| Do all energy efficient electric ballasts upconvert the source | frequency of 60Hz to 20-50kHz? | | I have a history of symptoms with normal fluorescent lighting | (60Hz/120 blinks per second). I usually put up with it, but feel | better in sun or incandescent lighting.
You will still see 120 blinks per second. Even though the electronic ballast is chopping the power up in thousands of fine slice per second, it still has periods of time in which there is less voltage and the light will still have 120 Hz modulation to it.
If the power were DC, an electronic ballast could make it flicker free. DC would not work on an inductive ballast (the light would be seen as a short circuit and could result in an explosion), and electronic ballasts may also require AC anyway. If one can work on DC, it might be indicated as such. But is it worth building a DC power system just to remove the flicker?
I'm wondering if a 3-phase electronic ballast could be devised which would selectively switch power among phases (there'a always power in at least 2 of them at any instant). That could eliminate the flicker, or at least bump it up to 180 or 360 Hz. But it would play hell on the neutral wire if a lot of lights were done this way (it would be distributing the load on 3 phase hot wires, but the neutral would have to be carrying it all).