Electricity: battery or capacitor charging or discharging – Battery or cell charging – Pulsed
Reexamination Certificate
1999-09-24
2001-01-09
Wong, Peter S. (Department: 2838)
Electricity: battery or capacitor charging or discharging
Battery or cell charging
Pulsed
C136S201000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06172486
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
A. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to the field of lead-acid battery life extension. The invention addresses the problem of reduced lifetime of secondary lead-acid batteries that are used intermittently. The invention has widespread military and non-military applications.
B. Description of the Prior Art
Present lead-acid battery life extension systems such as U.S. Pat. No. 5,677,612 to Campagnuolo, et al., and U.S. Pat. No. 5,063,341 to Gali, employ solar panels, which provide a voltage to a multivibrator (electronic oscillator). The multivibrator in turn provides a small energy pulse to the battery plates so that small amounts of lead sulfate are removed from the plates of the battery and go back into the electrolyte. In doing so doing the battery is rejuvenated or cleansed.
The problem with this technique is that one must use a solar panel which must be placed outside the battery compartment, i.e. on the roof of a vehicle, on the dashboard or in other areas where the sunlight can be collected and transformed into electrical energy to power the multivibrator. Wires must be routed from the solar panel through the vehicle cabin to the battery location. Other vehicles and equipment have two sets of batteries in parallel each set located on either side of the engine compartment. In this case wires to connect the two batteries in parallel must be routed through the engine compartment. In addition, solar panels are expensive and for a system such as a system described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,063,341 can account for more than half of the cost of the pulse system.
It is the purpose of the present invention to bring forth a system, which does not use solar panels to power the multivibrator. This system is not only low cost, but it is free of the problems mentioned above. The system will be placed under the hood of the vehicle adjacent to the battery compartment, or near the batteries when used in mechanized vehicles or power equipment.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
The battery desulfator uses a thermoelectric device to extract electrical energy from the temperature difference between the vehicle engine and the ambient air. The electrical energy thus generated, passes through the multivibrator, which in turn delivers low power high frequency pulses to its lead plates. A resistance controls the amount of current from the thermoelectric device. A fuse is also utilized to prevent damage to the multivibrator circuit. The desulfator is active as long as the heat of the engine is of such a magnitude as to activate the thermoelectric device.
Several types of desulfators can be used; for instance, one version has the capability of varying the frequency of the output pulses proportionally to the state of charge of the battery.
Still other objects of the present invention will become readily apparent to those skilled in this art from the following description wherein, where there is shown and described a preferred embodiment of this invention, simply by way of illustration one of the modes to best carry out the invention. As it will be realized, the invention is capable of other different embodiments and its several details are capable of modification in various, obvious aspects all without departing from the invention. Accordingly, the drawings and descriptions will be regarded as illustrative in nature and not restrictive.
REFERENCES:
patent: Re. 35643 (1997-10-01), Gali
patent: 5063341 (1991-11-01), Gali
patent: 5276393 (1994-01-01), Gali
patent: 5525892 (1996-06-01), Phommarath
patent: 5592068 (1997-01-01), Gregory et al.
patent: 5633575 (1997-05-01), Gali
patent: 5648714 (1997-07-01), Eryou et al.
patent: 5677612 (1997-10-01), Campagnuolo et al.
patent: 5705770 (1998-01-01), Ogasawara et al.
patent: 5744935 (1998-04-01), Khoury
patent: 5891590 (1997-10-01), King
patent: 5905363 (1997-12-01), Helbing et al.
patent: 5963008 (1997-03-01), Cordeiro et al.
patent: 6028263 (1998-04-01), Kobayashi et al.
Campagnuolo Carl
Chopack James J.
Fine Jonathan E.
Clohan, Jr. Paul S.
The United States of America as represented by the Secretary of
Tibbits Pia
Wong Peter S.
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