JP4834521B2 - Power supply device and electronic device - Google Patents

Description

  The present invention relates to an electronic device, and more particularly to an electronic device capable of preventive maintenance of a power supply unit.

  Power supply devices and electronic devices must operate within the allowable range of power supply input voltage, detect the voltage input to the device, and take appropriate measures to protect the device if an abnormality is detected Is done. Similarly, when an abnormality is detected in the output voltage or current, appropriate processing is performed to protect the device. In general, it is equipped with a circuit that monitors the power supply voltage, output voltage, and current input to the power supply device and electronic device, and when it falls outside the allowable range, measures such as shutting off the power supply and issuing an alarm are taken. Is done. The following proposal is made about such a detection function.

  Patent Document 1 describes a power supply monitoring device that monitors the voltage and current of an input power supply for the purpose of protecting an electronic device as a load from damage or malfunction when the voltage of the input power supply drops. In Patent Document 2, an AC input voltage of a power supply device is monitored, and when a voltage abnormality, an instantaneous power failure, a power failure, or the like is detected, an alarm or the like is output by outputting various abnormality information according to the detected content. Techniques for generating are disclosed.

  Patent Document 3 describes an uninterruptible power supply capable of setting processing such as delay setting until power failure detection. Patent Document 4 describes a data collection device that controls the sampling time by monitoring the power supply voltage of an internal battery. Patent Document 5 describes a fault isolation inspection apparatus that can isolate a fault without removing a cable or the like from a system interface by applying a time domain reflection measurement inspection technique.

  Patent Document 6 describes a fault isolation device that monitors a battery or the like inside a terminal for fault isolation of a portable terminal. Patent Document 7 describes a configuration variable electronic control device that monitors power supply voltage and current as one of parameters. Patent Document 8 describes a battery charge / discharge device that can easily cope with changes in charge / discharge conditions. Patent Document 9 describes an electronic control device that shuts off a power supply when an abnormality occurs in a voltage supplied from an in-vehicle battery.

Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 09-091045 Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 11-202005 JP 04-150737 A Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 08-202740 JP 09-506448 A JP-A-11-191026 JP 2001-314690 A Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2002-374631 JP 2003-140755 A

  In Patent Literature 1 and Patent Literature 8, etc., when the power supply voltage input to the device is abnormal, such as a rise, a voltage drop, an instantaneous power failure, a stagnation, or an instantaneous rise, the operation of the device is not performed normally. In addition, the device is prevented from being damaged by detecting the input voltage monitoring circuit and disconnecting the device. However, at this time, the cause of the equipment stoppage is the equipment itself, or the cause is the power supply equipment side, and the phenomenon is caused by the voltage becoming higher or lower, or abnormal. In some cases, there is no information for determining a cause such as a waveform, and the cause of the failure cannot be identified.

  Moreover, when the power supply of the apparatus is stopped, an alarm or the like may not be output or may be interrupted. In this case, if there is a problem on the power supply equipment side, even if the device is replaced or repaired, the same failure will reoccur, so this repair is not a drastic solution. In this case, since the failure is not reproduced even if the replaced device is investigated, it is difficult to investigate the cause in detail, and it takes a considerable time to identify the cause.

  An object of the present invention is to provide an electronic device capable of identifying a cause when a failure occurs or predicting a failure in advance.

  The above-described problems include a power supply circuit, a first measuring instrument connected to the input of the power supply circuit, a second measuring instrument connected to the output of the power supply circuit, the first measuring instrument, and the second measuring instrument. And a storage element connected to the control circuit. The control circuit measures the input voltage or input current of the power supply circuit measured by the first measuring instrument and the second measuring instrument. This can be achieved by an electronic device that records the output voltage or output current of the power supply circuit in association with the time and records them in a memory element at predetermined intervals.

