JPH0329148B2 - - Google Patents

Description

[Detailed Description of the Invention] Industrial Application Field This invention relates to emergency lighting equipment including guide lights, etc., and in particular to emergency lighting with a built-in battery that keeps the lamp lit in the event of a power outage due to an emergency such as a fire outbreak. Regarding equipment.

Conventional technology Emergency lighting is an emergency lighting device that uses a commercial AC power source to light the lamp during normal times, and uses a dedicated power source to keep the lamp lit during a power outage when the commercial AC power supply is cut off due to an earthquake or fire. It is widely used as a guide light in places where people gather. This emergency lighting equipment generally has a built-in battery that uses a rechargeable secondary battery as a dedicated power source for emergencies.The secondary battery is charged with the rectified voltage of the commercial AC power supply during normal times, and is used as a dedicated power source in case of an emergency. If there is a power outage, the lamp will continue to be lit by power supplied from the secondary battery. and,
The lamp will last for a period of time determined by the capacity of the secondary battery. In the event of an emergency, lamps must be lit at a certain level of brightness and for a certain period of time (20 minutes for guide lights and 30 minutes for emergency lights in Japan).

Problems to be Solved by the Invention By the way, the lamp lighting circuit of a battery built-in emergency lighting device includes a normal lighting circuit that lights the lamp using a commercial AC power source, and a charging circuit that charges a secondary battery during normal conditions. It consists of an emergency lighting circuit that uses the rechargeable battery's charge to keep the lamp on in an emergency.In the event of an emergency, the lamp is designed to stay on for a set amount of time (30 minutes) at a certain level of illuminance or above in the event of a power outage. ing. It is desirable that the lamp be turned on in such an emergency at a higher illuminance and for a longer period of time, and this requirement can be easily achieved by using a secondary battery with a large capacity. Moreover, as secondary batteries become easier to use, they become larger, heavier, and more expensive, making them impractical.Therefore, the battery capacity is naturally limited, and the illuminance for lighting a lamp in an emergency is determined by the battery capacity. It is difficult to increase both lighting durations, and if the illumination intensity is increased, the lighting duration becomes shorter, and in the event of a long power outage, the emergency lamps may turn off in the middle of the power outage. If the length of the lamp was made longer, the illuminance would have to be lowered, which caused problems such as inconvenience for people evacuating using the light from emergency lamps.

Means for Solving the Problems The present invention has been made in view of the problems of the above-mentioned battery built-in emergency lighting equipment, and the technical means of the present invention to solve this problem is The lighting circuit, which is activated during an AC power outage, is equipped with an automatic dimming means that changes the illuminance of the lamp into multiple levels divided by predetermined lighting times.

Effect By installing the above automatic dimming means, the lamp is lit by gradually lowering the illuminance during an AC power outage, and the consumption rate of the charging energy of the built-in battery is gradually slowed down, resulting in the lamp being turned on. The duration can be increased. In addition, it is possible to automatically adjust the light by lighting the lamp at high illuminance for a short period of 5 to 10 minutes after the occurrence of an emergency, and then at a lower illuminance afterwards. evacuation of people within a short period of time,
This can facilitate guidance, etc.

Embodiment A basic embodiment of the present invention will be described below with reference to FIG. 1, and a specific embodiment will be described below with reference to FIG.

In FIG. 1, 1 is a commercial AC power supply, 2 is an emergency lighting equipment lamp, such as a discharge lamp such as a fluorescent lamp, 3 is a normal lighting circuit that lights the discharge lamp 2 with the commercial AC power supply 1, and 4 is a normal lighting circuit. A secondary battery such as a sealed cylindrical nickel cadmium battery is charged by a commercial AC power supply 1 during normal times.This charging is performed using a DC voltage obtained by stepping down the AC of the commercial AC power supply 1 with a step-down full-wave rectifier 5 and performing full-wave rectification. be exposed. 6 is an emergency lighting circuit that lights the discharge lamp 2 using the secondary battery 4 in an emergency; 7
8 is a normally closed switch connected in series between the secondary battery 4 and the emergency lighting circuit 6 (open when the relay is energized), and 8 is a relay connected in parallel to the commercial AC power supply 1, and its contacts cause a discharge. The electric light 2 is switched and connected to the emergency lighting circuit during normal times and as appropriate. In an emergency when the supply of commercial AC power source 1 is cut off, the contacts are closed, the discharge lamp 2 is connected to the emergency lighting circuit, and the switch 7 is closed. The above may be a lighting circuit for a normal emergency lighting device, and the feature of the present invention is that the following automatic light control means 9 is attached to the emergency lighting circuit 6.

The automatic light control means 9 is activated from the time of occurrence of an emergency situation and automatically switches the illumination intensity of the discharge lamp 2 during emergency lighting into a plurality of stages divided by a predetermined lighting time,
This emergency lighting illuminance switching is performed by the emergency lighting circuit 6.
Depending on the lighting method, this is done, for example, by increasing or decreasing the lamp current, and time control for switching illuminance is done by a timer circuit using a CR time constant. This automatic dimming means 9 generally has an emergency lighting duration of about 30 minutes or more, and the time required for people to evacuate after the occurrence of an emergency is mainly about the first 10 minutes. For this reason, two-step dimming is used, in which the discharge lamp 2 is turned on at the highest illuminance for 10 minutes from the time the emergency occurs, and after 10 minutes, the illuminance is reduced to the minimum necessary and kept on, or after 10 minutes have elapsed. A structure that performs dimming in three or more stages, which reduces the illumination intensity step by step to the necessary minimum level, is practically effective.

