JPH03203525A - Charge/discharge control system for battery - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To perform charge/discharge control, including charge control, calculation of residual capacity of battery, detection of low battery, and the like, of batteries having different battery capacity or charge/discharge characteristics based on the battery characteristics by storing characteristic values of a plurality of batteries having different capacity and characteristics in a memory means. CONSTITUTION:Upon provision of a battery judgment signal from a battery judging section 7 to a microcomputer 5, characteristic values of battery corresponding to the battery judgment signal are provided from a memory section 9 to the microcomputer 5. Based on the characteristic values of battery corresponding to the battery judgment signal and measurement data provided from a measuring circuit 3, the microcomputer 5 provides a signal for controlling the characteristic values of battery, discharge current from a battery 1 to a load and battery 1 charging current from an AC adaptor 8 to a control circuit 2 through a D/C converter 10. By such arrangement, charge/discharge control of batteries 1 having different capacity and different characteristics can be carried out according to the type of the battery 1 without additionally requiring complex hardware.

Description

[Detailed Description of the Invention] [Object of the Invention] (Industrial Application Field) The present invention relates to charging and discharging control of batteries that drive electronic devices, and in particular to charging and discharging control of batteries that selectively use batteries of different capacities. Regarding discharge control method.

(Prior Art) A battery pack made up of a plurality of primary batteries or secondary batteries is used as a power source to drive portable electronic devices such as laptop computers, etc. However, when batteries are used as a power source, In order to use electronic devices with peace of mind, it is necessary to control battery charging and discharging by detecting the amount of battery consumption and notifying the timing of battery replacement or charging. The terminal voltage, charging current, or discharging current of the battery was detected, this detected value was compared with the battery's characteristic value, and the charging and discharging of the battery was controlled based on the comparison results, but is this all true? This was realized by a circuit made up of 1-ware.

However, since all charging and discharging control is realized by hardware, the battery used is fixed to one specific type of battery, so the above battery characteristic values are fixed values based on the battery characteristics, and the capacity When batteries with different charge/discharge characteristics were used, charging control, calculation of remaining battery capacity, low battery detection, etc. were not performed correctly, and charge/discharge control was not performed according to the type of battery. For example, if you use a nickel-metal hydride battery, which is compatible with nickel-cadmium batteries but also has a higher capacity than nickel-cadmium batteries, in an electronic device for which the characteristic values of nickel-cadmium batteries are set, the nickel-metal hydride battery will be Since the charging and discharging of the battery is controlled, the performance of nickel-metal hydride batteries has not been fully demonstrated.

(Invention or problem to be solved) Therefore, it is not possible to selectively use inexpensive low-capacity type batteries or relatively expensive but high-capacity type batteries, and When attempting to perform charge/discharge control, there is a problem in that the circuit configuration consisting of hardware becomes complicated.

The present invention has been made in view of the above circumstances, and is capable of controlling charging, calculating remaining battery capacity, and detecting low battery levels based on the characteristics of batteries with different characteristics such as battery capacity and charging/discharging characteristics. The purpose of this invention is to provide a battery charging/discharging method that performs charging/discharging control.

[Structure of the Invention (Means and Effects for Solving the Problems) In order to achieve the above object, the present invention provides an electronic device in which a battery selected from a plurality of types of batteries is selected as a driving power source. a storage means for storing characteristic values of the plurality of types of batteries and outputting battery characteristic values corresponding to the battery types determined by the determining means; a detection means for detecting the voltage and current of the battery; and a charge/discharge control means for controlling charging and discharging of the battery based on the voltage and current value detected by the detection means and the characteristic value of the battery output from the storage means. By controlling the charging and discharging of batteries with different capacities and characteristics depending on the type of battery,
It becomes possible to fully demonstrate the performance of each battery.

(Example) Hereinafter, the present invention will be described in detail with reference to the drawings.

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing the configuration of an embodiment of the present invention.

As shown in the figure, a battery 1, which is a unit of a plurality of primary batteries or secondary batteries, supplies driving power to a load of an electronic device via a control circuit 2.

Electricity/l at this time! ! The supply voltage value and current value from l to the load are measured by the measurement circuit 3, and this a1 constant data is measured by the A/D
The data is converted into digital data by a converter 4 and supplied to a microcomputer (hereinafter referred to as microcomputer) 5. In addition, the battery 1 is equipped with a battery detection section 8 for distinguishing between a primary battery, a secondary battery, or each type of high-capacity battery, and the battery 1 is installed in a battery storage section (not shown) of an electronic device. When the battery is loaded into the battery, the battery detecting section 6 and the battery discriminating section 7 disposed opposite to the battery detecting section 6 in the battery storage section cooperate to supply a battery discriminating signal to the microcomputer 5. The battery detection section 6 is configured, for example, like a paper size detection section of a cassette in a copying machine.