  The power supply device includes a plurality of power supply devices, a secondary control circuit that monitors these power supply devices, and an interface circuit connected to the secondary control circuit. The power supply device is connected to the power supply circuit and an input of the power supply circuit. A first measuring instrument connected, a second measuring instrument connected to the output of the power supply circuit, a control circuit connected to the first measuring instrument and the second measuring instrument, and a control circuit connected to the control circuit; The control circuit includes the input voltage or input current of the power circuit measured by the first measuring instrument, the output voltage or output current of the power circuit measured by the second measuring instrument, and the time. Correspondingly, it is recorded in the memory element at a predetermined interval, and when any of the input voltage, input current, output voltage, and output current is out of the predetermined range for a predetermined time, the secondary control circuit is abnormal. Send the report, the secondary control circuit is the control circuit La received anomaly reported by the electronic device to be transmitted via the interface circuit can be achieved.

  ADVANTAGE OF THE INVENTION According to this invention, the electronic device which can isolate the cause when a failure generate | occur | produces, or can predict a failure in advance can be provided.

  Hereinafter, embodiments of the present invention will be described using examples with reference to the drawings. Note that the same reference numerals are assigned to the same parts, and description thereof is not repeated.

  A first embodiment will be described with reference to FIGS. 1 to 3. Here, FIG. 1 is a principal block diagram of the power supply apparatus. FIG. 2 is a flowchart for explaining the measurement procedure. FIG. 3 is a diagram for explaining the measurement value table and the peak measurement value table.

  In FIG. 1, a power supply device 1 receives a supply of AC 100 V from a power supply facility 2 and outputs a stable DC 48 V, an AC measuring instrument 21 that measures the input of the power supply circuit 20, and an output of the power supply circuit 20. DC measuring instrument 22, measuring circuit 21, control circuit 23 connected to measuring instrument 22, storage element 24 connected to control circuit 23, interface connected to control circuit 23 and storage element 24 (I / F) circuit 25.

  In general, the power supply apparatus has an allowable range of input voltage, a tolerance for an instantaneous drop, and the like, and these values differ for each apparatus. Measuring instrument 21 of power supply device 1 measures the voltage and current input to power supply device 1. The measuring device 22 similarly measures the output voltage and current. These instruments measure the analog voltage from the probe as a detailed digital value using an AD converter. The control circuit 23 records these measured values in the storage element 24. The control circuit 23 controls the storage element 24 and the interface circuit 25 and reports it to a host device (not shown). Conversely, it can be read from the host device.

  The control circuit 23 compares the voltage value and current value measured by the measuring devices 21 and 22 with threshold values of those values determined in advance, and determines that there is an abnormality when the threshold value is continued for more than a specified time (or less) for a specified time. Then, the result is reported to the host device through the interface circuit 25. Here, the abnormality is a sign of failure unlike a failure. Conversely, a failure threshold may be further provided to determine the failure.

  In FIG. 2, the control circuit 23 first collects measurement values from the measuring devices 21 and 22 (S11). The control circuit 23 adds time data and measurement location data to the collected measurement values and records them in the storage element 24 (S12). The control circuit 23 returns to Step 11 again after a delay of 10 msec (S13). Here, the delay in step 13 is for adjusting the cycle time to 20 msec.

  In FIG. 3, the control circuit 23 holds a measurement value table 80 and a peak measurement value table 90 in the storage element 24. The measurement value table 80 is continuous data composed of time 81, measurement location 82, and value 83 every 20 msec. On the other hand, the peak measurement value table 90 is composed of a date 91, a measurement location 92, and a value 93, and is data for recording the measurement location, the peak value and the bottom value for each measurement location.

  The storage element 24 uses a non-volatile element such as a flash memory or EPROM, and holds the stored measurement value even when the power supply device is stopped. If the capacity of the storage element 24 is about 2 GB, 16 bytes of data for about one month can be held by continuous measurement with a cycle time of 20 msec. Since continuous data of one month or longer is unnecessary, it is preferable to delete old data in units of one day. Also, old data may be simply overwritten without being deleted.

