. According to the first embodiment of the discharge gap of the present invention, the length of the discharge gap in the longitudinal direction is within 62 mm.

FIG. 2 is a front view of the discharge gap according to the first embodiment of the present invention. FIG. 3 is a right side view of the discharge gap according to the first embodiment of the present invention. FIG. 4 is a left side view of the discharge gap according to the first embodiment of the present invention. FIG. 5 is a top view of the discharge gap according to the first embodiment of the present invention. FIG. 6 is a bottom view of the discharge gap according to the first embodiment of the present invention. FIG. 7 is a rear view of the discharge gap according to the first embodiment of the present invention. In Example 1, the distance between each columnar electrode and the adjacent electrode and the slit is 0.3 mm, and the array angle of the electrodes is 120 °.
The gap distance is adjusted by checking the gap gauge and adjusting the electrode fixing position.

When the electrodes are arranged like the discharge gap of the first embodiment, the dense side of the electrodes, that is, the narrow-angle side surface is heated by Joule heat, and the heat is radiated on the depopulated side of the electrode, that is, the wide-angle side surface. By having such a structure, heat dissipation is improved as compared with the conventional discharge gap in which electrodes are stacked vertically.

FIG. 8 is a circuit diagram of the lamp lighting device according to the first embodiment of the present invention. The first embodiment of the lamp lighting device of the present invention shown in FIG. 8 is a circuit using the first embodiment of the discharge gap of the present invention. This lighting circuit (7) has 7.5 kW
For rated xenon lamps. Such a circuit comprises a starting circuit (15) and a power control circuit (16). At the start of lighting, the start-up circuit (15) operates, and about 720 is applied to the secondary side of the leakage transformer (9) with respect to the input of the 200V power supply.
The oscillation circuit outputs 0V and applies a high frequency to the capacitor (4) and the discharge gap (19) of the first embodiment of the present invention. The current stored in the condenser (4) is sent to the lamp (5) side through the discharge gap (19). Then, the power control circuit (16) operates during lighting.

The lighting circuit (7) will be described in more detail. The lamp (5) has one end connected to the positive side of the power supply (6) and the other end connected to the negative side. Power supply (6)
For this, an AC power supply of 50 Hz or 60 Hz is used.

First, at the start of lighting, 200 from the power source (6).
An AC voltage of V is generated, and a current flows through the leakage transformer (9) via the relay (14). It consists of a Tesler coil (8) containing an iron core and has a spacer to prevent burnout. The secondary voltage 7200V of the leakage transformer (9) is applied to the capacitor (4) through the discharge gap (19) and the primary winding of the pulse booster transformer (18). This applied voltage is gradually increased from 0 V to store electric charge in the capacitor (4). Condenser (4)
When the discharge starting voltage of the discharge gap (19) is exceeded, the discharge gap (19) starts discharging. At this time, a closed circuit is formed by the discharge gap (19), the primary winding of the pulse boost transformer (18) and the capacitor (4), and the capacitor (4) is the pulse boost transformer (18).
The primary side winding causes a short circuit, the charge stored in the capacitor (4) is discharged, an LC series resonance circuit is formed, and the charging voltage is rapidly attenuated. This charge release time is several microseconds.

When the current flowing through the discharge gap (19) becomes less than the discharge sustaining current, the discharge is stopped, the discharge gap (19) is opened, and the power supply (6) again causes the discharge gap (19) and pulse boosting. Charging of the capacitor (4) is started through the primary winding of the transformer (18). That is, when the discharge gap (19) performs a switching operation, a sawtooth-shaped resonance high frequency voltage due to repeated charging and discharging determined by the constants of the pulse booster transformer (18) and the capacitor (4) produces a pulse booster transformer (1).
8) It occurs on the primary side.

