A capacitor-free driving stage for light emitting diodes

Electrolytic capacitors have the disadvantage of pronounced aging. Non-electrolytic capacitors are therefore used in applications where long-life is important. In this paper we present a driving stage for LEDs without any capacitive elements. The basic topology is a Buck converter with one coil, one active, and one passive switch. Instead of the output capacitor, series connections of one or more LEDs and an active switch are connected. An additional diode is connected between the output and the input to achieve a current path, when all LEDpaths are off. A nonlinear hysteresis controller is used to achieve a robust control. A system with three switchable LED-strings is analyzed. Design hints are given and the function is proved with the help of LTSpice simulations. The system can be used for lighting purposes with the possibility to change the chrominance. The potentiality to transmit data is also treated.