The interface circuit 25 is preferably a serial output I2C (Inter-Integrated Circuit), but a pin output (Hi, Lo signal), a parallel output, and a serial output (RS232C, Ether, etc.) can be arbitrarily used.
Note that the value measured by the measuring device may not be both a voltage value and a current value. In this case, it is more preferable to measure / record the voltage value.

  The resolution of the measuring instrument and AD converter is appropriately determined as necessary. In addition, by having a plurality of threshold values as voltage or current comparator groups instead of AD converters, the purpose of measurement can be sufficiently achieved by knowing values within a certain resolution and a certain range. . For example, even if the input voltage measurement resolution is divided into five ranges and encoded, it can be said to be a measurement value. For example, five codes such as overvoltage abnormal voltage range, operable high voltage range close to limit, normal voltage range, operable low voltage range close to limit, excessively low voltage range, etc. The five codes are measured values. This is not a code indicating a normal or abnormal state, but a value that expresses a finer range, and can be processed as a value such as an average value later. However, this is a matter that the designer should decide appropriately.

  In addition to simply measuring voltage and current, a combination of measured value and time can also be recorded. For example, it is possible to record the measured value and its continuous time, or to record a waveform with a plurality of values of time and voltage, to record a peak value, or to record an average value. May be.

  According to the present embodiment, the measurement value read from the power supply device can be used to isolate and analyze the cause when a failure occurs in the power supply system. Specifically, it is possible to determine whether there is a cause in the power supply device or in the power supply facility, and to make an accurate arrangement for analysis and repair. As a result, it is possible to take an accurate, quick and drastic measure.

  In addition, if it is expected from the measured values that the device is close to the allowable range or is changing little by little, it is expected that the operation of the device will be hindered. Can be systematically stopped and the cause of the failure on the power supply equipment side can be investigated.

Furthermore, by recording the measurement value in the nonvolatile storage element 24, it is possible to read out the recorded data later. This means that it is possible to investigate the power receiving environment after a failure or device shutdown.
As described above, in the present embodiment, the cause of the failure can be easily identified. According to the power supply device of the present embodiment, the voltage or current of the input and output of the power supply device can be investigated retrospectively. The power supply device is also an electronic device.

Example 2 will be described with reference to FIG. Here, FIG. 4 is a principal block diagram of the electronic device.
In FIG. 4, the electronic device 4 </ b> A includes a power supply device 1 </ b> A, a control circuit 23, a storage element 24, and an interface (I / F) circuit 25. The power supply device 1A is connected to an external power supply facility 6 and includes a power supply circuit 26 and measuring instruments 22-1 and 22-2. The power supply circuit 26 is a DC-DC converter, converts the input DC48V into DC12V, and supplies it to the electronic device 4A. The measuring device 22-1 measures the voltage and current on the input side of the power supply circuit 26. Similarly, the measuring instrument 22-1 measures the voltage and current on the output side of the power supply circuit 26. The measuring device 22 measures the analog voltage from the probe as a detailed digital value using an AD converter. The control circuit 23 records these measured values in the storage element 24. The control circuit 23 controls the storage element 24 and the interface circuit 25 and reports it to a host device (not shown). Conversely, the host device can read from the storage element 24.

  The control circuit 23 compares the voltage value and current value measured by the measuring instrument 22 with threshold values of those values determined in advance, and determines that an abnormality has occurred when the threshold value is continued for the specified time or more (or less). The result is reported to the host device through the interface circuit 25.

  As is clear from the comparison of FIG. 1 with the first embodiment, in the second embodiment, the input of the power supply device is DC48V, and the storage element, the control circuit, and the interface circuit are mounted on the electronic device instead of the power supply device. The only difference is that. As a result, the second embodiment has the same effects as described in the first embodiment.

  Example 3 will be described with reference to FIG. Here, FIG. 5 is a principal block diagram of the electronic apparatus.

