Reference board jumpstarts LED streetlight design

Design Automation

2 April 2014 Design Automation

STMicroelectronics has introduced a complete and configurable solution to develop and efficiently control a dimmable, high-brightness LED string (up to 100 W) for street lighting applications.

Based on the award-winning STLUX385A digital power controller, the plug-and-play design highlights the device’s ability to optimise LED efficiency at any dimming level and minimise power in idle conditions.

Replacing incandescent, low-pressure sodium and high-intensity discharge streetlights with LEDs is widely seen as the most promising way to reduce the huge amount of energy that the world uses to light the streets of its cities, towns and villages.

LEDs are inherently more efficient than earlier lamp technologies and, more importantly, they are dimmable. This means that, in conjunction with a smart power supply, their light output can be rapidly adjusted to scenarios ranging from ambient daylight to bright moonlight. In addition, they can also implement civic policies such as dimming selected lamps at a chosen time.

Many cities around the world have started to convert their existing streetlamps to use LED technology and even more are drawing up plans to do so. In the USA, for example, Boston, Massachusetts had converted 40% of its 64 000 electric streetlamps to LEDs by the end of 2012 and was already realising $2,8 million (or 35%) savings annually in electricity cost.

ST’s reference design includes full schematics, bill of materials and firmware, enabling customers to rapidly develop digital power controllers for 100 W LED lamps using the STLUX385A. In this solution, the chip handles a primary-side regulated power conversion stage, as well as all the supported communication links. The power conversion stage consists of a PFC regulator followed by a ZVS LC-resonant stage. High-precision dimming is controlled using a primary-side regulation control technique.

The demonstration board provides all the key physical communication interfaces such as DALI, insulated 0 – 10 and UART, with all the communication managed by the STLUX385A. The flexibility of the IC also allows the board to be easily connected to other interfaces such as Wi-Fi, power-line modems, Bluetooth and ZigBee.

For more information contact Erich Nast, Avnet Kopp, +27 (0)11 319 8600, [email protected], www.avnet.co.za

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Reference board jumpstarts LED streetlight design

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