Electricity: battery or capacitor charging or discharging – Cell or battery charger structure – Charger inductively coupled to cell or battery
Reexamination Certificate
2002-09-26
2004-02-03
Tso, Edward H. (Department: 2838)
Electricity: battery or capacitor charging or discharging
Cell or battery charger structure
Charger inductively coupled to cell or battery
Reexamination Certificate
active
06686721
ABSTRACT:
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates to an inductive control valve using solar battery as a supplementary energy source, and more particularly to an inductive control valve including a solar battery that not only provides driving power to the control valve, but also charges a charging battery of the inductive control valve.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
Conventional inductive flushing valves and inductive water faucets are powered with alternating currents and have two disadvantages, namely, being inconvenient for mounting and unsafe for use. Therefore, most newly developed inductive flushing valves and inductive water faucets are powered with batteries.
Since the battery-powered inductive flushing valve and water faucet are always in a working state all day long, it is necessary to replace the batteries thereof frequently. The frequent replacement of batteries not only increases the cost of using the inductive flushing valve or water faucet and brings inconvenience to the users, but also has adverse influence on the living environments.
To reduce the replacement of batteries, most inductive flushing valves and water faucets of prior art are designed to include a low-power-consumption inductive controller and use high-capacity batteries to extend the operating time of the batteries as long as possible.
In addition to the development of inductive controllers having even lowered power consumption, there are also new approaches to supplement power needed by the inductive control valve through natural energy sources. In Japan, there is an inductive water faucet using the dynamic force of running water to achieve self-power-generation, and using the generated power as a supplementary power source of the inductive faucet. As a matter of fact, using the dynamic force of running water to generate power requires not only a costly generator, but also other mechanisms, such as vane wheels and bearings. These additional members complicate the initially structurally simple inductive water faucet while increase the cost of the faucet and reduce the reliability thereof. Moreover, in the case of generating supplementary power by using the dynamic force of running water, the supplementary power is generated only at the instant running water flows out of the faucet. Therefore, the effect of using the dynamic force of running water to supplement power needed by the inductive faucet is not significant.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
It is a primary object of the present invention to provide an inductive control valve using solar battery as a supplementary energy source, so that the inductive control valve is low cost, highly reliable, and easily implemented, and power consumed by the battery of the inductive control valve can be supplemented from time to time.
The inductive control valve using solar battery as a supplementary energy source according to the present invention includes an amorphous silicon solar battery having a peak value of spectral response about 600 nm. The amorphous silicon solar battery is fixedly mounted on a casing of an inductive flushing valve or an inductive water faucet. Positive and negative lead-outs of the amorphous silicon solar battery are parallelly connected to positive and negative electrodes of a NiMH battery pack to provide a parallel power supply, an output of the parallel power supply is then parallelly connected to a power input of a micro-power-consumption inductive controller. The amorphous silicon solar battery not only provides driving power heeded by the micro-power-consumption inductive controller, but also charges the NiMH battery pack.
The inductive control valve using solar battery as a supplementary energy source according to the present invention comprising a NiMH battery pack, an amorphous silicon solar battery, and a micro-power-consumption inductive controller has simple structure and does not require costly big-capacity capacitor, and can therefore be manufactured at low cost.
The inductive control valve using solar battery as a supplementary energy source according to the present invention may otherwise comprise a Li-polymer battery, an amorphous silicon solar battery, a super-capacity capacitor, and a micro-power-consumption inductive controller. The Li-polymer battery is parallelly connected to the super-capacity capacitor to enable the inductive control valve using solar battery as a supplementary energy source of the present invention to have a main power-supply battery that need not be charged.
The inductive control valve using solar battery as a supplementary energy source according to the present invention comprising the Li-polymer battery, the amorphous silicon solar battery, the super-capacity capacitor, and the micro-power-consumption inductive controller has the advantages that the Li-polymer battery has high battery capacity and low self-discharging rate, can be stored for a prolonged time, and is free of charging, and that the super-capacity capacitor is repeatedly rechargeable, and has very low internal resistance, high capacity, and small volume.
The inductive control valve using solar battery as a supplementary energy source according to the present invention has the advantages of converting the diffused light in the daytime, the light of fluorescent lamp, and the light of incandescent lamp into electric energy, and of utilizing the amorphous silicon solar battery that works well under an environment having only dim light. The inductive control valve of the present invention also fully utilizes the advantages of the NiMH battery pack that has not memory effect and can be continuously charged, and of the most up-to-date super-capacity capacitor that is repeatedly rechargeable, and has very low internal resistance, high capacity, and small volume. With the present invention, weak currents output by the solar battery are effectively collected to provide a new way of supplementing energy to indoor inductive control valves, enabling automatic inductive control valves to replace the conventional manual faucets and flushing valves and provide a new alternative to consumers.
REFERENCES:
patent: 4332101 (1982-06-01), Tomica
patent: 4823414 (1989-04-01), Piersimoni et al.
patent: 5694653 (1997-12-01), Harald
CIP Corporation
Liauh W. Wayne
Tso Edward H.
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