  In FIG. 5, the electronic device 4B includes a power supply device 1B, a secondary control circuit 36A, a storage element 24, and an interface (I / F) circuit 25. The power supply device 1 </ b> B is connected to an external power supply facility 2 and includes a power supply circuit 20, measuring instruments 21 and 22, a control circuit 23, and a storage element 38. The power supply circuit 26 converts the input AC100V into DC48V and supplies it to the electronic device 4B. The measuring instrument 21 measures the voltage and current on the input side of the power supply circuit 20. Similarly, the measuring instrument 22 measures the voltage and current on the output side of the power supply circuit 20. The measuring devices 21 and 22 measure the analog voltage from the probe as a detailed digital value using an AD converter. The control circuit 23 records these measured values in the storage element 38 and transmits them to the secondary control circuit 36A.

  The secondary control circuit 36A records the received measurement value in the storage element 24, controls the interface circuit 25, and reports it to a host device (not shown). Conversely, the host device can read from the secondary control device 36A.

  The control circuit 23 compares the voltage value and current value measured by the measuring instrument 22 with threshold values of those values determined in advance, and determines that an abnormality has occurred when the threshold value is continued for the specified time or more (or less). The result is reported to the host device through the interface circuit 25.

  As is clear from the comparison between FIG. 1 of the first embodiment and FIG. 4 of the second embodiment, in the third embodiment, the function of the control circuit is divided and the measured value data is placed in both the power supply device and the power supply device. With this configuration, the third embodiment achieves the same effect as described in the first embodiment, and at the same time facilitates the investigation of a failure in the power supply unit alone.

Example 4 will be described with reference to FIGS. 6 and 7. Here, FIG. 6 is a principal block diagram of the electronic apparatus. FIG. 7 is a principal block diagram of the server device.
In FIG. 6, the electronic device 4C includes the power supply device group 11 including the four power supply devices 1B described in the third embodiment, the secondary control circuit 36B, the storage element 24A, and the interface circuit 25. The secondary control circuit 36B records the measurement values received from the power supply apparatuses 1B-1 to 1B-4 in a time-sharing manner in the storage element 24A, controls the interface circuit 25, and reports it to a host device (not shown). Conversely, the host device can read from the secondary control circuit 36A.

  The secondary control circuit 36B may access the power supply device 1B to obtain a measurement value. Further, it is preferable that the abnormality determination is performed by the power supply device 1B itself, and the secondary control circuit 36B monitors a difference in measured values between the power supply devices 1B.

  With reference to FIG. 7, the application to the server apparatus which is an electronic device is demonstrated. In FIG. 7, the server device 100 includes three server modules 50, three service processors 60, an I / O module 55, and two systems connected to the backplane 40 via connectors (not shown). The management module 70 includes three cooling modules 65 and three power supply modules 1C. The server module 50 is a processing device that performs arithmetic processing and the like in parallel. The service processor 60 is a control device for the server module 50. The I / O module 55 controls input / output of the server device 100. The system management module 70 manages the entire system (server device). Further, although not shown, the system management module 70 mounts the storage element 24A, the secondary control circuit 36B, and the I / F circuit 25 of the third embodiment (FIG. 6). The cooling module 65 cools each module. The power supply module 1C is a power supply apparatus in which the power supply apparatus 1B of the second embodiment has two outputs (12V, 48V), and supplies DC12V to the cooling module 65 and DC48V to the other modules. The system management module 70 further monitors the power supply abnormality of each power supply module via the control line 75 and collects voltage value and current value data. The system management module 70 also monitors the cooling fan abnormality of the cooling module via the control line 85.

  The three cooling modules 65 and the three power supply modules are configured redundantly, and their operation / non-operation is controlled by monitoring control by the system management module 70. Further, the system management module 70 itself has a redundant configuration. The server module 50 may also have a redundant configuration of n + 1 (in this case, n = 2).

