JPH04325842A - Remote controller for power supply - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To turn ON main power supplies of a plurality of remote communication units individually or simultaneously by changing the logical state of a communication line through a first communication unit and detecting the changed logical state on the side of a second communication unit. CONSTITUTION:When a receiver 8 in a WS41n being driven through a stand-by power supply receives a power supply control signal from an MCU 40 under a state where the main power supply of a power supply unit 14 is interrupted, output of the receiver 8 is fed through an inverter circuit 9 and an OR circuit 10 to the reset release input R of a counter 12. Since a WS41c has been provided with the power supply control signal from the MCU 40, CPCSW of a switch circuit 11 is turned ON and goes Low. When the output of the counter goes High, a power supply ON signal is fed to the power supply unit 14. Consequently, costs and power consumption of the communication system can be reduced and operability thereof is enhanced.

Description

[Detailed description of the invention]

0001

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a power supply control device for a communication device, and in particular to a power supply control device for a second communication device connected to a first communication device via a communication line. It relates to a device that is remotely controlled to be turned on or off by command.

0002

2. Description of the Related Art FIG. 6 is a circuit diagram showing the configuration of a conventional remote power supply control device. A main control unit (MCU) 30 constituting a first communication device is first connected to a host (not shown) via a host communication line 34,
A plurality of work stations (WS) 33a, 33 exchange data with this host and serve as a second communication device via a line 31 formed by a second coaxial cable.
The third from the MCU 30 via the control line 35.
WS33a, 33b to 33 in the power controller 32
It sends commands, ie, control signals, to turn on and off the main power source of n.

Details of the remote power controller 32 and the WSs 33a, 33b-33n are shown in FIG. The remote power controller 32 is an MCU
A driver control circuit 34a that controls the operation of the relay based on a control signal from 30, and a driver control circuit 3.
It includes a driver 34b that amplifies the control output of the driver 4a, and a relay 34c that is driven by the control output of the driver 34b. The relay 34c has relay contacts 37a, 37b~
37n. The relay contacts 37a, 37b to 37n have one end connected to the voltage +VCC power line within the WS 33a, 33b to 33n via the control line 36a, 36b to 36n and the relay on/off detection circuit 38 (only one is shown). is connected to one input of the Relay contact 37
The other ends of a, 37b to 37n are the control lines 36a, 36b to
36n to other inputs of the WSs 33a, 33b to 33n.

In operation, the MCU 30 receives all WSs from a host (not shown) via the host communication line 34.
For broadcast telegram communication for 33a, 33b to 33n,
A control signal is sent to the relay contacts 37a, 37b to 37n to close the contacts 37a to 37n, and the control lines 36a to 37n are closed.
A control signal of voltage +VCC is sent to each relay on/off detection circuit 38 of WS 33a, 33b, and 33n via WS 36n.

[0005] On the other hand, when a message transmission directed to any one of WS33a, 33b to 33n, for example WS33a, is received, a control signal is sent to only the relay contact 37a corresponding to WS33a to close it. control line 36
Relay on/off detection circuit 3 of WS33a via a
A control signal of voltage +VCC is sent to 8. The relay on/off detection circuit 38 turns on its power in response to a control signal generated by closing the relay contact 37a, and the WS 33a becomes operational.

[0006]

[Problems to be Solved by the Invention] However, since the conventional remote power control device has the configuration as described above, firstly, the remote power controller and the workpiece are connected to each other.
If the distance between the work station and the station is long, the length of the control line connecting them will also be long, and therefore the attenuation of the control signal will also be large, making it impossible for the work station to respond correctly to the control signal. was there.

Second, the conventional remote power control device requires a remote power controller to control the power of the work station, which increases the amount of hardware and increases the manufacturing cost. There were also some problems.

Thirdly, in addition to coaxial cables that transmit data signals, remote power controllers and work
It is also necessary to install a control signal line between the work station and the work station to turn the power on and off, which increases installation costs and makes handling the remote power control device cumbersome. There was also the problem that the device would become an object, and the aesthetics of the room in which the device was installed would be spoiled.

Fourth, in the remote power control device of the remote power controller, as mentioned above, there is a high risk of malfunction at the remote site, so in order to improve the reliability of the device, measures to prevent errors must be taken. There was also the problem of complicating the device.

[0010] The present invention aims to eliminate the above-mentioned problems, and is aimed at eliminating one or more of the main power supplies of a plurality of communication devices located far away, without complicating the configuration of the device. An object of the present invention is to provide a remote power supply control device that controls the power supplies to be turned on all at once.

