Electricity: battery or capacitor charging or discharging – Battery or cell charging – Pulsed
Reexamination Certificate
2002-12-19
2004-09-07
Tibbits, Pia (Department: 2838)
Electricity: battery or capacitor charging or discharging
Battery or cell charging
Pulsed
Reexamination Certificate
active
06788028
ABSTRACT:
RELATED APPLICATION
The current application claims priority from Korean Patent Application Number 2001-81064, which was filed on Dec. 19, 2001, the contents of which are incorporated herein by reference.
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates generally to a battery charger of mobile phone as well as a method of charging such battery, and, in particular, to a battery charger of mobile phone using constant voltage and pulse, as well as a high speed charging method for the same.
DESCRIPTION OF THE PRIOR ART
A mobile phone employs generally a rechargeable battery as its power source, such rechargeable battery being recharged by a battery charger, the charging time of a battery is determined by charging capacity of the battery charger.
Such a conventional battery charger for a mobile phone has a construction as illustrated in FIG.
1
.
As shown in
FIG. 1
, a conventional battery charger comprises a power input processing part
11
which transforms high voltage AC inputted from outside into low voltage DC; a main control part
13
which controls charging of the battery
12
; a constant current control part
14
which controls charging of the battery by constant current under control of the main control part
13
; a constant voltage control part
15
which controls charging of the battery by constant voltage under control of the main control part
13
; a charging part
16
which charges the battery
12
using the DC power inputted from the power input processing part
11
under control of the constant current control part
14
or the constant voltage control part
15
; and a feedback part
17
which feeds the DC power applied by the main control part
13
back to the power input processing part
11
.
The charging process with such a conventional charger is described below making reference to FIG.
2
.
Upon application of AC power to the battery charger for the purpose of charging the battery
12
, the power input processing part
11
transforms the AC power into DC power and then supplies the same to the charging part
16
. After that, the charging part
16
charges the battery
12
first with constant current by control of the constant current control part
14
, and then, with constant voltage by control of the constant voltage control part
15
.
Here, the main control part
13
controls the constant current control part
14
such that the latter
14
controls to charge the battery
12
with constant current while the constant current section CC in
FIG. 2
is maintained, whereby the voltage is raised to a certain level (i.e. to the level of constant voltage) during charging of the battery
12
with constant current.
When this constant current section CC for charging with constant current ends, the main control part
13
terminates charging operation of the constant current control part
14
and proceeds immediately to charge the battery
12
further with constant voltage during the constant voltage section CV by controlling the constant voltage control part
15
. Here, the current is continuously reduced while the battery
12
is charged with constant voltage until the current reaches a predetermined level, at which point charging of the battery
12
stops. This constant voltage section CV stretches from the time when the constant current section CC ends to the time of completion of charging the battery
12
.
As such, since the current applied to the battery
12
is reduced drastically during the battery
12
is charged in the constant voltage section CV as shown in
FIG. 2
, a relatively long time is required until the battery
12
is fully charged with constant voltage. Furthermore, the above divided charging of the battery
12
in constant current section CC and constant voltage section CV requires a complicated circuits construction of the conventional battery charger.
Under these circumstances, a method for charging lithium ion batteries with pulse has been proposed to improve the afore-mentioned situations. Since such method utilizes a relatively high current for charging the pulse, generating rapid chemical reactions triggered by the high current, it enables charging of a battery within a short period of time.
However, a problem with such conventional rapid charging method of batteries using pulse is that once the rapid chemical reactions triggered by the high current ceases, the batteries are charged only about 90% of their total charging capacities due to the recovering characteristics of the ions.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
The present invention, conceived in view of the afore-mentioned problems, aims to provide a battery charger of mobile phone capable of charging a battery rapidly and fully, by charging the battery rapidly with pulse up to a predetermined level of the charging capacity of the battery, and then by charging with constant voltage until the battery is fully charged; and a charging method for the same.
In order to achieve the above objectives, the present invention provides a battery charger for charging mobile phone batteries, comprising a main control means, which controls pulse voltage charging and constant voltage charging based on the charging state of the battery; a constant voltage charging control means, which controls charging of the battery with constant voltage under control of the above main control means; a pulse charging control means, which detects charging voltage of the battery and controls charging of the battery with pulse voltage based on the detected charging voltage under control of the above main control means; and a charging means, which charges the battery by outputting pulse voltage or constant voltage after DC power has been applied under control of the above pulse charging control means or the above constant voltage charging control means.
Further, the present invention provides a method for charging a mobile phone battery for the same end, comprising a first step of charging the battery with pulse voltage; a second step, wherein the above battery is charged with constant voltage after charging of the battery with pulse voltage has been stopped, when width of the pulse voltage becomes smaller than a predetermined pulse width; and a third step, wherein charging of the above battery ceases, when the constant voltage being charged becomes smaller than a predetermined constant voltage.
REFERENCES:
patent: 5442274 (1995-08-01), Tamai
patent: 6154010 (2000-11-01), Geiger
patent: 6177780 (2001-01-01), Roy et al.
patent: 6313612 (2001-11-01), Honda et al.
Lahive & Cockfield LLP
SK Teletech Co. Ltd.
Tibbits Pia
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