Power ballast for UV lamp

[wmss]

Hi there,

I have a Luminor RL-820 UV lamp (for Blackcomb LB4-101, LB5-101 & LB6-101) and the controller is damaged. That's 500 USD here in Costa Rica, where I live. I'm not going to pay that because I don't see any value in the controlling features, which are all disabled because here in this country they don't sell the sensors that are needed for the feature. The controller is basically downgraded and only counts the days until I have to change, and apart from that, the controlling unit only serves as a power supply and ballast.

I can get a power supply with ballast for 30–50 USD; I'm not going to pay 500 USD again.

Here is the patent with diagrams and technical data for this lamp: Lamp Patent at USPTO

See page 11, figures 46 and 47; these are the connectors.

Lamp specs:

Electrical: 90-265V/50-60Hz. 1A Max. (we have 110V in Costa Rica)

Plug Type: American: NEMA 5-15P

Lamp Power (Watts): 39

Power (Watts): 49

I attached pictures of the connectors, I'm not sure which two are powering the lamp and which are for the sensors.

https://www.pinterest.com/pin/376472850114527837/

The lamp is also made in the USA, maybe someone knows the producer.

The next logical step is to find a power supply with a ballast to run this lamp. On Amazon, I found a few products that feature a simple power supply with ballast (see link): Various UV Ballasts on Amazon

Can someone please point me in the right direction and tell me which one I should buy? Or maybe someone knows where I can get a proper generic power supply? I'm excellent at PC electronics, but power supplies for UV lamps are unknown territory for me.

I appreciate your help.

 

[tortuga]

Welcome to the forum.

Check out Atlantic UV

Learn AboutUV Disinfection

Learn about UV disinfection on Ultraviolet.com by Atlantic Ultraviolet Corporation, engineers and manufacturers of UV-C equipment since 1963.

ultraviolet.com

They can help you order a replacement ballast that will work.
FYI
Pinterst is an annoying paywall site, you can post photos here directly.

 

[wmss]

Welcome to the forum.

Check out Atlantic UV

Learn AboutUV Disinfection

Learn about UV disinfection on Ultraviolet.com by Atlantic Ultraviolet Corporation, engineers and manufacturers of UV-C equipment since 1963.

ultraviolet.com

They can help you order a replacement ballast that will work.
FYI
Pinterst is an annoying paywall site, you can post photos here directly.

Thank you, I have sent them a mail. Please excuse the Pinterest link, but for some reason the board won't let me post an image directly.

 

[tortuga]

Your welcome, do you know if Cost Rica has switched from the NEC to IEC 60364 ?

 

[wmss]

Your welcome, do you know if Cost Rica has switched from the NEC to IEC 60364 ?

Apologies for my delayed response! Nope, not really, they coexist!

Since board language is English, I will translate the legislative part of it into English:

5.2.7 The aspects to be evaluated in the verification of the electrical the shall be based on the NFPA 70 National Electrical Code (NEC) standard in effect at time of executing the electrical work as established in Article 1 of Executive Decree No. 36979-MEIC.

See page 18

- and -

(D) Relation to Other International Standards
International Standards. The requirements of this code are oriented towards the fundamental principles of safety protection contained in Section 131 of IEC 60364-1 Electrical Installations for Electrical Installations for Buildings of the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC).
NLM: Section 131 of IEC 60364-1 Electrical Installations for Buildings. 1 Electrical Installations for Buildings contains the fundamental principles of protection for safety, comprising: protection against electric shock, protection against thermal effects, overcurrent protection, fault current protection, fault currents, and overvoltage protection. All these potential hazards are covered by the requirements of this code.

See page 5

I hope that answered your question!

 

[tortuga]

Thank you!
That is good to here.

 

[wmss]

You're welcome!

 

[gar]

230808-1057 EDT

wmss:

I believe what you have is a gas filled tube with an electrode at each end, or two electrodes spaced apart.

This kind of bulb is a nonconductor until ionization of the internal gas is initiated. Once ionized the bulbs voltage drop is relatively constant over a wide current range. This necessitates external control of the bulb current. A simple resistor can perform this function, but wastes power in an AC circuit. The open circuit source voltage without the bulb must be great enough to initiate ionization. In an AC circuit an inductor can be used as the current limiter so not as much external power is wasted in a resistor.

If you have a 50 W bulb with a voltage drop of 50 V when ionized, then you need to limit current to approximately 1 A with the external current limiter.

. .

 

[wmss]

230808-1057 EDT

wmss:

I believe what you have is a gas filled tube with an electrode at each end, or two electrodes spaced apart.

This kind of bulb is a nonconductor until ionization of the internal gas is initiated. Once ionized the bulbs voltage drop is relatively constant over a wide current range. This necessitates external control of the bulb current. A simple resistor can perform this function, but wastes power in an AC circuit. The open circuit source voltage without the bulb must be great enough to initiate ionization. In an AC circuit an inductor can be used as the current limiter so not as much external power is wasted in a resistor.

If you have a 50 W bulb with a voltage drop of 50 V when ionized, then you need to limit current to approximately 1 A with the external current limiter.

. .

@gar

It's this lamp. And you are right about the gas. I have reason to believe that all lamps are produced by Atlantic Ultraviolet. Luminor sustains that the lamp can't be run without a controller and that the controller and ballast are the same. This is technically not correct, I dissembled the controller unit and found the display, the controlling unit and the ballast. The controller together with the display offer some features, let me call them “Vanity-Features”—I really don't need a $500 device to tell me that a lamp is not working if the lamp is visibly off. I'm currently trying to find out if the ballast quit life or the controller board part of the assembly. If the latter is the case, I could simply separate these parts. But I would like to have a new ballast and get rid of the rest.

 

[gar]

230808-2200 EDT

wmss:

Measure the resistance of the ballast. I expect the ballast to simply be an inductor. Thus, you should see some reasonable resistance of its coil. Assuming the ballast is an inductor it will have a DC resistance considerably less than its 60 Hz impedance. AC impedance is what determines bulb current.

You can look at various internal voltages with power applied that may provide information on where a problem is located.

..

.

 

[Flicker Index]

Without knowing the rated lamp current, it's hard to say. Many electronic ballasts are rated for fairly wide range of different lamps though. It looks like it's got two pins on both ends?

An electronic ballast you would use for one lamp F54T5HO fixture may work.
However, if it's really 820 watt like the link suggests, forget it.