Recently, many customers in the market are asking me about the lamp products that are compatible with electronic ballasts. This seems to be a very hot topic in the LED lighting market recently. It is no wonder that three of the top ten explosions of this year's Hong Kong Lighting Fair are such compatible LED T8 tubes. On the other hand, such products have experienced large-scale recalls in several major lighting brands in the North American market in 2015. Both CREE and OSRAM have been deeply involved, and they have become the “explosive models†in the LED lighting market recall products this year. It’s really a shame, and it’s also a shame. Perhaps we should take the time to talk about such products now.
In the field of lighting, fluorescent lamps as a conventional light source have been widely used in the past few decades, and are widely used in commercial and residential places such as shops, offices, parking garages, factories, and the like. Fluorescent lamp is essentially a kind of low-pressure gas discharge lamp, which exhibits negative resistance during operation. It needs a matching electronic ballast during operation to realize the basic functions of high-voltage ignition and stable operation of fluorescent lamps. Instead of replacing the traditional fluorescent tube with a new type of LED tube, the original electronic ballast needs to be removed or bypassed directly during installation. Rewiring involves many electrical safety operations, requiring the operator to have an electrician's certificate and purchase social security, which greatly increases the replacement installation cost of the LED tube.
We all know that American labor is not very expensive, but very expensive! Few people will use the LED tube to bypass the ballast and re-route. Therefore, there is a so-called LED tube product compatible with electronic ballasts, which can be used to directly replace traditional fluorescent lamps. These products are installed without electronic ballasts, no need to re-route, just remove the old fluorescent tube and plug in a new LED tube. The installation process is very simple and the replacement cost is low. However, considering the reality, there are a large number of electronic ballasts with different brands, different powers, different BFs and different designs. If there is a direct connection with such LED tubes, there is an electronic ballast and lamp. Pipe matching and compatibility issues. Therefore, the "compatibility" of LED tubes with traditional ballasts has become the most important feature of such products.
What is "compatibility"? How to evaluate and test the "compatibility" of a product? This is actually a very critical issue. Many people don't pay much attention to this problem. Of course, they think that "compatibility" means that the LED light tube will be bright when it is connected to the ballast. Will it flash? It can be bright or not, it is "compatible", it is a good product!? As an ordinary consumer, it is ok to understand "compatibility". But as a developer of the product, so also to evaluate the "compatibility" of the lamp, the problem is serious. If you don't, your company may pay a heavy price in the near future, either the product is recalled or the company legal person is taken to court.
To evaluate the "compatibility" of such products, the first is safety testing, followed by performance testing. If the security test is too much, talk about any performance is vain. Safety tests include at least the Pin-Safety test and the Mis-Use test. The Pin-Safety test means that one end of the analog lamp is connected to the socket of the lamp, and there is a danger of electric shock when the human body touches the other end of the lamp.
In the UL certification, the requirements for TypeA and TypeB lamp leakage testing are different. For TypeB lamps, the MIU must be less than 5.0. The Mis-Use test is to simulate that the lamp is incorrectly connected to various lamp sockets, including single-ended, double-ended, AC, DC, etc., whether it will cause electric shock, short circuit, trip or even fire. Danger. This is actually a very important security test, but it is often overlooked by many development engineers. At present, the so-called "two in one" and "three in one" products on the market, many safety tests are too much, and the MIU test value of many products is even as high as 100, exceeding the safety requirements by more than 20 times, and the safety hazard is extremely high. .
Performance test is not simply to connect the lamp to the ballast to see if it will be bright, will it flash? As a product development engineer, if you use this "consumer" type of inspection to evaluate and test the product, it will be Killed the company. Scientific performance tests mainly include connecting LED tubes to different brands, different powers, different types (IS/RS/PS), different BF ballasts (BF~0.78/0.88/1.18, etc.), different input voltages, and even When one lamp, two lamps, three lamps, and four lamps are operated, check whether the LED driving current is constant. If the driving current varies greatly, it means that the key parameters such as the working temperature, light decay, output lumen and light efficiency of the LED lamp bead will change greatly in the actual application environment, then the nominal performance parameters of the LED lamp are often not achieved. Light decay is also difficult to control.
A nominal 1800 lm lamp is connected to different ballasts. When single or multiple lamps are used, the luminous flux may change from 1200 lm to 3500 lm! What's more, such as OSRAMSylvania has just recalled the 55,000 SubstiTUBEIST8 lamps. The LED drive current is completely uncontrolled. In actual use, the user may feel that the illumination is not enough, or the LED tube is hot and hot, and the long-term work light decay is very serious, which is a typical failure case. In addition to the drive current, other items to be tested include PF, THD, EMC and abnormal state protection (load open, short circuit, over temperature and arc pull) and other performance parameters, these are to ensure that your product is safe, reliable and can get UL , FCC and DLC certification, the basic guarantee for the smooth entry into the North American market.
The North American market is different from the domestic ones, its regulations are sound and the market is very standardized. Although the market has a high barrier to entry, the rules of the game are clear. Before doing this kind of product, it is an important step to learn more about its regulatory provisions and to learn the certification standard. Many people don't pay much attention to this link, thinking that the certification is handed over to the agency, and the product is rushed, and the result quickly fell off immediately. Failure to understand the details of the regulations and certification terms will affect your judgment, definition, solution selection and development design. These are the things that the agency can't help you, but they are the most important thing. In fact, this kind of product itself is not complicated, and the product design is relatively simple. The key is to know how to scientifically test and evaluate the safety and basic performance of the product, in order to make correct market judgment and product definition, and to build the company's core competitiveness. .
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