JPS60143556A - Compact-type fluorescent lamp - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To increase the efficiency of a compact-type fluorescent lamp and decrease its weight by providing a double-U-shaped emission tube with a part which is located near the anode and is spatially connected to an outer tube globe and subjecting the lamp to d.c. lighting by using a filament resistance installed in the globe as a resistance stabilizer. CONSTITUTION:A double-U-shaped emission tube 1' contains electrode coils 4 and 5 in its ends and the inner surface of the emission tube 1' is coated with a phosphor 6. After the emission tube 1' is installed in an outer tube globe 3, the globe 3 is charged with mercury and argon gas thereby constituting a compact- type fluorescent lamp. The emission tube 1' has a connecting part 13 which is located near the electrode 4 and spatially connected to the outer tube globe 3. Lighting of the lamp is performed with a d.c. power supply 15 by using the electrode 4 as an anode and a filament resistance 14 installed in the globe 3 as a resistance stabilizer. Therefore it is possible to prevent any flickering which might occur due to cataphoresis and to reduce the total weight of the lamp.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION Field of the Invention The present invention relates to compact fluorescent lamp devices.

Conventional Structures and Problems Recently, various compact fluorescent lamps have been proposed as energy-saving light sources to replace incandescent light bulbs, and some have already been put into practical use. An example is shown in FIG. Two U-shaped arc tubes 1 and 2 each having a bent glass tube are held and sealed inside an outer bulb globe 3.
As shown in the figure, the outer tube globe 3 is in a spatially conductive state, and rare gas and mercury are sealed inside.

Electrode coils 4 and 4 are provided at one end of the arc tubes 1 and 2, respectively.
5 is held, and a discharge path is formed between the two electrodes. The inner surfaces of the arc tubes 1 and 2 are coated with a phosphor 6, which emits visible light when excited by 253.7 nm ultraviolet rays from a mercury discharge. Case 7 is the fluorescent lamp device.
A cap 8 is provided, and a ballast 9 for lighting the fluorescent tube is incorporated inside the case 7. As the stabilizer 9, a choke coil is usually used.

The overall efficiency of such a compact fluorescent lamp device (including ballast loss) is approximately 401, which is less than three times that of a light bulb.
It has a high m/W and is easy to use, as it can be used by directly attaching it to a light bulb socket.

However, one problem in using it is that it is significantly heavier, at 400 to 500 pounds, compared to a light bulb. This means that the weight of the choke coil of ballast 9 is 2.
This is because the compact fluorescent lamp device is large, ranging from 50 to 300 y, and the large weight of the compact fluorescent lamp device can be said to be one of the factors inhibiting its widespread use.

In order to reduce the weight of such a compact fluorescent lamp device, it is conceivable to use a resistance ballast as the ballast 9. However, the overall efficiency at this time decreases to 2Q1 m/W or less because the resistance ballast loss increases. moreover,
When an arc tube with a bent glass tube as described above is lit with alternating current using a resistor, abnormal light flickering occurs, making it impossible to put it to practical use. this is,
This is because the re-ignition time for each half cycle during alternating current operation of the lamp is not constant but constantly fluctuates.

At present, a compact fluorescent lamp device that is lightweight, inexpensive, and highly efficient has not been realized.

OBJECTS OF THE INVENTION An object of the present invention is to provide a compact fluorescent lamp device that is lightweight, highly efficient, and more popular than conventional devices.

DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION The inventors have studied a fluorescent lamp device that can achieve the above object. As a result, he first came up with the idea of basically operating the arc tube with direct current lighting.

When an arc tube with a glass capillary as shown in Figure 1 is lit with AC, the restriking voltage every half cycle becomes high, so it is difficult to design the arc tube to have a high tube voltage, which makes it difficult to design a ballast. This voltage drop becomes large. Therefore, the ballast loss is large and the ballast is large and heavy. On the other hand, when lighting an arc tube with direct current, there is basically no restriking voltage, so it is possible to increase the ratio of tube voltage to power supply voltage, which reduces ballast loss.
− The size and weight of the ballast can be reduced by reducing the size and weight of the ballast.

By the way, when implementing the above basic idea, an arc tube that can be lit with direct current is required. By the way, when a normal fluorescent lamp is lit with direct current, mercury shifts from the anode region to the cathode region due to the so-called cataphoresis phenomenon, and the bright light-emitting region with high efficiency due to mercury discharge is located in the arc tube portion near the cathode. It is well known that it exists only in As a second step, the inventors conducted various studies regarding this phenomenon. As a result, it has been found that in the structure shown in FIG. 1, the above-mentioned cataphoresis phenomenon can be prevented if a portion that spatially connects the arc tube and the outer bulb globe is provided in the region near the anode. Based on this new knowledge, a direct current lighting system was introduced, and a compact fluorescent lamp device with a smaller and lighter ballast was realized.

