Abstract
Recently, High Pressure Sodium lamps (H.P.S.L.) and Metal Halide lamps (M.H.L.) have been operated on Mercury Vapour lamp ballasts. But for both H.P.S.L. and M.H.L. it is necessary to use a starter to ignite the lamp. The usual starter can create some problems being radio frequency noise generation, insulation failure and others caused by continous pulsing at the point of lamp failure. One of the solutions to the above problems is to cut out the starting pulse when the lamp fails. This paper shows a new built-in starter for such lamps that can cut out the starting pulse when the lamp fails. This new built-in starter is constructed by a Ferro-Electric Capacitor (FEC)1,2) which has non-linearity characteristics, a semi-conductor switching device (SIDAC) and some resistors. This starter can generate the starting pulse using the FEC’s non-linearity characteristics and also can cut out the pulse by means of losing its characteristics above Curie point. And for H.P.S. lamps, in the case of arc tube leakage into the vacuum outer jacket, an arcing will be formed on the FEC’s surface by the starting pulse. Then the FEC will be fired, and the pulse will be cut out permanently.
