Long-Lasting and Highly Efficient TRIAC Dimming LED Driver with a Variable Switched Capacitor

Abstract

A triode for alternating current (TRIAC) dimming light emitting diode (LED) driver, which adopts a variable switched capacitor for LED dimming and LED power regulation, is proposed in this paper. The proposed LED driver is power efficient, reliable, and long lasting because of the TRIAC switch that serves as its main switch. Similar to previous TRIAC dimmers for lamps, turn-on timing of a TRIAC switch can be controlled by a volume resistor, which modulates the equivalent capacitance of the proposed variable switched capacitor. Thus, LED power regulation against source voltage variation and LED dimming control can be achieved by the proposed LED driver while meeting the global standards for power factor (PF) and total harmonic distortion (THD). The long life and high power efficiency of the proposed LED driver make it appropriate for industrial lighting applications, such as those for streets, factories, parking garages, and emergency stairs. The detailed analysis of the proposed LED driver and its design procedure are presented in this paper. A prototype of 80 W was fabricated and verified by experiments, which showed that the efficiency, PF, and THD at V s = 220 V are 93.8%, 0.95, and 22.5%, respectively; 65 W of LED dimming control was achieved with the volume resistor, and the LED power variation was well mitigated below 3.75% for 190 V s < 250 V.