Description of examples Embodiments of the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings.

FIG. 2 shows a partially cutaway sectional view of the light emitting portion of a compact fluorescent lamp device developed prior to the completion of the present invention. A metal substrate 1o made of stainless steel is hermetically sealed to the opening of the spherical outer globe 3 with a glass frit (not shown), and the metal substrate 10 holds two electrode coils 4 and 6. The stems 11 and 12 are sealed with the same glass frit (not shown). and,
A so-called double U-shaped arc tube 1', which is obtained by bending a U-shaped glass thin tube again, is similarly fixed to a metal substrate 1o using a glass frit (not shown). In this case, electrode coils 4.5 are located at both ends of the arc tube 1'. A phosphor 6 is coated on the inner surface of the arc tube 1'. In addition to mercury, 3.0 Torr of argon gas is sealed inside the arc tube 1 and the outer bulb globe 3. Further, the arc tube 1' has a conductive portion 1 that spatially communicates with the outer bulb globe 3 near one electrode 4.
3 is provided. In this example, the conductive portion 13 consists of a hole. The outer tube globe 3 may have various shapes such as a dome shape in addition to a spherical shape.

Now, when lighting the arc tube shown in Fig. 2 with DC current, if it operates as a blind cathode near the conducting part 13, a cataphoresis phenomenon occurs within a few minutes, and the arc tube near the other anode area The luminescence intensity of the area decreases significantly. Note that this cataphoresis phenomenon becomes more pronounced as the ambient temperature becomes lower.

It has been found that the oresis phenomenon does not occur significantly even when the ambient temperature drops to near zero degrees. The inventors investigated the cause of this new phenomenon and found that it is caused by cataphoresis, which occurs because the temperature of the arc tube 11 during operation is about 150°C higher than the temperature of the outer tube globe 3, which is about 40°C. It has been found that the mercury that has migrated from the anode to the cathode due to the phenomenon is returned to the inside of the outer tube globe 3 from the cathode through the anode region through the convection phenomenon caused by the above-mentioned temperature difference. In other words, the movement of mercury based on the electrical cataphoresis phenomenon is offset by the convection phenomenon caused by the temperature difference.

Among the above, when #' close to the conductive part 13 is operated as a cathode, mercury moves from the anode to the cathode region due to the convection phenomenon based on the temperature difference, which promotes the cataphoresis phenomenon in which mercury is further separated. The result is The present invention is based on the inventors' discovery that the cataphoresis phenomenon can be prevented by selecting the polarity of the power supply.

Note that the conductive portion 13 may have any shape as long as it appropriately generates the above-mentioned convection phenomenon. For example, the end of the arc tube on the anode side may be left open without being fixed with a glass frit.

Further, the location of the conductive portion 13 does not necessarily have to be very close to the anode. Under normal room temperature conditions, the arc tube region sandwiched between the anode and the conductive portion 13 emitted relatively bright light even when it was placed approximately 7 cm from the front of the anode coil. This is due to the diffusion phenomenon based on the density difference of mercury particles over a relatively short distance.
It can be said that mercury moves from the conductive portion 13 to the anode, and as a result, the bias of mercury due to the above-mentioned cataphoresis phenomenon is alleviated.

In the next step, a compact fluorescent lamp device according to the present invention was manufactured by applying the lamp having the basic structure shown in FIG. FIGS. 3 and 4 show the overall configuration of the new device and the structure of the light emitting section, respectively. In Fig. 3, 14 is a resistance stabilizer made of a filament resistor, 15 is a rectifier bridge, 16 is a 50 μF smoothing capacitor, 1
7 is an arc tube starting device. As the arc tube starting device 17, for example, a device in which a small coil and a glow switch are connected in series is used. Further, as shown in FIG. 4, the resistance stabilizer 14 is held inside the outer tube globe 3 by a stem 18 sealed to the metal substrate 10 with glass frit. The features of the device according to the embodiment of the present invention are as follows: (1) In order to reduce the weight of the device, a resistor is used as a ballast and the lamp is lit with direct current.

(2) A filament resistor is used as the resistance stabilizer, and this is built into the outer globe.

That's true. The table below shows the specifications and characteristics of the device according to the present invention in comparison with conventional devices.