This resonant high frequency voltage is induced in the secondary winding of the pulse boost transformer (18). The number of secondary windings of the pulse step-up transformer (18) is 10 times the number of primary windings, and the voltage generated on the primary side is about 7200V and about 72000V.
The voltage is boosted to V to obtain a high voltage pulse voltage. When such a high-voltage pulse voltage is supplied to the xenon lamp, a spark occurs between both terminals of the lamp, and this spark is used as a trigger,
Start discharging and start emitting light.

When discharge / light emission is started, the voltage across
For example, in the case of 180 Wm ^-2 , it drops to about 200 V,
The power supply (6) is controlled to the voltage required for the lamp (5) to discharge and emit light.

As a result, the voltage supplied to the capacitor (4) is lowered, the discharge voltage of the discharge gap (19) cannot be reached, and the switching operation of the discharge gap (19) is stopped. And for the lamp (5)
During lighting, the power control circuit (16) operates, and the AC reactor (10), the power regulator (13), the electromagnetic contactor (1
7), AC reactor (control) (12) and A
Power control is performed via the C reactor (base) (11).

FIG. 9 is a voltage / current waveform diagram in the first embodiment of the lamp lighting device of the present invention. In Example 1, the repeated discharge interval of the discharge gap is almost constant, and the charge / discharge voltage waveform of the capacitor is stable. On the other hand, FIG.
FIG. 6 is a voltage-current waveform diagram in an oscillation circuit that uses Example 2 of the discharge gap of the present invention. The second embodiment is similar to the first embodiment, but has a narrow gap of about 0.6 mm and is nonuniform. In the lamp lighting device using the second embodiment of the discharge gap of the present invention, the gap of the discharge gap is 0.3 m.
The voltage difference is too large due to the large gaps when the gap is larger than m and is non-uniform, and the waveform is irregular because the gaps are non-uniform.

[0032]

Since the discharge gap of the present invention has the above-described structure, it is easy to assemble in manufacturing, maintenance is easy, compact, high in heat dissipation, and the discharge surface is always maintained. It can be held on a new discharge surface to eliminate lighting failure and perform stable discharge. Further, according to the present invention, the distance between the electrodes can be easily adjusted by using a gauge, which facilitates manufacturing and maintenance inspection.

Further, in the lamp lighting device of the present invention utilizing the discharge gap of the present invention, stable discharge can be performed without lighting failure.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a cross-sectional view of a discharge gap according to a first embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a front view of the discharge gap according to the first embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 3 is a right side view of the discharge gap according to the first embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 4 is a left side view of the discharge gap according to the first embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 5 is a top view of the discharge gap according to the first embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 6 is a bottom view of the discharge gap according to the first embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 7 is a rear view of the discharge gap according to the first embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 8 is a circuit diagram of the lamp lighting device according to the first embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 9 is a voltage / current waveform diagram in the first embodiment of the lamp lighting device of the present invention.

FIG. 10 is a voltage-current waveform diagram in an oscillator circuit using the second embodiment of the discharge gap of the present invention.

[Explanation of symbols]

1 electrode 2 substrates 3 metal fittings 4 condenser 5 lamps 6 power supply 7 lighting circuit 8 Tesler coil 9 leakage transformer 10 AC reactor 11 AC reactor (base) 12 AC reactor (control) 13 Power regulator 14 relays 15 Starting circuit 16 Power control circuit 17 Electromagnetic contactor 18 pulse boost transformer 19 discharge gap

Claims (4)

[Claims] 1. A plurality of cylindrical electrodes are arranged horizontally on a substrate with slits at equal intervals between the electrodes so that the electrodes can rotate about the central axis of the cylindrical electrodes. The discharge gap is characterized in that the curved surface portion that is the side surface of the cylindrical electrode is used as a discharge surface. 2. The discharge gap according to claim 1, wherein the narrow gap is 0.1 mm or more and 0.3 mm or less. 3. The discharge gap according to claim 1, wherein each of the cylindrical electrodes has an arrangement angle with an adjacent electrode of more than 60 ° and not more than 180 °. 4. A lamp lighting device comprising a pulse step-up transformer, a leakage transformer, and the discharge gap according to any one of claims 1 to 3.