JP3309491B2 - Fluorescent lamp inspection method - Google Patents

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to an inspection method for judging the quality of a fluorescent lamp.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art In the process of manufacturing a fluorescent lamp, if processes such as degassing and heating of a bulb, activation of a thermoelectron emitting material applied to an electrode coil, and exhaustion are insufficient,
Impurity gas may remain in the lamp, and air may enter the lamp due to poor sealing or the like. Such a lamp cannot exhibit normal operation and performance, and causes problems such as poor starting, poor light emission, early blackening, and short life.

Conventionally, as a method for finding and removing such a defective lamp, high-frequency power is applied to the lamp to cause glow discharge in the lamp, and the intensity of light emitted from the lamp and its light color are visually observed. In addition, a method is known in which the quality is compared with a non-defective product. However, such a visual quality judgment has a large individual difference and lacks stability.

As another method, 300 nm to 4 nm
The light intensity in any one of the wavelength range of 00 nm and the visible range of 550 nm or more;
A method of comparing the intensity ratio of the spectrum including the mercury emission lines of 36 nm and the wavelength of 546 nm to the radiation intensity with a predetermined value to judge pass / fail (Japanese Patent Publication No. 63-213213), 4
A method of determining a light intensity ratio with respect to a wavelength of 60 to 510 nm and comparing the light intensity ratio with a predetermined value to judge pass / fail (Japanese Patent Publication No. 3-23)
No. 0453) is known.

[0005]

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION These two methods are:
During the production process, when glow discharge is performed by applying high-frequency power or the like to a fluorescent lamp in which an impurity gas mainly composed of air remains or has entered, the emission spectrum of the mercury emission line, particularly 40 g
Since the emission intensity at a wavelength such as 5 nm, 436 nm or 546 nm is weaker than the emission intensity at other wavelengths,
It can be said that it is a reasonable judgment method to measure the emission intensity of both using a detector and to compare the ratio with a predetermined value.

However, these methods have recently increased the types of phosphors used in fluorescent lamps, and the wavelengths at which strong light is emitted differ depending on the types.
Mercury emission line such as 436 nm or 546 nm and 3
00 to 400 nm, 550 nm or more or 460 to 51
Even if the emission intensity is measured using the emission of the phosphor in the wavelength range of 0 nm, if the emission is fixed to the emission of any one of the above-mentioned wavelengths, there is no main light emission at that portion,
Alternatively, the detector may be too weak, resulting in a lack of sensitivity of the detector.Therefore, it is necessary to prepare a detector with a different detection wavelength and replace it with another detector each time. There was a problem that lacked.

The present invention has been made to solve such a problem, and an object of the present invention is to provide a fluorescent lamp inspection method capable of easily and accurately determining the quality of a fluorescent lamp efficiently.

[0008]

According to the fluorescent lamp inspection method of the present invention, a high frequency power is applied to the fluorescent lamp to generate a glow discharge in the fluorescent lamp, and the light emitted out of the fluorescent lamp includes: 405 nm or 43 of mercury emission line
6 nm or 546 nm wavelength and 80 % of argon gas
0 nm or 812 nm or 826 nm or 842
The light intensity ratio with respect to the wavelength of nm is compared with a predetermined value, and the quality of the fluorescent lamp is determined based on the compared value.

[0009]

In the production process, when high-frequency power is applied to a defective fluorescent lamp in which an impurity gas mainly composed of air remains or has entered to cause glow discharge, the emission spectrum of the mercury emission line, particularly, 405 nm, 436 nm Or 546 nm
It is known that the emission intensity at the wavelength of is weaker than the emission intensity at other wavelengths. On the other hand, the emission spectrum of the argon gas enclosed in the fluorescent lamp of any light color is different from the emission spectrum of the mercury emission line of the fluorescent lamp and can be always observed.

[0010]

An embodiment of the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings.

FIG. 4 shows the spectral distribution characteristics from 380 nm to 850 nm of radiated light outside the lamp when high frequency power is applied to a three-wavelength fluorescent lamp having three types of light colors. In the process of measuring and analyzing the spectral distribution characteristics, the inventor found that in fluorescent lamps of various light colors, the types of phosphors used for each and the mixing ratio thereof are different, so that the wavelengths at which main light emission is different, At the same time as confirming that the emission intensities are different, 800, 812, 826, 84 that emit light stably in common to fluorescent lamps of various light colors
A wavelength such as 2 nm was found. As a result of examining the wavelength, it was found that the emission wavelength was that of the argon gas sealed in any of the fluorescent lamps. That is, it has been found that the light intensity in the emission wavelength region of the enclosed argon gas can be used for the determination of the quality of the lamp in the fluorescent lamp of any light color.

FIG. 1 shows a non-defective fluorescent lamp according to an embodiment of the present invention.
FIG. 9 shows the spectral distribution characteristics of emitted light to the outside of the three-wavelength fluorescent lamp in which glow discharge is performed by applying high-frequency power to a three-wavelength fluorescent lamp having a constant emission intensity value of each of the defective argon gas. In FIG. 1, a curve A represents a good fluorescent lamp,
Curve B shows defective fluorescent lamps.

As is apparent from FIG. 1, the emission spectrum of the mercury emission line, particularly, 405 nm, 436 nm or 546 nm
It can be seen that the emission spectrum of a defective product having a wavelength of nm is significantly lower than the emission spectrum of a good product.

FIG. 2 shows an example of a fluorescent lamp inspection apparatus according to the present invention.
A fluorescent lamp 1 as an object to be measured, a high-frequency generator 2 for applying high-frequency power to the fluorescent lamp 1, and a fluorescent lamp 1
A light receiving device 3 for detecting the emission intensity of the emission spectrum of the mercury emission line emitted from the light source and a light receiving device 4 for detecting the emission intensity of the emission of argon gas sealed in the fluorescent lamp 1 are provided. In front of a light receiving element (not shown) provided in the light receiving device 3, 436n of mercury emission lines
m, and a band-pass filter 5 having a narrow half-value width for transmitting light of m is provided. On the other hand, in front of a light-receiving element (not shown) provided in the light-receiving device 4, the emission wavelength of argon gas is 812n
A band-pass filter 6 having a small half width and transmitting m light is provided. These light receiving elements use silicon light receiving elements having excellent temperature characteristics. The detector composed of the bandpass filters 5 and 6 and the light receiving devices 3 and 4 only needs to detect the emission wavelength of the argon gas, so that it is not necessary to replace the detector for each type of phosphor. The electrical outputs photoelectrically converted by the light receiving devices 3 and 4 are respectively amplified by the amplifiers 7 and 8, and the amplified output values are sent to the comparison operation determination device 9. The comparison operation determination device 9 includes an amplifier 7,
An input unit that receives an output value from the amplifier 8 as an input value, a calculation unit that divides an output value from the amplifier 7 by an output value from the amplifier 8 to obtain a ratio, compares the ratio with a set value, and compares them. The apparatus includes a determination unit that determines the quality of each fluorescent lamp based on the value, and an output unit that outputs a signal to the defective lamp discharging device 10. The defective lamp discharging device 10 displays the result of the determination by the determining unit and discharges the defective lamp.

FIG. 3 shows a ratio R obtained by dividing the 436 nm emission intensity value of the mercury emission line by the 812 nm emission intensity value of the argon gas measured by the above apparatus for the same fluorescent lamp.
And the starting voltage of the fluorescent lamp. As is apparent from FIG. 3, there is a correlation between the ratio R and the starting voltage, and it can be seen that when the ratio R is 15 or less, the starting voltage sharply increases. Therefore, according to the present invention, by looking at the relationship between the ratio R and the starting voltage,
The quality of the fluorescent lamp can be determined with higher accuracy than the conventional visual determination method.

As a specific example, with a ratio R of 15 or less as a defective product criterion, pass / fail judgment is performed on 1,000 fluorescent lamps, and then pass / fail judgment is performed on the same fluorescent lamp by a visual judgment method. As a result, it was confirmed that the quality of the fluorescent lamp was correctly determined by the method of the present invention. In addition, it was confirmed that the quality of the fluorescent lamp can be determined in a much shorter time and more easily than in the visual determination method.

In the above embodiment, the case where the emission intensity value of the mercury emission line at 436 nm and the emission intensity value of the argon gas at 812 nm are used has been described.
Alternatively, the emission intensity value at any wavelength of 546 nm and the emission intensity value of argon gas in the range of 780 nm to 850 nm, for example, 80
The same effects as described above can be obtained by appropriately combining the emission intensity values in the wavelength range of 0 nm, 826 nm, or 842 nm.

[0018]

As described above, according to the fluorescent lamp inspection method of the present invention, the high frequency power is applied to the fluorescent lamp to generate a glow discharge in the fluorescent lamp, and the light emitted out of the fluorescent lamp 405nm or 436n of mercury emission line
m or 546 nm, and 800 n of argon gas
m or 812 nm or 826 nm or 842 nm
Since the light intensity ratio with the wavelength is compared with a predetermined value, and the quality of the fluorescent lamp is determined based on the compared value, the quality of the fluorescent lamp can be determined with higher accuracy than the conventional visual determination method. The determination can be simplified, and the work efficiency and the determination quality can be significantly improved.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a diagram showing spectral distribution characteristics of good and defective fluorescent lamps.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram of a measuring device of the fluorescent lamp inspection method according to the embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 3 shows a correlation between a starting voltage of a fluorescent lamp and a ratio R obtained by dividing a 436 nm emission intensity value of mercury emission line by an 812 nm emission intensity value of argon gas emission in the fluorescent lamp inspection method according to the embodiment of the present invention. Figure

FIG. 4 is a diagram showing spectral distribution characteristics of three types of three-wavelength fluorescent lamps.

[Explanation of symbols]

 DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1 Fluorescent lamp 2 High frequency generator 3, 4 Light receiving device 5, 6 Bandpass filter 7, 8 Amplifier 9 Comparison operation judgment device

──────────────────────────────────────────────────続 き Continuation of the front page (56) References JP-A-63-213240 (JP, A) JP-A-57-3345 (JP, A) (58) Fields investigated (Int. Cl. ⁷ , DB name) H01J 9/42

Claims (1)

(57) [Claims] 1. A high-frequency power is applied to a fluorescent lamp to generate a glow discharge in the fluorescent lamp, and of light emitted outside the fluorescent lamp, 405 nm or 4 nm of mercury emission line.
36 nm or 546 nm wavelength and 8
00 nm or 812 nm or 826 nm or 84
A method for inspecting a fluorescent lamp, comprising comparing a light intensity ratio with a wavelength of 2 nm with a predetermined value, and judging the quality of the fluorescent lamp based on the compared value.