10, - 11\- As can be seen from the above table, it is noteworthy that the present device is not only lightweight, but also has a lamp efficiency that is approximately 20% higher than that of the conventional device.

There are two reasons for this; one is that when a fluorescent lamp is lit with direct current, the lamp efficiency increases by about 10% compared to when lit with alternating current. Another reason is that the DC lighting system is designed with a low lamp current for the same lamp input, and this also increases lamp efficiency by about 10%. As described above, another advantage of direct current lighting of compact fluorescent lamps is the increase in rung efficiency, which allows a device operated with a resistor ballast to achieve approximately the same total output as a conventional device of about 401 m/W. Efficiency is being achieved.

On the other hand, the effects of incorporating a filament resistor, which is a resistance ballast, into the outer tube globe are (a): It is easier to handle the heat dissipated from the resistance ballast, and the light emitting part and lighting circuit part are integrated. Two reasons are that the rise time of the adjustment can be shortened. In particular, it has been pointed out that one drawback of this type of compact fluorescent lamp, in which the mercury vapor pressure in the arc tube is regulated by the temperature of the outer bulb globe 3, is that the luminous flux rise time is long at low temperatures. One of the features of this device is that this has been improved.

Furthermore, another feature of this device is that flicker-free light can be obtained due to direct current lighting.

It should be noted that the light emitting part and the lighting circuit part do not necessarily need to be integrated as a device, and even if they are held separately in a lighting fixture, for example, it will still be lightweight and high-quality, which is the objective of the present invention. A compact fluorescent lamp device that is efficient and does not cause flickering of light is realized.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION As described in detail, the present invention provides, in order to prevent the cataphoresis phenomenon, a portion that spatially communicates with the outer bulb globe near the electrode that operates as an anode of the arc tube, and the outer bulb globe. By incorporating a resistor connected in series with the light emitting tube and using the resistor as a ballast, the light is light, highly efficient, and does not flicker. Therefore, it is possible to provide a compact fluorescent lamp device that does not require a large amount of space.

[Brief Description of the Drawings] Fig. 1 is a block diagram of a conventional compact fluorescent lamp device, and Fig. 2 shows the light emitting part of a compact fluorescent lamp device developed prior to completing the present invention. FIG. 3 is a block diagram of a device according to the present invention, and FIG. 4 is a partially cut-away sectional view of a light emitting portion of a compact fluorescent lamp device according to the present invention. 12...Stem, 13...Conducting part,
14... Resistance stabilizer, 15... Rectifier bridge, 16... Smoothing capacitor, 17...
...A device for starting the arc tube. Name of agent: Patent attorney Toshio Nakao and one other person - Figure 3 Figure 4 Procedural amendments March 26, 1985 Mr. Commissioner of the Japan Patent Office 2 Name of invention Compact fluorescent lamp device 3 Person making amendment Case and Related Patent Applicant Office 1006 Kadoma, Kadoma City, Osaka Prefecture Name (584)
Matsushita Electronics Industries Co., Ltd. Representative: Fujimoto 4 Representative Address: 1006 Oaza Kadoma, Kadoma City, Osaka Prefecture Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd. 6. Subject of amendment” “°°” “°”°゛゛2 Contents of amendment We will correct it as shown in the attached sheet. τゝ, ---, 1 Page 1 2, Claims An arc tube is held inside an outer bulb globe that is hermetically sealed, electrodes are provided at both ends of the arc tube, and electrodes are provided at both ends of the arc tube. A phosphor is coated on the inner surface, and mercury and rare gas are sealed inside the outer bulb globe and the arc tube, and the outer bulb is placed in a region near one electrode of the arc tube. A compact fluorescent lamp device including a resistor built in the outer globe, which is provided with a part spatially connected to the globe and connected in series with the arc tube, is connected to an electrode near the conductive part of the arc tube. A compact fluorescent lamp device characterized in that it is lit with direct current using the resistor as an anode and the resistor as a ballast.

Claims (1)

[Claims] A phosphor is adhered to the inside of the outer globe which is hermetically sealed, and mercury and a rare gas are sealed inside the outer globe and the arc tube. Further, a portion spatially communicating with the outer bulb globe is provided in a region near one electrode of the arc tube, and a resistor connected in series with the arc tube is built in the outer bulb globe. What is claimed is: 1. A compact fluorescent lamp device characterized in that the compact fluorescent lamp device is lit with direct current using an electrode close to the conductive portion of the arc tube as an anode and the resistor as a ballast.