Go to Otherpower.com Home Page Go to Forcefield Shopping Cart Go to Wondermagnet.com Home Page
Front Page - [Homebrewed Electricity-- (wind) (solar) (hydro) (steam) (controls) (storage) (mechanical)] - Classifieds - Site News
Everything - Newbies - [Remote Living-- (housing) (heat) (light) (water)] - Reviews - Diaries - Our Products
FL inverter news


By RobC, Section Light
Posted on Thu Mar 24, 2005 at 08:19:47 PM MST
Update

On a recent diary post I posted a schematic for a driver circut for FL lighting. Well with more research I can say I messed up. In the circut there are no need for the diodes in series with R1 and R2 and no need for the transistors between the 555 and the Fet. Just drive the Fet directly. If R1 is 3k and R2 is 6k and C1 is .0047 it will work good. This gives you almost a square wave @20Khz. Antenna rod style transformers or E cores will both work. This circut drives 2 40 watt bulbs or 1 8ft single pin style bulb. One more thing use an amp meter as the amps should be around 3-5 amps if its working right. RobC      
FL inverter news | 14 comments (14 topical)

Re: FL inverter news (3.00 / 0) (#1)
by johnlm on Thu Mar 24, 2005 at 02:39:27 PM MST

Thanks for the update Rob.  I was also wondering why the diodes were in there around the timing network.  Makes for a pretty simple way to power the florescents.  With the supply current being what you say it appears the unit is running with diecent effeciency.  Does one transformer (Ecore or antenna rod) work better - meaning lower supply current- than the other?
John


Re: FL inverter news (3.00 / 0) (#5)
by RobC on Thu Mar 24, 2005 at 06:24:36 PM MST

Hi John both style transformers pull about the same amps but I think the e-core works better. RobC

[ Parent ]


Re: FL inverter news (3.00 / 0) (#2)
by TomW on Thu Mar 24, 2005 at 02:57:07 PM MST

Rob;

Might be a good idea to post a comment over on the diary making folks aware of this update? Otherwise they may not see it.

Just an idea.

Cheers.

TomW

The Truth is the Truth, even if no one believes it; and a lie is a lie even if everyone believes it




Re: FL inverter news (3.00 / 0) (#3)
by Norm on Thu Mar 24, 2005 at 03:44:13 PM MST

....or even an updated schematic....for
electronic dummies like me? Will something
like this work on tubes with burned out filaments
....or did I miss that part?  Sure would be nice
to be able to use those old burned out tubes I
got laying around here...even if they only glowed
with a 1/3 lumens as original!
      Hook em' up to a Telsa coil or a Briggs magneto?
                   ( :>) Norm.
                   
( :>) Norm
[ Parent ]


Re: FL inverter news (3.00 / 0) (#7)
by RobC on Thu Mar 24, 2005 at 06:31:58 PM MST

Updated schematic coming up in a day or two Norm. As far as burnt out bulbs I tryed one for whatever reason didn't seem to light well at all and circut amps went way up. RobC

[ Parent ]


Re: FL inverter news (3.00 / 0) (#4)
by deerslayer660 on Thu Mar 24, 2005 at 03:59:50 PM MST

 i made a post  back about 25 posts ago  about flouro light inverters  so seeing this post i connected my 555 ckt to one of my transformers and it takes 970ma to run
the f8t5 8w flouro  that runs on same transformer with a nte186a transistor at 480ma
 so next i tried the rod transformer littel light lights to point that i thought it would  blow but it lives funny thing lowest amp draw i could get <555 ckt is made adjustable> 2 amps ouch  its amazing how much light you can get out of that littel bulb   george

[ Parent ]


Re: FL inverter news (3.00 / 0) (#8)
by RobC on Thu Mar 24, 2005 at 06:43:15 PM MST

Yes George at 2 amps I can just imagine how much light that little bulb put out. With a 5k pot for R1 I can reduce the amps to 2amps and still get dim but useable light out of the 8ft tube. The great thing about this style of inverter is that you could turn the power down to the point that you can just see where going or up to full power and read a book. RobC

[ Parent ]


Re: FL inverter news (3.00 / 0) (#6)
by RobC on Thu Mar 24, 2005 at 06:27:36 PM MST

Will do Tom probably tomorrow or the next day along with schematics and photos. RobC

[ Parent ]


Re: FL inverter news (3.00 / 0) (#9)
by commanda on Thu Mar 24, 2005 at 11:03:30 PM MST

Your link to projects.html on your redevices.com website doesn't render as html. Shows as text in my browser, complete with tags.

Amanda

[ Parent ]



Re: FL inverter news (3.00 / 0) (#10)
by TomW on Fri Mar 25, 2005 at 05:10:52 AM MST

Amanda;

Hmm works here in firefox and Mozilla just now? Must have been a glitch.

But thanks for the heads up.

Cheers.

TomW

The Truth is the Truth, even if no one believes it; and a lie is a lie even if everyone believes it


[ Parent ]



Re: FL inverter news (3.00 / 0) (#11)
by commanda on Sat Mar 26, 2005 at 01:51:02 PM MST

projects.html still doesn't work for me with mozilla firebird 0.7, but does work with IE 5.

I know I should upgrade my mozilla to firefox, which I use everywhere else. It's just that I usually only fire up windows at home when I'm doing pcb layouts. I normally use Linux.

Amanda

[ Parent ]



Re: FL inverter news (3.00 / 0) (#12)
by veewee77 on Sat Mar 26, 2005 at 02:00:15 PM MST

It works for me. . .
Perhaps you need to clear your cache so it will get a n ew copy. . .

[ Parent ]


Re: FL inverter news (3.00 / 0) (#13)
by RobC on Wed May 11, 2005 at 06:27:09 PM MST

The mosfet should be a digikey no. irf640n-nd not ns-nd. Sorry RobC


FL inverter - heads up (3.00 / 0) (#14)
by commanda on Mon May 30, 2005 at 05:53:27 PM MST

I posted a while back about using the main ferrite transformer out of a computer power supply. Just to report I've got one happily driving an 8 watt fluoro. One word of caution though. The core I'm using saturates very quickly at 20KHz; so I'm running it at 50KHz.

Second heads up. If you push the mark/space ratio too high, the tube goes into a forward conduction mode, and the circuit will draw heaps of current. To overcome this, put a resistor in series with the tube. I had on hand a 750 ohm 5 watt which is working fine, although a 1K 1/2 watt let the magic smoke escape very quickly.

Will post full details of what I'm doing, in my diary, in due course.

Amanda



FL inverter news | 14 comments (14 topical)
Display: Sort:
Menu
· create account
· How to use the board
· FAQs
· search the board
· Google search the board

Login
Make a new account
Username:
Password:

Total Views
  112 Scoop users have viewed this posting.

Related Links
· Also by RobC

Powered by Scoop
You must be a registered user to post here. It's easy and free, and the link is on the upper right side of your page.
All trademarks and copyrights on this page are owned by their respective companies. Postings are owned by the poster, but may be deleted or moved at the ADMIN's sole discretion. The Rest © 2009 Forcefield.
You can Email the board ADMIN here. PLEASE include the username you signed up with!