Patent ID: 7307389

Claim:
A ceiling fan, comprising: a ceiling-mountable fan housing containing a fan motor; a plurality of fan blades coupled to the fan motor to be turned by the fan motor; at least one gas discharge lamp ballast; and at least one gas discharge lamp driven by said ballast, wherein the gas discharge lamp ballast comprises: a switching section generating an AC drive current for driving the gas discharge lamp; a switching section controller for supplying switching signals to the switching section to control the switching frequency of the switching section; and a microcontroller providing a pulse width modulated signal to the switching section controller, wherein the microcontroller controls the pulse width of the pulse width modulated signal to control the drive current supplied by the switching section and wherein the microcontroller controls dimming of the at least one gas discharge lamp by producing a first pulse width modulated signal to the switching section controller to dim the at least one gas discharge lamp and by producing a second pulse width modulated signal to the switching section controller to brighten the lamp.