Role Of PCB in Development of Compact Fluorescent Lamps (CFL)
                     Role Of PCB in Development of Compact 
Fluorescent Lamps (CFL)
Anthea Johnson
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CFL is an acronym for Compact Fluorescent Lamp. As the 
name suggests, CFL is a miniature form of florescent lamps. 
They were meant to replace incandescent lamps. The 
invention of CFL has become purely possible because of PCB 
technology. The size of the lamps have been reduced 
considerably by curling them or folding them. The ballast size 
has also been reduced through miniaturization of the circuit 
by PCB technology. The resultant is a energy efficient small 
CFL that operates at par with fluorescent lamps.
Working of a CFL
The most important part of a CFL is an electronic ballast. 
There are two types of CFL: integrated and non integrated. A 
non integrated CFL requires an external ballast and an 
integrated CFL is an in-built ballast.
Reducing the size of the ballast to the extent of fitting it inside the CFL 
has become entirely possible because of PCB technology.
A ballast circuit of CFL consists of transformers, rectifiers, diodes, 
capacitors and transistors. The circuit is miniaturized and the components 
are fabricated on a small PCB. The transformer steps down the voltage 
and the rectifier converts the AC into DC and a filtering capacitor is used 
to filter the ripples. A small inverter circuit again converts this DC to AC 
with considerable frequency boost up to reduce flicker.
Advantages
The CFL is efficient and results in considerable power saving.
Due to high frequency of AC used, flicker is considerably reduced.
The start up time is very less.
The weight and size of the lamps are small with regard to the illumination 
levels they provide.
Disadvantages
In the efforts for miniaturizing the circuit used in CFLs, the Power Factor 
improvement is low. Hence these can affect the power quality seriously in 
case they are used in industrial establishments.
The disposal of CFL is tricky because of the presence of poisonous 
mercury. This can have environmental and health issues.
An overview
The CFL is so small and gives considerable amount of illumination is an 
technological marvel. Even greater marvel is how the size of ballast has 
been reduced to fit it into a casing to accommodate the size of CFL in 
comparable levels to incandescent lamps. CFL technology is a transition 
from electrical to electronic technology. 
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