ЭПРА - what is it? Luminaire electronic ballasts: reviews, price

The control gears were started more than thirty five years ago. Of course, after all this time all the models were improved and refined. But today not everyone can really appreciate the benefits of electronic ballasts. What it is? Let's consider.

What is electronic ballast?

Electronic ballasts are electronic ballasts that are installed to illuminate a room. The luminaire of electronic ballasts significantly helps to save electricity. In addition, you also save on the purchase of new lamps. The latter is due to the fact that the lifetime of lamps is much higher than other similar ones.

Electroluminescent lamps give high-quality artificial lighting, which favorably affects the performance of a person. Due to the frequency of flickering up to 400 Hz, the eyes do not get tired, so in the future the head does not hurt after work.

Characteristics and types of electronic ballasts

All electronic ballasts are divided into two types:

1. Apparatuses that represent a single unit.
2. Apparatus consisting of several parts.

In addition, electronic ballasts can be divided into types according to the type of lamps: apparatus for gas-discharge lamps, halogen light sources, and also for light-emitting diodes.

If we consider the characteristics of the functioning of electronic ballasts, the devices are divided into electronic and electromagnetic.

In accordance with the European classification, all electronic control gear according to power loss are divided into classes:

• A1 - adjustable.
• A2 - unregulated.
• A3 - unregulated electronic ballasts (with large losses, rather than class A2).

As a rule, choosing the electronic ballast in the store should be guided by the latest varieties.

Features of electronic ballasts in the modern world

Modern electronic ballasts allow the lamp to start instantly after its electrodes are heated. In addition, during operation, a small voltage maintains the electronic ballast. What does it mean? Answer: The amount of energy consumed is much less than during the burning of lamps without this apparatus.

Of course, the electronic ballasts can be replaced by analogs. But it will already be cumbersome and noisy chokes, which are practically not used in electrical engineering.

The main features of electronic gear are:

• During the operation of the lamp, which is connected through the ballast, the flicker effect is reduced to zero.
• There is no such thing as a false start of a lamp. That is, there are no flashes before the usual stable ignition, when the starter breaks. This means that the filaments will last much longer.
• Electronic ballast helps to ensure stable lighting.
• Some electronic ballasts are equipped with a power regulator, which help to set the desired brightness in a particular room.

How HFD works

The operation of an electronic ballast consists of the following steps:

1. First, the lamp electrodes are heated. Their start-up takes less than a second, ensuring smooth light switching. This helps to extend the life of the lamp itself. In addition, it is worth noting that the LPO luminaire or other similar lamps with these devices can be started at very low temperatures, which does not adversely affect their operation.
2. The ignition is the second stage of the electronic ballast. During its operation, a high-voltage pulse is generated, which helps to fill the flask with gas.
3. Burning is the last stage, on which a stable low voltage is maintained, which is necessary for the operation of the lamp itself.

Electronic ballast circuit

In most cases, the electronic ballast is a two-stroke voltage converter. It can be either half-bridge or bridge. The latter option is very rare.

At the very beginning, the voltage begins to straighten the diode bridge. After that, it is gradually smoothed by the capacitor to a stable voltage of 310 volts.

Thanks to a half-bridge inverter, the voltage becomes high-frequency.

The electronic ballast circuit assumes the use of a toroidal transformer with three windings. The most important of them is applying an alternating resonant voltage to the lamp, and the other two are auxiliary. They open the transistor keys in an out -of-phase manner.

Thus, before the ignition occurs, the maximum current glows the two threads of the lamp. A large voltage on the capacitor lights the lamp, which continues to glow, without changing the frequency since its launch. As a rule, the launch time is not more than 1 second.

Using an electronic ballast with LED modules

As we have already said, some lighting devices can be used with electronic ballasts. What is it, we also dismantled. Now let's look at the advantages of using electronic ballasts together with LED modules.

The most important advantage in this situation is that you can avoid strong voltage surges and protect the device from electromagnetic interference. That is, the ballast protects this light source from negative external factors. In addition, in this situation, electronic ballasts can save up to 30% of electricity, which is also an important factor when deciding to use electronic ballasts. Energy saving here is also explained by the absence of the need for constant replacement of starters. And they break much faster and more often than electronic ballasts.

Reviews about electronic ballasts and their manufacturers

Judging by the many opinions of the respondents, all voted for electronic ballasts. The most popular manufacturers of lighting equipment that produce supplies to different countries of the world, including Russia, are the following:

• Helvar (Finland) began to produce products in 1921. And almost immediately proved to be one of the most reliable in the production of radio engineering. Helvar has mastered the technology of manufacturing electronic ballasts in only a few decades and continues to produce them at the moment.

• Tridonic (Austria) - one of the leading manufacturers of electronic ballasts. Tridonic began to produce its products, which today are among the most high-quality, back in the late 70-ies of the last century.

• Osram - a giant in the production of lighting sources and all sorts of its components (this includes electronic ballasts).

Of course, these manufacturers do not support the low cost of the electronic ballasts. Their price ranges from 1800 to 4500 rubles (when devices from other manufacturers can be purchased for only 500-1500 rubles). But their production justifies all expectations. This is due to the high quality of the products.

Choosing the ballast correctly

Before you buy one or another model of electronic ballasts (which is what we have already found out), it is necessary to determine the manufacturer. As already mentioned above, the most reliable manufacturers are considered to be Osram, Tridonic and Helvar. But even if you stop at one of these manufacturers, there is a possibility that an incorrectly selected device can become a source of damage to your lighting device. Therefore, in order that this does not happen, we will figure out what to look for when buying an electronic ballast.

So, when choosing electronic ballasts, pay attention to the following parameters:

• The type of lamps that you will use (for each type is designed their own type of electronic ballasts).
• The power of the lamps.
• Climatic conditions, which can be found in the documentation for electronic ballasts.