KR100342782B1 - Diagnosis method of cradle for charging the battery of handy terminals - Google Patents

Abstract

The present invention relates to a battery diagnostic method of a cradle for charging a battery pack of a handy terminal for meter reading.

The method of the present invention is a charge control method using a cradle of a remote meter reading system that charges a battery pack of a handy terminal and provides a communication path between a handy terminal and a computer (PC), the connection with the handy terminal and the battery pack Detecting; Communicating with the handy terminal to read temperature and voltage data of a battery pack; And determining the state of the battery pack by comparing the read data with a predetermined reference value, and expressing the state of the battery pack with an LED and a buzzer sound according to the determination result.

Therefore, according to the present invention, after checking the voltage, temperature, communication function, battery information, etc. of the battery when charging the battery of the handy terminal for the remote meter reading, and informs the failure details with LED or buzzer when the failure occurs, the operator according to the contents of the failure There is an advantage to taking appropriate action.

Description

Diagnosis method of cradle for charging the battery of handy terminals}

The present invention relates to a wireless meter reading system using wireless, and more particularly to a battery diagnostic method of the cradle for charging the battery pack of the handy terminal for the meter reading.

In general, the amount of electricity, gas, and tap water used in each household is measured through an electricity meter, gas meter, water meter, and the like, and the meter reader reads the instructions of the meter to calculate monthly usage and charges for a fee. In this way, when the meter readers read and record the instructions of the meter every day, a lot of manpower and time are required, which increases the cost. In particular, when the meter is located where it is difficult to check the instructions with the eyes or when the customer is absent during the visit, there is a problem that the measurement is difficult to visit again.

In order to solve the difficulty of the meter reading, the remote metering technology using the telephone line has been introduced, but it has not been put into practical use due to the communication cost and the cost for additional equipment.

On the other hand, KEPCO introduces and uses a metering system that allows meter readers to enter guide values while holding hands. In other words, in the conventional meter reading system consisting of a handy terminal, a cradle, and a computer, the meter reader visits each home while carrying a handy terminal, checks and inputs the guidance value of the electricity meter, and when the meter reading is completed, the handy terminal is inserted into the cradle. In addition to charging and loading, the metered data can be transferred to a PC so that the metered data can be processed by a computer.

However, in the conventional meter reading system, the cradle for charging the battery pack of the handy terminal does not accurately diagnose the state of the battery has a problem that the failure occurs when charging. That is, the battery pack mounted on the handy terminal is equipped with a temperature sensor and Y. pyrom, and the cradle checks the temperature, battery voltage, and Y. pyrom data at the time of charging and starts charging only when it is normal. There is a problem that the cause of the error can not be known if the charging does not occur. Therefore, there is a problem in that the charging is not possible even if the data of YPIROM, which is not directly related to battery function, is broken.

In order to solve the problems described above, the present invention diagnoses a charging voltage, a temperature, a communication function, etc., and informs the progress result of the cradle's LED or a buzzer when the user places a handy terminal or a battery pack, and the user recognizes the cause of the trouble and takes appropriate measures. An object of the present invention is to provide a battery diagnostic method of a handy terminal charging cradle.

1 is an overall configuration diagram of a remote meter reading system to which the present invention is applied;

2 is a block diagram showing the configuration of a cradle according to the present invention;

3 is a circuit diagram showing a charge control circuit shown in FIG.

4 is a circuit diagram showing a discharge control circuit shown in FIG.

5 is an operation flowchart of the cradle shown in FIG.

6 is a flowchart illustrating a battery diagnostic procedure according to the present invention.

* Explanation of symbols for main parts of the drawings

201,202: LED 204: Buzzer

206: charge control IC 208: charge control circuit

210: MCU 212: discharge control circuit

214: RS232C port 111: coprocessor

112: CPU 113: battery pack

114: ypyrom 115: battery cell

116: temperature sensor

In order to achieve the above object, the method of the present invention, in the charge control method using the cradle of the remote meter reading system to charge the battery pack of the handy terminal, and provides a communication path between the handy terminal and the computer (PC), Detecting a connection with the handy terminal and the battery pack; Communicating with the handy terminal to read temperature and voltage data of a battery pack; And determining the state of the battery pack by comparing the read data with a predetermined reference value, and expressing the state of the battery pack with an LED and a buzzer sound according to the determination result.

Hereinafter, exemplary embodiments of the present invention will be described in detail with reference to the accompanying drawings.

