I have made a circuit to act as a infrared remote switch that would turn on/off a flourescent tube light. (the ones with a choke coil and a starter ). The schematic is attahed below.

The circuit worked perfect with non inductive loads, however when used with flourscent tube (40 Watts 220V), the flicker (at the start of the tube ) makes the flip flop change its state and relay switches to off state.

I tried all possible fix known to me,

1) Added a RC snubber on relay contact points

2) Added RC filters accross flip flop to make it more stabe

3) Used double relay to isolate the starup flicker from my circuit

Nothing seems to work. ( The tube switches on but only after several tries )

The help in this regards would be very much appreciated.

 

Thanks Alberto,

I will try that out and get back with the results, could you also suggest if using TRIAC instead of ElectroMechanical relay would be helpful. Does it make sense to use another relay ( i mean two relays ) to isolate the induction effects ?

Alpesh

 

Put a 10 ohm resistor from +12v to the top of the relay coil, then a big cap 470 or 1000uF from the top of the relay coil to ground.