  According to the present embodiment, the measurement values of a plurality of power supply devices can be compared, so that it is possible to detect current imbalance and the like. When an imbalance is detected, it can be reported to the host device in the same way as when an abnormal voltage or current is detected, and the power supply can be shut down systematically at the stage of abnormality before the failure, and the cause of the failure can be investigated. I can do it.

  As described above, the embodiment has been described in detail, but many other embodiments according to the technique of the present embodiment are conceivable. The memory element and the interface circuit can be housed in the same integrated circuit. The measurement circuit, the storage element, and the interface circuit can be housed in the same integrated circuit. In some cases, no additional control circuitry is required.

  Many forms of the storage element can be considered. In addition, new devices are expected to appear as technology advances. These means may be used for each period according to circumstances, and it is sufficient if a measurement circuit and a storage element are provided.

It is a principal part block diagram of a power supply device. It is a flowchart explaining a measurement procedure. It is a figure explaining a measured value table and a peak measured value table. It is a principal part block diagram of an electronic device (the 1). It is a principal part block diagram of an electronic device (the 2). It is a principal part block diagram of an electronic device (the 3). It is a principal part block diagram of a server apparatus.

Explanation of symbols

  DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1 ... Power supply device (power supply module), 2 ... Power supply equipment, 4 ... Electronic device, 6 ... Power supply equipment, 11 ... Power supply device group, 20 ... Power supply circuit, 21 ... Measuring instrument, 22 ... Measuring instrument, 23 ... Control circuit, 24 ... Memory element, 25 ... Interface circuit, 26 ... Power supply circuit, 36 ... Secondary control circuit, 38 ... Memory element, 40 ... Backplane, 50 ... Server module, 55 ... I / O module, 60 ... Service processor, 65 DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS ... Cooling module, 70 ... System management module, 75 ... Control line, 80 ... Measurement value table, 85 ... Control line, 90 ... Peak measurement value table, 100 ... Server apparatus.

Claims (4)

A power circuit, a first measuring device connected to the input of the power circuit, a second measuring device connected to the output of the power circuit, the first measuring device and the second measuring device; a connected control circuit, a power supply device comprising a connected non-volatile storage elements to the control circuit,
The control circuit sets a time to an input voltage value or an input current value of the power circuit measured by the first measuring instrument and an output voltage value or an output current value of the power circuit measured by the second measuring instrument. Add data and record while constantly updating the non-volatile storage element at predetermined intervals ,
An interface circuit connected to the control circuit;
Wherein the control circuit, via the interface circuit, the input voltage value recorded in the nonvolatile storage device, the input current value, the output voltage value, the output current value, and the time data, output to the host device A power supply device characterized by that. The power supply device according to claim 1 ,
The control circuit reports an abnormality via the interface circuit when any of the input voltage value , the input current value , the output voltage value , and the output current value deviates from a predetermined range for a predetermined time. The power supply device characterized by transmitting. An electronic device comprising a plurality of power supply devices, a secondary control circuit for monitoring these power supply devices, and an interface circuit connected to the secondary control circuit,
The power supply device includes a power supply circuit, a first measuring device connected to an input of the power supply circuit, a second measuring device connected to an output of the power supply circuit, the first measuring device, and the first measuring device. 2 comprising a control circuit connected to the measuring instrument 2 and a non-volatile memory element connected to the control circuit,
The control circuit sets a time to an input voltage value or an input current value of the power circuit measured by the first measuring instrument and an output voltage value or an output current value of the power circuit measured by the second measuring instrument. Data is added and recorded in the nonvolatile memory element at a predetermined interval, and any one of the input voltage value , the input current value , the output voltage value , and the output current value is determined in advance from a predetermined range. When the time is off, an abnormality report is sent to the secondary control circuit,
The electronic device, wherein the secondary control circuit transmits the abnormality report received from the control circuit via the interface circuit. The electronic device according to claim 3 ,
The secondary control circuit monitors the input voltage value , the input current value , the output voltage value, and the output current value of a plurality of the power supply devices, and detects an abnormality when the imbalance is detected. An electronic device characterized by transmitting via

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