Patent ID: 8129919

Claim:
A discharge tube driving device comprising: a control circuit configured to generate a switching pulse; a switching circuit configured to generate a driving pulse under a control of the switching pulse; at least one driving transformer which has a primary winding for receiving the driving pulse and a secondary winding for generating a high-frequency driving signal; a first discharge tube group including a plurality of discharge tubes sequentially arranged in a first direction and disposed in parallel with respect to a plane; a second discharge tube group including a plurality of discharge tubes also sequentially arranged in the first direction and disposed in parallel with respect to the plane, wherein a quantity of discharge tubes in the first and second groups is the same, and wherein the first and second groups are not intermingled; wherein one-side terminals of the plurality of discharge tubes in the first discharge tube group are connected via respective reactance elements to a first high-voltage terminal to form first high-voltage interconnections, the first high-voltage terminal being one terminal of the secondary winding of the at least one driving transformer; wherein one-side terminals of the plurality of discharge tubes in the second discharge tube group are connected via respective reactance elements to a second high-voltage terminal to form second high-voltage interconnections, the second-high voltage terminal being another terminal of the same or another secondary winding of the at least one driving transformer, such that the first high-voltage interconnections and second high-voltage interconnections do cross each other; and wherein another-side terminals of the plurality of discharge tubes in the first discharge tube group are respectively connected to another-side terminals of the plurality of discharge tubes in the second discharge tube group such that each another-side terminal of a discharge tube in the first discharge tube group is connected only to a corresponding another-side terminal of a discharge tube in the second discharge tube group whose sequence in the second discharge tube group corresponds to the sequence of the connected first discharge tube in the first discharge tube group.