A Light-flickermeter – Part I: Design

Voltage variation is one of lamps flickering main cause; thus evaluation of a disturbing light flicker is a part of voltage quality classification. The instrument for flicker level measurement by means of voltage variation analysis is named flickermeter and is specified in standard EN 610004-15. The flickermeter is a specialized analyzer modeling response of a chain consisting of reference 60W incandescent lamp – eye – brain of an average observer. Hence, other lamp types like discharge are mainly used in illumination systems at present, significant difference between flicker measurement using the standard flickermeter and observation can appear. In the paper, there is proposed a light flicker measurement method based on analysis of an irradiance (radiant flux) waveform, where the output flicker index is independent on the lamp type. With regard to expected properties the proposed light-flickermeter can be called objective flickermeter. Nevertheless the range of application of the objective flickermeter is limited as it is also shown.