In addition to the battery 1, an AC adapter 8 is connected to the load of the electronic device.
When the AC adapter 8 is connected, driving power is supplied from the AC adapter 8 to the load via the control unit 2, and no driving power is supplied from the battery 1.

If a secondary battery is loaded as battery l, the AC
A charging current is supplied from the adapter 8 to the battery l via the control unit 2. On the other hand, in the case of a primary battery, no charging current is supplied.

The microcomputer 5 also includes a storage section 9 consisting of, for example, a ROM.
is connected, and this storage unit 9 stores battery characteristic values consisting of voltage and current characteristics during discharging and charging of all batteries that can be used as a battery drive source for electronic equipment, for example, the characteristics of a primary battery. The value is stored as the characteristic value of the characteristic A1 secondary battery or the characteristic B.

When a battery discrimination signal is input from the battery discrimination section 7 to the microcomputer 5, a characteristic value of the battery corresponding to the battery discrimination signal is outputted from the storage section 9 to the microcomputer 5. Based on the battery characteristic value according to this battery discrimination signal and the measured data manually input from the measurement circuit 3, the microcomputer 5 determines the battery characteristic value, the discharge current from the battery l to the load, and the discharge current from the battery l to the battery l by the AC adapter 8. A control signal for controlling the charging current is supplied to the control circuit 2 via the D/A converter 10. Furthermore, when the remaining capacity of the battery 1 becomes low, the microcomputer 5 issues an alarm to the user of the electronic device by means of a notification device 11, which may include, for example, a display.

The following is a first explanation of the operation of the embodiment of the present invention having the above configuration.
This will be explained with reference to the figures.

First, when a primary battery as the battery 1 is loaded in the battery compartment of an electronic device, the voltage and current of the power supplied from the battery 1 to the load are measured by the measurement circuit 3, and the measurement data is transmitted to the microcomputer 5. is input. On the other hand, the battery detection section 6
When the battery discriminating section 7 inputs a battery discriminating signal indicating that the battery is a primary battery to the microcomputer 5, the microcomputer 5 reads characteristic A, which is a characteristic value of the primary battery, from the storage section 9.

The microcomputer 5 determines the remaining capacity of the battery 1 based on the measurement data and the characteristic A, and when the remaining capacity becomes low and reaches, for example, 95% of the usage range, an alarm 11 informs the user that the remaining capacity is low and the battery Notify that the time to replace 1 is approaching. If the consumption of battery 1 continues and the usage limit of battery 1 is reached, there is a risk that the electronic equipment will malfunction, so control is performed to stop discharging battery 1 in order to stop supplying power from battery 1 to the load. The signal is from microcomputer 5 to D
/A converter lO to the control circuit 2.

Furthermore, when the AC adapter 8 is connected, power is supplied to the load by the AC adapter 8, and power is not supplied from the battery 1 to the load.

Next, when a secondary battery is loaded as battery 1, characteristic B, which is a characteristic value of the secondary battery, is read from the storage device 9, but the operation is the same as when the primary battery is loaded. do. However, when the AC adapter 8 is connected, the operation differs in the following points. That is, since the secondary battery is chargeable, the AC adapter 8 supplies power to the load and also supplies charging current to the battery 1. This charging current is controlled by a control signal output from the microcomputer 5, and varies depending on the remaining capacity of the battery l, for example, 0.1
A charging current in the range of 0 to 0.5C (C indicates the capacity of the secondary battery) is selected in stages.

Furthermore, the present invention is not limited to the above embodiments,
Of course, various modifications can be made without departing from the gist of the present invention.

[Effects of the Invention] As detailed above, according to the battery charging/discharging control method of the present invention, the characteristic values of a plurality of batteries having different capacities and characteristics are stored in the storage means, so that complicated hardware is not required. The charging and discharging of batteries having different capacities and characteristics can be controlled according to the type of battery without adding any additional clothing, and the performance of each battery can be fully demonstrated.

[Brief explanation of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing the configuration of an embodiment of the present invention. DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1...Battery, 2...Control circuit (charge/discharge control means), 3...Measurement circuit (detection means), 5...Micro computer (charge/discharge control means), 7...Battery discrimination section (discrimination means), 9... storage section (storage means)

Claims (1)

[Claims] In an electronic device using a battery selected from a plurality of types of batteries as a driving power source, there is provided a discriminating means for discriminating the type of battery selected as a driving power source, and a discriminating means for storing characteristic values of the plurality of types of batteries. a storage means for outputting battery characteristic values according to the determined battery type; a detection means for detecting the voltage and current of the battery during operation; and a voltage and current value detected by the detection means and output from the storage means. 1. A battery charging/discharging control method, comprising: a charging/discharging control means for controlling charging/discharging of a battery based on a characteristic value of the battery.