| WO2011145009A1 | 2011-11-24 |
| US8164273B1 | 2012-04-24 | |||
| US20100295478A1 | 2010-11-25 | |||
| US20110031899A1 | 2011-02-10 | |||
| US20110193488A1 | 2011-08-11 | |||
| US20110234115A1 | 2011-09-29 | |||
| US20120229044A1 | 2012-09-13 | |||
| US20130106303A1 | 2013-05-02 |
| The claims defining the invention are as follows: 1. A system of resolving the start-up problem with LED dimmers, the system comprising: a specially-designed processor (Intelligent Processor). 2. The system of claim 1, wherein there is a LED power-up mechanism of a phase dimmer. 3. The system of claims 1 or 2, wherein an intelligent processor delivers an initial output power which is different from the selected or desired value and is higher than the switching-on threshold of the LEDs. 4. The system of any one of claims 1 to 3, wherein the initial output power is higher than the selected or desired value. 5. The system of any one of claims 1 - 4, wherein the output power is lowered down suddenly or gradually to the selected or desired value after the initial power is applied. 6. A method of driving the operation of the system, the method comprising: a logical operation. 7. The method of claim 6, wherein forcing the firing angle for the Phase Dimmer to give a higher power output which is adequate to turn on the LEDs. 8. The method of claim 6 or 7, wherein the operation of the system has been verified by a leading-edge and traiiing-edge phase dimmer as shown in figures 1 and 2 specified herein. |
Dimmers are becoming very popular in the LED lighting industry as more and more people are looking for a dimmable feature on LED products. It is found however when most dimmable LED products are dimmed to a low level and they are switched off, they can't come back to be lit up at that particular setting when it is switched on again. The invention of a re-strike mechanism in a LED dimmer will solve the startup problem in all dimmable LED products. The invention of the re-strike mechanism comprises of a processor and a logical OR operation which allows the dimmer output power circuit to be driven by the original dimmer circuitry or by the processor. The processor in this invention will read the dimmer level setting when the dimmer is powered up, when the setting is found to be less than a threshold, the processor will override the original dimmer circuitry and take over the dimming operation immediately. The processor will turn on the dimmable load with a power level which is sufficient to turn on the load for a while and it gradually lowers down the power levei. Knowing the level setting, the processor will switch the dimming control operation back to the original dimmer circuitry when the power level is close to the level setting.
The method has been verified by a leading edge and a trailing edge phase di mmer as shown in figure 1 a nd figu re 2 respectively. The re-strike is done by forcing the firing angle of the phase di mmer to give a higher power output which Is sufficient to turn on the LEDs, after LEDs are lit up the processor brings the output level down to the defined value.