[0011]

[Means for Solving the Problems] The remote power supply control device of the present invention includes a main power supply that can be turned on and off remotely from a first communication device via a communication line, and a standby power supply that is always in operation. In a remote power supply control device that remotely controls turning on and off of the main power of a plurality of second communication devices each having a power source, the remote power control device is provided in the first communication device and turns on the main power of the plurality of second communication devices each having a power source. means for changing the logic state of the communication line in response to an instruction of what to do; a means for determining whether or not the power should be turned on; and a means provided in the second communication device for determining whether or not the main power should be turned on; When it is determined that means for turning off the main power when control information transmitted from the first communication device via the communication line and for turning off the main power is received when the main power is on. It is characterized by this.

0012

[Operation] According to the remote power supply control device of the present invention, the first
and by causing the first communication device to change the logical state of the communication line connecting the second communication device, this logical state can be easily and simply detected on the second communication device side. Therefore, the cost of the communication device can be reduced, and it is easy to improve economical efficiency and operability.

[0013]

Embodiment FIG. 2 is a diagram showing a connection configuration of an MCU 40 and WSs 41a to 41n incorporating a remote power control device of the present invention. As shown, MCU40, WS41a, 41
b and 41n are connected in series via line 31. It should be noted that in this connection there is no remote power controller as required in the prior art.

FIG. 1 shows the MCU 40 and the MCU 40.
Only one of the plurality of work stations, that is, the work station (W
S) A detailed circuit diagram of only 41a is shown. In addition, WS41
The reason for using only "a" is to simplify the explanation since all of the WS41a to WS41n have the same configuration.

First, the MCU 40 will be explained in detail. The receiver 7 is connected to a line 31 made of a coaxial cable, converts data input through the line 31 into a logic level signal, and sends the signal to the serial transmission/reception controller 1. The serial transmission/reception controller 1 is a semiconductor device, such as NEC 8251, μPD 3303, Xilog A.
It can be realized by the MD 82530, and has one input that receives serial data from the receiver 7, and an output a that becomes active at a low level when receiving a CPC command from a computer (not shown). Output b as a transmission enable signal that becomes active at high level when a signal indicating transmission enable is received from a computer not shown, and output c that outputs this when data to be transmitted is received from a computer not shown. It has the function of performing control related to the transmission and reception of data via the line 31. The output a of the serial transmission/reception controller 1 is supplied to one input of the AND circuit 4, the output b is input to the NAND circuit 2 and the inverter circuit 3, and the output c is input to one of the NAND circuits 2. The output of the inverter circuit 3 is then supplied to the other input of the AND circuit 4.

The NAND circuit 2 performs a logical AND operation on the outputs a and c, and sends the resulting output to the line 31 via the driver 5 and the coaxial cable connection section 20. AND circuit 4
calculates the AND of the output a and the inverted logic output of the output of the inverter circuit 3, that is, the output b, and supplies the output to the enable input of the tri-state driver 5 to control the on/off of the driver 5. There is. One end of the line 31 is
It is connected to the ground, that is, the 0 volt line of the power supply, via the coaxial cable connection section 20 of the MCU 40 and the impedance matching resistor R in the terminating resistor section 6 . In this case, the terminating resistor section 6 is composed of a three-terminal changeover switch, and the center terminal is used as a common contact to select one of the terminals on both sides of the center terminal. In this figure, the terminals on the lower side of the figure, that is, on the receiver 7 side, are selected as indicated by diagonal lines in the figure.

The other end of the line 31 is located at the last WS 41n, and is connected to the switch circuit 11 via its coaxial cable connection 20 and a resistor R3 in the terminating resistor 17 having a value equal to the characteristic impedance of the line 31. is grounded. Such termination prevents unnecessary reflection of the transmission signal on the line 31 and prevents distortion from occurring in the transmission signal. Furthermore, due to this termination, even when the power supply unit 14 of the MCU 40 and WS 41n, that is, the main power supply is off, and when the main power supply of the MCU 40 and WS 41n is on, the potential of the line 31 is changed when no signal is being transmitted. becomes 0 volts.

Next, the configuration of the WS 41n shown in the lower half of FIG. 1 will be explained. Receiver 8 inputs the signal transmitted via line 31, and its output is guided to one input of OR circuit 10 via inverter circuit 9. OR circuit 1
The other input of 0 is connected to resistor R2 and CPC (Coax
ial Cable Power Transfer
Control: Coaxial cable power transfer control) SW
The output of the switch circuit 11 configured by
It is input via 0.

