Electricity: battery or capacitor charging or discharging – Battery or cell charging – Plural charging sources
Reexamination Certificate
2001-10-31
2004-05-18
Tibbits, Pia (Department: 2838)
Electricity: battery or capacitor charging or discharging
Battery or cell charging
Plural charging sources
Reexamination Certificate
active
06737832
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a power supply apparatus having a battery, and more particularly relates to a power supply apparatus that can detect a deterioration of a battery.
2. Description of the Related Art
A conventional typical power supply apparatus has an emergency battery so that a power supply to a load is not interrupted even in a case of a stop of an input power from a commercially alternating power supply or the like. As a power supply apparatus having a battery, Japanese Utility Model Publication (unexamined) No. U-6-37991 discloses an emergency report apparatus for periodically discharging a battery, and then judging whether or not the battery is deteriorated, and further reporting the deterioration.
This emergency report apparatus is provided with a charging battery, a first diode, a second diode, a first resistor, a second resistor, a first switch, a second switch, a third switch and a voltage detecting circuit. Also, a direct current power supply and a load circuit and CPU are connected to peripheral parts of the emergency report apparatus. The charging operation to the charging battery is carried out by establishing a connection between a positive side of the charging battery and a terminal side of the first resistor through the first switch and then creating the circuit in the order of the direct current power supply, the first diode, the first resistor and the charging battery. The current flowing through the charging battery is disconnected by opening the first switch and thereby disconnecting the connection between the positive side of the charging battery and the terminal side of the first resistor. The charging battery is discharged through the second resistor from the charging battery by establishing a connection between the second resistor and the positive side of the charging battery through the second switch. After that, in the emergency report apparatus, the positive side of the charging battery and a cathode side of the second diode are connected to each other by the second switch. An anode side of the second diode, a cathode side of the first diode and the circuit serving as the load are disconnected by the third switch. Accordingly, the load circuit connected through the charging battery, the second switch, the second diode and the third switch is at an open state. Then, this emergency report apparatus sends a signal indicative of a drop in a capacity of the charging battery to the CPU, if an open voltage detected by the voltage detecting circuit connected between the second switch and the positive side of the charging battery becomes equal to or less than a set value.
As another conventional example, Japanese Laid Open Patent Application (JP-A-Heisei, 2-55536) discloses a battery life judging circuit for an uninterruptible power supply apparatus. This uninterruptible power supply apparatus is provided with: a power converter for converting an electric power from a direct current power supply and supplying the electric power to a load; and a battery for supplying an electric power to the power converter instead of the direct current power supply at a time of a service interruption of the direct current power supply. Moreover, the battery life judging circuit for the uninterruptible power supply apparatus is provided with: a device for artificially interrupting the direct current power supply; a device for temporally integrating the currents discharged by the battery in the period until a voltage is dropped by a predetermined value from a battery voltage at a time of this artificial service interruption occurrence; and a device for judging whether or not this temporally integrated value of the currents is equal to or less than a predetermined value.
Japanese Laid Open Patent Application (JP-A-Heisei, 3-18781) discloses a battery check method. This conventional technique is provided with: a rectifying circuit for rectifying and outputting a current from an alternating power supply; and a voltage converter for converting and outputting a voltage of a battery at a time of a service interruption of the alternating power supply. These two output are combined and supplied to the load. This battery check method contains a control circuit for instructing the voltage converter to output an output voltage higher than an output voltage of the rectifying circuit, on the basis of an outer signal in a non-interruption period of the alternating power supply, and detects the deterioration of the battery and the charging/discharging condition thereof from a change in a terminal voltage of the battery when an electric power is supplied to a load from the battery.
Japanese Laid Open Patent Application (JP-A-Heisei, 6-105483) discloses an alternating uninterruptible power supply apparatus. In this conventional technique, an inverter which uses a battery as a power supply successively supplies an electric power to a load apparatus at a time of a voltage drop in a normal power supply or a service interruption. This alternating uninterruptible power supply apparatus defines a start order as an order of a charger, the inverter and an AC/DC converter, and then carrying out a discharge of a certain electric power from the battery. So, it has the functions of supposing an inner resistor of the battery on the basis of a voltage prior to a discharging operation from the battery and a voltage after a certain temporal elapse from the start of the discharging operation or a voltage drop value, and easily detecting and judging a life end of the battery, and further reporting this judged result to an external portion.
Also, Japanese Laid Open Patent Application (JP-A Heisei, 9-237640) discloses a battery deterioration state tester for an alternating uninterruptible power supply apparatus. This battery deterioration state tester for the alternating uninterruptible power supply apparatus judges the deterioration degree in the battery of the alternating uninterruptible power supply apparatus, which uses a battery connected through a breaker as a power supply in a case of a service interruption of an alternating power supply, and supplies an alternating electric power from an inverter circuit to a load. In this tester, a charge is discharged to the load through the inverter circuit from the battery, and the judgment is done on the basis of the discharged condition. Also, this battery deterioration state tester has a discharge test stopper, which after the start of the discharging operation, a voltage change rate of an input voltage to the inverter circuit is measured to accordingly stop the discharge test if the voltage change rate is greater than a predetermined standard value.
By the way, according to the technique disclosed in Japanese Laid Open Patent Application (JP-A-Heisei, 6-37991) the conventional power supply apparatus carries out the discharging operation after the charging battery is perfectly separated from the circuit as the load. For this reason, in this conventional power supply apparatus, if the commercial alternating power supply or the like is interrupted, the supply of the electric power is stopped from the direct current power supply after the AC/DC conversion. This results in the drop in the output to the load side.
The present invention is proposed in view of the above-mentioned circumstances.
It is therefore an object of the present invention to provide a power supply apparatus that can detect a deterioration of a battery without any drop in an output voltage to a load side, at a time of a service interruption of an alternating power supply.
Another object of the present invention is to provide a power supply apparatus that can detect a deterioration of a battery without any drop in an output voltage to a load side, even if the battery deterioration causes an output voltage from the battery to be instantly dropped, at a time of a detection of the battery deterioration.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
The devices for solving the above-mentioned problems are represented as follows. Numbers, symbols and the like
Dickstein Shapiro Morin & Oshinsky
NEC Corporation
Tibbits Pia
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