Patent ID: 7157865

Claim:
A circuit for driving cold cathode fluorescent lamps and external electrode fluorescent lamps comprising: a steady state square wave half bridge oscillator generator to set a running frequency with a high side and low side output; a high side MOSFET and a low side MOSFET to complete the half bridge; a direct current down voltage converter to power the oscillator generator and half bridge; a direct current blocking capacitor; a thermal shutdown feedback circuit to monitor the temperature of one of the high side MOSFET and the low side MOSFET; a channel comprising: a lamp driver and element comprising: a high voltage inductive device; a current limiting capacitor; a lamp; and at least two low resonance value capacitors in series; a non-inductive or non-capacitive loading lamp detection feedback comprising: a current sensing resistor; a fast recovery diode; a filter; a resistor/capacitor buffer circuit; a voltage comparator; and a latching silicon control rectifier; and a lamp disconnect driver, wherein the power input for the circuit has been cleaned of harmonic noise.