The CPC SW is a switch that manually selects in advance whether or not to control the power of the communication device on the line 31, and is set to on here. Therefore, the switch circuit 11 is connected to the WS4 from the MCU 40 side.
This is used to select whether or not to control the power on and off of the 1n. One end of resistor R2 is CPC SW
and the input of the OR circuit 10. The other end of the resistor R2 is connected to the +5VS power line. The output of the OR circuit 10 is connected to the reset release terminal of the counter 12. Further, the counter 12 outputs a signal when the count number based on the clock signal 19 reaches a predetermined value after executing reset release. This signal is applied to one input of flip-flop 13. The other input of the flip-flop 13 is supplied with a power-off command 18, which will be described later. The output (power-on signal) of the flip-flop 13 is supplied to the power supply unit 14 of the WS 41n. The power supply unit 14 houses a main power source and a backup power source.

This main power source is turned on and off by a power switch (not shown) of the WS 41n and a power on signal of the flip-flop 13. Further, even if the switch of the main power source (not shown) of the WS 41n is turned off, the backup power source remains in operation as long as AC 100 volts is supplied to the WS 41n. Therefore, the power of the voltage +5VS is applied to each part of the WS41n, namely the receiver 8, the inverter circuit 9, the OR circuit 10, the switch circuit 11, and the counter 1.
2. The flip-flop 13, the serial transmission/reception controller 15, the inverter circuit 21, and the tri-state driver 16 are constantly supplied with power regardless of whether the main power is on or off, thereby keeping them in operation.

The output of the receiver 8 is supplied to the input of the serial transmission/reception controller 15 as well as the inverter circuit 9 described above. The serial transmission/reception controller 15 is
It has a similar configuration to the serial transmission/reception controller 1 described above, and its output e is supplied to the input of the driver 16 as a data signal. Further, the output f of the serial transmission/reception controller 15 is at a high level when transmission is enabled, and is supplied to the input of the inverter circuit 21 . Further, the output of the inverter circuit 21 is supplied to the enable terminal g of the driver 16 and, when at a low level, enables the driver 16 so that the output e can be sent to the line 31 via the coaxial cable connection 20. The terminating resistor section 17 connected to the coaxial cable connecting section 20 includes a single-circuit type switch SW that is set to be turned on or off, and a terminating resistor R3 that terminates the line 31. Has similar functionality.

Next, the operation of the circuit shown in FIG. 1 will be explained with reference to the flowcharts shown in FIGS. 3a, 3b, and 4, and the timing diagram shown in FIG. 5. FIG. 3a is a flowchart for explaining the operation of the MCU 40 when issuing a power-on instruction to the WS 41c. As a prerequisite for the explanation, MCU4
0, it is assumed that there is no mutual data transmission and reception between WS41a to WS41n, and line 31 is assumed to be in a low level state.

First, explanation will be given with reference to the flowchart of FIG. 3a and the timing diagram shown in FIG. Step 10
1 (time t1), the MCU 40 sends WS41a to 41n.
When an instruction request (FIG. 5a) to turn on the main power is generated, a CPC timer (FIG. 5b) consisting of a soft timer time for controlling the main power is started in step 102 (time t2), and the CPC timer (FIG. 5b) consisting of a soft timer time for controlling the main power is started in step 102 (time t2). ) issues a CPC command to the serial transmission/reception controller 1 shown in FIG. In response to this CPC command, the serial transmission/reception controller 1 sets its output a (FIG. 5c), that is, the input of the AND circuit 4, to a low level. Therefore, AND circuit 4
input is low level, and output h of AND circuit 4 is low level.
level, and the control input of the driver 5 becomes low level. For this reason, driver 5 becomes active and its input is guided to output a. The input signal of the driver 5, that is, the output of the NAND circuit 2, is a low signal generated by the NAND circuit 2 by taking the AND of the output of the serial transmitting/receiving controller 1, that is, the sending data, and the output b that becomes high level during transmission.・It is an active signal at level. The output of the driver 5 is a logic signal with continuous high levels,
It is sent to line 31(d) as a power control signal (FIG. 5c).

When the CPC timer reaches time T1 in step 104 (time t4), the CPC command becomes low level, and the serial transmitting/receiving controller 1
The output a becomes high level. As a result, step 1
At 06 (time t5), line 31 becomes low level,
The polling signal consisting of data packets is sent to WS41n.
Issued on. In step 107, data transmission and reception is started by confirming the response to the polling signal (normal operation).

