Electricity: battery or capacitor charging or discharging – Means to identify cell or battery type
Reexamination Certificate
2000-01-11
2001-09-18
Wong, Peter S. (Department: 2838)
Electricity: battery or capacitor charging or discharging
Means to identify cell or battery type
C320S110000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06291965
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a battery charger suitable for use to charge a battery cartridge to be mounted in a portable telephone terminal, for example.
2. Description of the Related Art
FIGS. 21A and 21B
show a general aspect of a conventional portable telephone terminal, battery cartridge to be mounted in the portable telephone terminal, and charging adapter for charging the battery cartridge.
In
FIGS. 21A and 21B
, the portable telephone terminal
201
has, on its front face, keys
211
for entry of telephone numbers, etc. and a display
212
for displaying a telephone number, dialing memorandum and other information. The portable telephone terminal
201
has an extensile antenna on its top. A battery cartridge
202
can be connected to the back face of the telephone terminal
201
.
The battery cartridge
202
contains a secondary battery such as lithium ion battery, for example. As shown in
FIG. 21B
, the battery cartridge
202
has positive and negative terminals
203
A,
203
B, and a communication terminal
204
. Output from he communication terminal
204
are charge stop information, capacity information, full charge information, battery defect information, and so on.
A charging adapter
205
has formed a hold portion
206
for holding the portable telephone terminal
201
with the battery cartridge
202
set in place. The charge adapter
205
is supplied with power from a power source adapter
207
. The charge adapter
205
includes a charging circuit for controlling the charging operation of the battery cartridge
202
.
When the battery cartridge
202
is charged, the portable telephone terminal
201
having the battery pack
202
in place is put in the hold portion
206
of the charging adapter
205
, and the secondary battery inside the battery cartridge
202
is charged by the charging adapter
205
.
The battery cartridge
202
has a display portion
208
. Information on the charging status of the battery is shown on the display
208
. If the battery is defective, or the charging is stopped by operation of the protection circuit, a warning about the situation is shown on the display
208
. Display of such information like the charging control status and caution is based on information from the communication terminal
204
of the battery
202
.
More specifically, output from the communication terminal
204
are charge stop information, capacity information, full charge information, battery defect information, and so forth. Charge stop information is output when the protection circuit is activated to stop the charging because of excessive heat generation of the battery, for example. Capacity information is given when the capacity of the battery becomes 70%, for example. Full charge information is generated when the battery is fully charged. Battery defect information is given when the betty is defective. In response to the capacity information or full charge information from the communication terminal
204
, the charging state is controlled. Additionally, with the charge stop information or battery defect information from the communication terminal
204
, a warning is displayed.
In order to reduce the size and weight of the entirety of the portable telephone terminal, it is important to reduce the size and weight of the battery cartridge
202
. However, along with an increase of information output from the communication terminal
204
of the battery cartridge, structure of the battery cartridge
202
inevitably becomes complicated due to complex control signals output from the communication terminal
204
, and this makes it difficult to reduce the size and weight or the battery cartridge
202
.
That is, in the example shown above, four kinds of information, namely, charge stop information, capacity information, full charge information and battery defect information, are output from the communication terminal
204
. Therefore, various control signals enough to make four or more kinds of representations are required to distinguish these four different kinds of information. When control signals are expressed in different numbers of pulses, it is necessary to enable counting and discrimination of four or more different numbers of pulses. If the control signals are expressed in different voltage levels, it is necessary to enable discrimination of four or more different voltage levels. As a result, encoding and decoding processes become complicated, and the circuit size increases. Further, together with complexity of control signals, the possibility of erroneous discrimination of control signals becomes high due to influences from noise, or the like. Therefore, the possibility of operation errors also increases.
It might be possible to provide a microcomputer in the battery cartridge
202
for processing signals from the communication terminal
204
. The use of a microcomputer in the battery cartridge
202
, however, makes it difficult to reduce the size and weight of the battery cartridge
202
. Therefore, it is desirable to make up the entire circuit only with gate circuits without using a microcomputer.
Especially, as the portable telephone terminal, it is strongly desired to contain the charging adapter in the portable telephone terminal
201
and to charge the battery by directly connecting the power source adapter
207
to the portable telephone terminal
201
as shown in FIG.
22
. When the charging adapter is built in the portable telephone terminal
201
in this manner, the demand for reducing the size and weight of the charging circuit becomes strong, and it is desired to simplify control signals from the communication terminal.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
It is therefore an object of the invention to provide a battery charger enabling simplification of control signals from the communication terminal and thereby contributing to reduction of the size and weight of the battery.
According to the invention, there is provided a battery charger for electrically charging a battery cartridge having electrode terminals for charging a secondary battery and a communication terminal for controlling the charging operation of the secondary battery, comprising:
receiver means for receiving a control signal from the communication terminal;
charging mode judge means for identifying one of different charging modes from a charging curve of the secondary battery; and
control means for identifying one of different pieces of information corresponding to the control signal from the communication terminal by reference to the control signal received by the receiver means and one of charging modes identified by the charging mode judge means, and controlling the charging operation in accordance with the identified information.
According to the invention, a control signal is associated with a piece of information in each charging mode. By thus assigning a control signal to a particular piece of information in each charging mode, a single control signal can be assigned to different kinds of information in different modes. These charging modes are discriminated by detecting properties of charge voltages and charge currents input to the battery cartridge. As a result, kinds of control signals from the communication terminal can be reduced without reducing the whole number of different kinds of information, and reduction in size and weight of the device is attained.
The above, and other, objects, features and advantage of the present invention will become readily apparent from the following detailed description thereof which is to be read in connection with the accompanying drawings.
REFERENCES:
patent: 5872444 (1999-02-01), Nagano et al.
patent: 5912544 (1999-06-01), Miyakawa et al.
patent: 6025694 (2000-02-01), Mercke et al.
Nagai Tamiji
Suzuki Kuniharu
Takei Toshitaka
Luk Lawrence
Maioli Jay E.
Sony Corporation
Wong Peter S.
LandOfFree
Battery charger does not yet have a rating. At this time, there are no reviews or comments for this patent.
If you have personal experience with Battery charger, we encourage you to share that experience with our LandOfFree.com community. Your opinion is very important and Battery charger will most certainly appreciate the feedback.
Profile ID: LFUS-PAI-O-2467640