Electricity: battery or capacitor charging or discharging – Serially connected batteries or cells – With discharge of cells or batteries
Patent
1994-09-02
1997-10-21
Tso, Edward
Electricity: battery or capacitor charging or discharging
Serially connected batteries or cells
With discharge of cells or batteries
320 15, 320 48, H01M 1044, H01M 1046
Patent
active
056800274
DESCRIPTION:
BRIEF SUMMARY
TECHNICAL FIELD
This invention relates to a battery pack employed as a power source for a portable telephone, personal computer or a video camera.
BACKGROUND ART
There has hitherto been known a battery pack constituted by a secondary battery, such as a lithium ion, NiCd or nickel hydrogen battery. Such known battery pack is in need of a protective circuit which is arranged at a pre-set position within the battery pack. A charging control circuit is separately provided on a charger such as an ac adapter or on an external unit such as a personal computer employing the battery pack. If the excess discharging state is detected, the discharge is discontinued appropriately.
However, the voltage at each cell cannot be detected if based solely upon the terminal voltage of the battery pack, such that the residual capacity cannot be measured accurately. Besides, if any one of the cells reaches a pre-set excess discharge (over-discharge voltage), the discharge is discontinued without regard to the terminal voltage.
This is particularly inconvenient with an equipment, such as a personal computer, in which it is necessary to carry out an operation of data storage before discontinuing the discharge.
Consequently, it is necessary to provide a system for detecting the status of the battery based upon the information stored in the battery pack.
In view of the above-described status of the art, it is an object of the present invention to provide a battery pack in which the information concerning the secondary battery of the battery pack is suitably transmitted to an external equipment in order to enable accurate and precise information concerning the battery to be obtained quickly.
DISCLOSURE OF THE INVENTION
A battery pack according to the present invention is connected to a power source circuit and to an external equipment connected to the power source circuit, and comprises a secondary battery charged and discharged and made up of a plurality of cells, and a control circuit for controlling the charging/discharging of the secondary battery. The control circuit has means for detecting the status information of the secondary battery and controlling the charging/discharging and calculating the residual capacity of the secondary battery based upon the status information. Such means also transmit the information indicating at least the residual capacity to the external equipment.
Thus, by transmitting the battery information produced by the control circuit to the external equipment, the accurate and precise information concerning the battery, above all its residual capacity, may be produced expeditiously.
Besides, if trouble occurs with the battery pack, the relevant information is transmitted to the external equipment having the battery pack loaded thereon before an inconvenience is produced by such trouble.
By providing the identification information specific to the battery pack (battery pack ID), it is possible to ensure use of the correct battery even though the size and the terminal of another battery type are the same. The battery pack ID includes the model number, version, cell configuration and the battery type, such as lithium ion battery, NiCd battery or the nickel hydrogen battery.
The contents of the communication from the control circuit to the external circuit includes the present capacity, current value, voltage value, number of times of charging, maximum capacity and voltage values of the cells.
It is preferred that the inner setting in the control circuit may be modified based upon the setting information transmitted from the external equipment. The setting information includes that for the discharge cessation premonitory voltage for the second battery.
The control circuit returns a data code responsive to the query information transmitted from the external equipment. The data code has a general code portion used as a response to an arbitrary query and a specified portion used as a response to a specified query.
The data code is a 8-bit word code, with a portion of 256 codes represented by the eight bit
REFERENCES:
patent: 4455523 (1984-06-01), Koenck
patent: 4965738 (1990-10-01), Bauer et al.
patent: 5191277 (1993-03-01), Ishikura et al.
Eguchi Yasuhito
Hiratsuka Masaru
Murayama Shigeki
Nagai Tamiji
Tomono Kaoru
Kananen Ronald P.
Sony Corporation
Tso Edward
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