Next, a specific circuit example of the emergency lighting circuit 6 and the automatic light control means 9 is shown in FIG. 2 and will be described below.

The emergency lighting circuit 6 has a high frequency lighting circuit 11 that converts the direct current voltage of the secondary battery 4 into a high frequency of several tens of KHz or more when inputted through the choke 10 and applies it to the discharge lamp 2 to light it. The high-frequency lighting circuit 11 has two transformers Tr ₁ and Tr ₂ connected in a push-pull manner to the primary side of an oscillation transformer T, and when DC voltage from a secondary battery 4 is applied, two transistors are connected.
Tr ₁ and Tr ₂ are alternately turned on and off to generate a high frequency voltage on the secondary side of the oscillating transistor T, and the discharge lamp 2 is lit at high frequency.

In an emergency, the automatic light control means 9 lights up the discharge lamp 2 with a high illuminance at first, and then lights it with a low illuminance.
The following timer circuit 12 shows one that performs stepwise dimming.
and two dimming capacitors C ₁ and C ₂ .
Dimming capacitors C ₁ and C ₂ are normally closed relay contacts 1
3 and the two are connected in parallel through the oscillation transformer T
is connected in series to one circuit line between the secondary side of the discharge lamp 2 and the discharge lamp 2. The timer circuit 12 operates when the switch 7 is closed and the DC voltage of the secondary battery 4 is applied, and opens the relay contact 13 after a certain period of time. Used in timer circuits using

This timer circuit 12 uses a CR time constant, and when the DC voltage of the secondary battery 4 is applied, the capacitor _C3 starts charging via the variable resistor R. The terminal voltage of ₃ is suitable for the peak point voltage of the unijection transistor UJT, and the unijection transistor UJT becomes conductive. Then, the capacitor _C3 is discharged, and accordingly the thyristor SCR becomes conductive, the relay coil Ry is activated, and the relay contact 13 is opened.
The relay coil Ry is self-retained and continues to open the relay contact 13 until the secondary battery 4 is discharged, and then the timer circuit 12 self-returns to its original state and the relay contact 13 closes.

Now, assuming that the design time of the timer circuit 12 is 10 minutes, the automatic light control means 9 performs the following operation. First, an emergency occurs and the power goes out, and at the same time as switch 7 closes, timer circuit 12 is activated, and relay coil Ry does not operate for the first 10 minutes, so relay contact 1
3 is in the closed state, and the discharge lamp 2 is maintained lit at an illuminance determined by the parallel capacitance of the two dimming capacitors C ₁ and C ₂ . Then, 10 minutes after the occurrence of the emergency, the relay coil Ry is activated and the relay contact 13 is opened, and the discharge lamp 2 has an illuminance determined by the capacity of one dimming capacitor _C2 , that is, the illuminance decreases to 1 due to the decrease in capacity.
The rank is lowered and the discharge lamp 2 remains lit. FIG. 3 shows the relationship between the lighting time of the discharge lamp 2 and the illuminance.

If you set the illuminance of the above-mentioned emergency lighting to a value sufficient for people to evacuate for 10 minutes, and then set it to the minimum value determined by law after 10 minutes, the capacity of the secondary battery 4 An emergency lighting device that can effectively turn on the lamp in an emergency in accordance with an emergency situation such as evacuation of people without increasing it, or even if it increases only by increasing it a little, and has a long lighting duration. Can be provided.

When the automatic dimming means 9 dims the discharge lamp 2 in three or more stages, this can be easily achieved by using three or more dimming capacitors in parallel and two or more timer circuits in parallel.

Effects of the Invention According to the present invention, the lamp lighting duration in an emergency can be extended without increasing the capacity of the secondary battery too much, and the lamp lighting illumination in an emergency can be initially high and then gradually lowered in stages. This makes it possible to select effective lighting after an emergency situation occurs.
Further, by adjusting the light in an emergency, it can be seen at a glance that the lamp extinguishing time is approaching, and it is possible to provide an emergency lighting device with excellent practical value that is highly effective at the site of an emergency situation.

[Brief explanation of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a basic circuit diagram showing an embodiment of the present invention;
Figure 2 is a specific circuit diagram of the main part of Figure 1, and Figure 3 is the lamp lighting time in an emergency using the circuit in Figure 2.
It is a graph diagram of the relationship between illuminance. 1...AC power supply, 2...Lamp (discharge lamp), 4
... battery, 6 ... emergency lighting circuit, 9 ... automatic dimming circuit (means), 12 ... timer circuit, 13 ...
C1, C2, Ry multi-stage dimming circuit.

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1. In an emergency lighting device that switches to an emergency lighting circuit in the event of an AC power outage and keeps the lamp lit using a built-in battery, the emergency lighting circuit has an automatic dimmer circuit consisting of a multi-stage dimmer circuit and a timer circuit. An emergency lighting device characterized in that the illuminance of the lamp is reduced in stages during a power outage.