Next, a description will be given with reference to the flowchart of FIG. 3b and the timing diagram of FIG. In the WS 41n where the main power of the power supply unit 14 is off, step 120
When the receiver 8 driven by the backup power source receives a power control signal from the MCU 40, the output of the receiver 8 is sent to the counter 1 via the inverter circuit 9 and the OR circuit 10.
It is supplied to the reset release input R of No.2. In this case, since the WS 41c receives the power control signal from the MCU 40, the output of the switch circuit 11 is
PCSW is turned on and becomes low level. Therefore,
A monitoring timer constituted by a counter 12 (Fig. 5e
) starts counting at time t3. Step 121
At (time t4), the counter 12 counts down for a predetermined time T2 (
≦T1), the counting operation is reset and the output of the counter becomes high level. In step 123, since the output of the counter 12 becomes high level, the flip-flop 13 is set at time t6, and a power-on signal of its output (f in FIG. 5) is supplied to the power supply unit 14. As a result, the power supply unit 14 and the main power supply (Fig. 5g) are turned on, the initialization program is loaded (IPL) in step 124, and step 12
In step 5, initialization processing for each part of the device is executed.

Next, the operation of turning off the main power of the WS 41n will be described with reference to the flowchart of FIG. 4 and the timing chart of FIG. In step 130, data transmission/reception processing is executed. In step 131, WS41n is CU
When the packet indicating the end of the transmission/reception process with the WS 41n is received, in step 132, the WS 41n sends a packet to the MCU 40 to turn off the main power. In step 133, data reception processing is executed. MCU4 in step 134
Upon receiving the confirmation packet from 0, a power off command is executed in step 135. For this purpose, the flip-flop 13 is reset in step 136 (time t7) and the main power supply of the power supply unit 14 (FIG. 5g) is switched off.

In the above embodiment, a case has been described in which the main power of all work stations is turned on and off based on instructions from the MCU 40, but according to the present invention, the main control unit is controlled from the work station. It is also possible to control the power supply. In addition, depending on the installation type of the work station connected to the communication line, it is possible to easily control the power supply of a specific work station, such as controlling the power supply to prevent reception processing from being required for a long period of time or at night. Can be done.

As explained above, according to the present invention, it is possible to turn on the main power of the second communication device from the first communication device via the communication line without using a remote power controller as in the conventional case. Since the communication system can be controlled to turn off and on, it is possible to reduce the price of the communication system, reduce power consumption, and improve operability.

Furthermore, according to the present invention, it is possible to easily control communication devices that do not require remote power control, such as those that have not been used for a long time or do not receive reception processing at night, depending on the installation type of the communication device. Therefore, it can be expected that unmanned operation will have an effect on safety.

[Brief explanation of the drawing]

FIG. 1 is a detailed circuit diagram of an MCU and a WS according to an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2: MCU and multiple WSs according to an embodiment of the present invention.
FIG. 2 is a diagram showing a connection configuration.

FIG. 3a is a flowchart illustrating the operation of the MCU shown in FIG. 1;

FIG. 3b is a flowchart showing the operation of the WS shown in FIG. 1;

FIG. 4 is a flowchart illustrating the operation of the WS shown in FIG. 1;

FIG. 5 is a timing diagram illustrating operations of the MCU and WS shown in FIG. 1;

FIG. 6 is a connection configuration diagram showing connections of a remote power control device according to the prior art.

FIG. 7 is a circuit showing details of the remote power controller and WS shown in FIG. 7;

[Explanation of symbols]

1, 15 Serial transmission/reception controller 5, 16
Drivers 7, 8 Receivers 6, 17 Terminating resistor section 12 Counter 13 Flip-flop 14 Power supply unit

Claims (1)

[Claims] Claim 1: A plurality of second communication devices each having a main power source whose on and off can be controlled remotely from a first communication device via a communication line, and a standby power source which is always in operation.
In a remote power control device configured to remotely control turning on and off of the main power of a communication device, the remote power control device is provided in the first communication device and responds to an instruction to turn on the main power. a setting means for setting the communication line to a predetermined logical state for a predetermined period; and a setting means provided in the second communication device, the setting means configured to set the communication line to a predetermined logical state for a predetermined period; determining means for determining that the main power source should be turned on when the predetermined period continues; and a determining means provided in the second communication device, the determining means determining that the main power source should be turned on. In such a case, the second communication device is provided with a selection means for controlling to turn on each of the main power supplies all at once or by selecting a specific one of them according to settings, and the second communication device is provided with a cutoff means for turning off the main power supply when receiving control information sent from the first communication device via the communication line to turn off the main power supply when the main power supply is on; A remote power control device characterized by: