JPS60202654A - Fluorescent lamp device - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To suppress the generation of cataphoresis by placing a substance for amalgam formation at one end of a compact fluorescent lamp and performing d.c. lighting by installing an anode in the above end and by using a resistance stabilizer. CONSTITUTION:Electrodes 8 and 9 are installed in the ends of a U-shaped emission tube 1' for a compact fluorescent lamp. A metal 15 for amalgam formation such as In is placed at one end 12 of the tube 1'. D.C. lighting is performed by using the electrode 8 adjacent to the metal 15 as an anode and using a resistance stabilizer 17. Therefore the mercury vapor pressure of the positive-side internal space of the tube 1' becomes lower than that of its negative-side internal space and mercury migrates from the negative area to the positive area due to the difference in mercury vapor pressure. As a result, the migration of mercury caused by cataphoresis is suppressed, thereby preventing any flickering of light. Additionally, it is possible to reduce the weight of the device.

Description

[Detailed description of the invention] Industrial applications The present invention relates to a fluorescent lamp device.

Conventional Structures and Problems Recently, various compact fluorescent lamp devices 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. An arc tube 1, which is an elongated glass tube bent into a double U shape, is held inside an outer bulb globe 2. A white diffusion substance 3 is applied to the inner surface of the outer tube glove 2.
The inside of the lamp device is in electrical continuity with the outside atmosphere.The lamp device includes a case 4 and a cap 5. Inside the case 4, there is a ballast 6 for lighting the arc tube and a glow starter 7 for starting. is included. As the stabilizer 6, a choke coil is usually used.

The configuration of the arc tube 1 used in such a compact fluorescent lamp device basically follows the specifications of a normal fluorescent lamp.The only difference is the mercury vapor pressure at the time of lighting. In other words, the lamp efficiency of a fluorescent lamp reaches its maximum when the mercury vapor pressure during lighting is around 6 x 10-3 Torr. The lamp is designed so that the coldest point temperature (specifying the mercury vapor pressure) inside the tube is approximately 40'C when the lamp is turned on, and the mercury vapor pressure falls within the above optimum range.On the other hand, the compact fluorescent lamp device In this case, the arc tube was made more compact and lit under high load, and the outer tube globe 2
As a result, the temperature at the coldest point of the arc tube, ie, the mercury vapor pressure, increases beyond the optimum range, essentially reducing lamp efficiency. Therefore, in order to commercialize such a compact fluorescent lamp device, it is necessary to regulate the mercury vapor pressure by some means, and various methods have been proposed to date.

FIG. 2 shows an arc tube 1' employing a typical amalgam filling method. At both ends of the double U-shaped arc tube 1', electrodes 8, 9 are held by lead wires 10.11 and stems 12, 13.
A phosphor 14 is coated on the inner surface of the tube. The interior of the arc tube 1' is filled with mercury and a rare gas such as argon. Further, in order to regulate the mercury vapor pressure, one of the stems, for example, the glass capillary 16 at the rear of the stem 12,
A metal material 16 for forming an alumina, such as In, BiIn or BiPbSn, is provided inside.

During lighting, the metal substance 16 forms an amalgam with mercury. The mercury vapor pressure of this amalgam is lower than that of mercury alone, so even if the temperature at the coldest point is 1
Even if the temperature rises above 00°C, the mercury vapor pressure can be maintained within the optimum range.

The overall efficiency of the above-mentioned compact fluorescent lamp device is approximately 40R. Although the lamp has a high m/W, it also has the convenience of being able to be turned on by simply attaching the lamp to a light bulb socket.

However, in order to develop such compact fluorescent lamps into one of the main sources of illumination, there are various problems that must be solved. The first problem is that the fluorescent lamp device weighs about 400 y, which is significantly heavier than a light bulb. This is because the choke coil of the ballast 6 has a heavy weight of about 250 mm. The heavy weight of the lamp device is one of the factors preventing its widespread use. The second problem is especially when the ambient temperature is 0.
When the lamp is turned on in a low temperature range of ~10'C, the light may flicker for several minutes immediately after starting, which may cause discomfort. This is a phenomenon that occurs significantly in lamps using such bent and thin arc tubes. According to the inventor's analysis, this flicker phenomenon is caused by the fact that when the lamp is lit with normal alternating current, the time for the discharge arc to stabilize upon restriking varies from cycle to cycle, which causes the discharge current to vary. are doing. Current lamps are designed with lamp voltage at a low level to prevent flickering, but this cannot be completely prevented.

As mentioned above, at present, a lightweight fluorescent lamp device that completely prevents flickering has not been realized.

OBJECTS OF THE INVENTION The present invention provides a fluorescent lamp device which is basically free from flicker of light, can be lightweight, has a simple construction, and is inexpensive.

DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION The inventors have studied a fluorescent lamp device that satisfies the above objectives. As a result, he first came up with the idea of basically lighting an arc tube with direct current. In other words, when a thin arc tube like the one shown in Figs. 1 and 2 is lit with AC, the restriking voltage every half cycle becomes high, so it is difficult to design the lamp voltage of the arc tube to be high. The voltage drop across the ballast increases. The result is basically a large and heavy ballast with large ballast losses. On the other hand, if the arc tube is lit with direct current, there is basically no restriking voltage, so it is possible to increase the ratio of lamp voltage to power supply voltage, which reduces ballast losses. , the ballast can be made smaller and lighter. Furthermore, with DC lighting, flickering of light can be completely prevented.

By the way, in order to realize 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, a so-called cataphoresis phenomenon occurs, in which mercury is concentrated from the anode region to the cathode region, and the bright light emitting region due to mercury discharge is near the cathode of the arc tube. It is well known that the area near the anode becomes dark.

As a next step, the inventor conducted various studies on arc tubes and lighting devices that do not cause the cataphoresis phenomenon even when lit with direct current. As a result, in the arc tube shown in Figure 2, a substance that forms an amalgam with mercury is provided near either end of the arc tube, and the electrode on the side where the substance is provided is used as an anode to emit light with direct current. It has been discovered that the occurrence of the above-mentioned force taporesis phenomenon can be suppressed by lighting the tube.

Based on this new knowledge, it became possible to light the lamp using direct current, use a lightweight resistance ballast, and create a fluorescent lamp device with no flickering.

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

The fluorescent lamp device first examined was basically based on the one shown in FIG. 1, and the amalgam-filled arc tube 1' shown in FIG. 2 was used as the main arc tube.

Now, when lighting the arc tube 1' shown in Fig. 2 with direct current, In, BiIn, BiPbS, which forms an amalgam with mercury,
When the lamp was lit using the electrode 8 at the end of the arc tube provided with the metal substance 15 such as n as a cathode, it was observed that a cataphoresis phenomenon occurred within a short time. In this case, the occurrence of the cataphoresis phenomenon becomes more pronounced as the ambient temperature decreases. For example, under ambient temperature conditions of 0 to 10'C, cataphoresis occurs several minutes after lighting, and the arc tube 1
A remarkable cataphoresis phenomenon was observed in which the luminescence became darker in more than % of the entire area of '.

Next, by reversing the polarity of the DC power source and lighting the arc tube 1' with the electrode 8 at the end of the arc tube where the metal substance 16 is provided as an anode, the occurrence of the above-mentioned cataphoresis phenomenon is almost suppressed. It was discovered that. According to the inventor's observation results, a uniform light emission state was obtained over the entire area of the arc tube 1' even at an ambient temperature of 0°C. The inventor investigated the mechanism of this new phenomenon and found that when cataphoresis occurs, mercury moves as ions from the anode region to the cathode region and becomes concentrated, while the metal material for amalgam formation is placed on the anode side. 15, the mercury vapor pressure within the arc tube 1' becomes lower on the anode side than on the cathode side, and this mercury vapor pressure difference causes a phenomenon of diffusion of mercury from the cathode region to the anode region. As a result, the movement of mercury from the anode region to the cathode region due to the occurrence of the above-mentioned cataphoresis phenomenon,
It is thought that this movement is offset by the movement of mercury due to the above-mentioned diffusion phenomenon in the opposite direction.

However, as mentioned above, when the electrode 8 on the end side of the arc tube where the metal substance 16 is present is used as the cathode to light up,
Since mercury moves from the anode region to the cathode region due to both the cataphoresis phenomenon and the diffusion phenomenon, it is thought that the cataphoresis phenomenon is further promoted.

FIG. 3 shows a lighting circuit diagram of a fluorescent lamp device which is an embodiment of the present invention. This fluorescent lamp device is constructed in accordance with that shown in FIG. That is, in FIG. 1, a luminescent tube 1' is used instead of the luminous tube 1,
The electrode (not shown) at the end of the arc tube where the amalgam-forming metal substance 16 is present is configured to serve as an anode. In addition, in FIG. 3, illustration of the outer tube glove is omitted.

Further, a resistance stabilizer 17 is used as a stabilizer. In the figure, 18 is a rectifier bridge, 19 is a smoothing capacitor, and 20 is an arc tube starting device consisting of, for example, an electronic starter.

The specifications and characteristics of the above fluorescent lamp device are shown in the table below in comparison with the conventional fluorescent lamp device (shown in FIG. 1).

What should be noted in the above results is that the lamp efficiency of the fluorescent lamp according to the present invention itself is about 20 times higher than that of the conventional fluorescent lamp. 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 in the DC lighting system, there is basically no restriking voltage, so the lamp voltage can be designed to be as high as approximately soV, and therefore the arc tube can be made longer, and the lamp current can be set lower. This is because it can be done. Lamp efficiency is further increased by approximately 10% due to the long arc tube and low lamp current design.
It is rising. This is thus another advantage of operating such compact fluorescent lamps with direct current. As a result, as shown in the table above, the resistance stabilizer 17
Even in a fluorescent lamp device using the above, an overall efficiency of 37.6 fim/W, which is close to that of the conventional bibel, has been obtained. Furthermore, of course, the present invention aims to reduce the weight of the fluorescent lamp device;
The two issues of completely preventing light flickering have also been resolved.

The present invention is applicable not only to a compact fluorescent lamp device using a bent arc tube, but also to all types of fluorescent lamps, such as ordinary straight tube types and ring types. In the inventor's study, for example, regarding a straight-tube copying fluorescent lamp that is lit under high load, an amalgam-forming metal material is provided near one end of the arc tube, and the electrode on the side where this material is provided. It has been confirmed that the occurrence of cataphorence phenomenon can be suppressed when DC lighting is performed using the anode as the anode.

Furthermore, in FIG. 2, the location where the metal substance 15 for forming the amalgam is provided does not necessarily have to be behind the electrode, but may just be in the vicinity of the electrode that operates as an anode. In addition, as for the compact fluorescent lamp device related to Fig. 1, it is not necessarily necessary to integrate the arc tube section and the lighting circuit section, and even a device in which the two are separated and held in a lighting fixture, for example, can be used. As explained above, the present invention provides electrodes at both ends of a glass tube, and provides a light-weight fluorescent lamp device with no light flickering. an amalgam-forming substance is provided near one end of an arc tube in which mercury and rare gas are sealed and a phosphor is coated on the inner surface of the glass tube, and the amalgam-forming substance is By lighting the arc tube with direct current using a resistance stabilizer with the existing electrode as the anode, it is possible to significantly suppress the occurrence of the cataphoresis phenomenon, and it is also possible to reduce the weight and simplify the configuration. Therefore, it is possible to provide a fluorescent lamp device which can be made inexpensive and can further prevent flickering of light.

[Brief explanation of the drawing]

FIG. 1 is a partially cutaway front view of a conventional compact fluorescent lamp device, FIG. 2 is a partially cutaway front view of a fluorescent lamp equipped with an amalgam-forming metal material, and FIG. 3 is an embodiment of the present invention. FIG. 2 is a lighting circuit diagram of an example fluorescent lamp device. 1'... Arc tube, 8, 9, one electrode, 14, fluorescent material, 1
5-Metallic substance, 17... Resistance stabilizer, 18 Figure 1... Rectifier bridge, 19... Smoothing capacitor, 2
01. Device for starting arc tube.

Claims (1)

[Claims] Electrodes are provided at both ends of the glass tube, mercury and rare gas are sealed in the glass tube, and a phosphor is coated on the inner surface of the glass tube, and an amalgam is formed near one end of the arc tube. 1. A fluorescent lamp device, characterized in that the arc tube is lit with direct current using a resistance stabilizer with an electrode at the end of the arc tube where the amalgam forming material is present as an anode.