1 is a block diagram showing the overall configuration of a remote meter reading system to which the present invention is applied.

Referring to FIG. 1, the remote meter reading system wirelessly detects power consumption, gas consumption, and tap water usage. For this purpose, the electricity meter 102, the gas meter 104, and the water meter 106 wirelessly measure the measured values. Must be capable of transmitting. For example, the electricity meter used in the present invention, as shown in Figure 2, the total electricity meter 202 for detecting the amount of electricity, the sensing unit 204 for detecting the metered value of the electricity meter, the power supply unit 206, wireless A transmitter 208, a control unit 210, a storage unit 212, an oscillator 214, a reset unit 216, and a display unit 218 are provided to detect power consumption and store the data in digital data. Upon receiving the request signal from the mobile station, it transmits the read data and unique number wirelessly. These meters are fixed in each user's home or company.

Handy terminal 110 is a device for measuring the amount of usage while the meter is carried by the user, conventionally the user reads the input value of the meter with the eye, but the hand terminal 110 according to the present invention wirelessly transmits the measurement data of the meter Take it and save it automatically. The data stored in this way is returned to the meter reading point is placed on the cradle 120 and transferred to the PC 130, and transmitted to the remote meter reading host system 150 through the network 140.

Cradle 120 and the docking unit 122 is a device that can put the handy terminal 110, charges a removable battery in the handy terminal 110, as well as the data stored in the handy terminal 110 PC ( 130 provides a communication path for transmission. In particular, the docking unit 122 is the same as the cradle 120, but expands the capacity to accommodate a number of handy terminals at once.

The PC 130 performs an application program for meter reading and processes the data collected by the meter reader through the handy terminal 110 and processes the data on its own, and the meter reading data is remotely read through the network 140 through the host. To the system 150. The remote meter reading host system 150 collects the entire remote meter reading data, calculates a fee according to the meter reading amount for each user, and manages the entire system.

2 is a diagram illustrating a configuration of a cradle according to the present invention, and a connection state between the cradle 120, the handy terminal 110, and the PC 130 is illustrated.

The cradle 120 according to the present invention is the LED1 201, LED2 202, the buzzer 204, the charge control IC 206, the charge control circuit 208, the processor 210, the discharge control circuit 212 , RS232C port 214, the processor 210 is connected to the coprocessor 111 of the handy terminal and the Ipyrom 114 of the battery pack through the I ² C bus, the CPU 112 of the handy terminal in the RS232C manner ) And the PC 130. The charge voltage V _BAT of the cradle is applied to the battery cell 115 through the power line, and the battery pack 113 is detachably attached to the handy terminal 110. The battery pack 113 has a temperature sensor 116 for sensing the temperature of the battery cell and Y pyrom 114 storing the battery information, the Y pyrom 114 is a cradle processor (I ² C bus) In communication with 210, the temperature sensor value and the battery voltage are transmitted to the processor 210 through the coprocessor 111.

LED1 201 and LED2 202 are red and green light emitting lamps indicating a charging operation state and a fault state according to the present invention, and the buzzer 204 generates a sound to identify a fault according to the present invention. The charging control IC 206 performs various controls related to charging, and the charging control circuit 208 is configured with a circuit as shown in FIG. 3 to perform a charging operation according to the control of the charging control IC 206.

Referring to FIG. 3, the charge control circuit is a typical differential amplifier which amplifies the voltage difference between the negative input terminal and the positive input terminal of the operational amplifier by the ratio of the input resistance and the feedback resistance. When the input voltage to the SNS reaches 270mV, the charge control IC drops the MOD output low, which causes the input voltage of the SNS to drop. When the input voltage to SNS drops to 220mV, BQ2004 makes the output of MOD high again. If this process is repeated and repeated until the charge control IC (BQ2004) is disabled, charging is performed at a pulse time, and the battery cell may not be overwhelmed.

As shown in FIG. 4, the discharge control circuit is a switch that is turned on / off according to the output of the processor. When the processor 210 outputs a discharge signal, the switch is turned on to discharge the battery voltage through the discharge resistor.

5 is a flowchart illustrating an operation procedure performed by a cradle processor according to the present invention. The cradle only illuminates the green LED in standby. Cradle's processor continuously attempts I2C communication with the coprocessor in the handy terminal, the EEPROM in the battery pack, and checks for serial communication requests from the operating PC. If there is serial communication from the operating PC, it responds according to the packet format, but all the actual data are blanked (501, 502).

The cradle then requests I2C communication to the coprocessor and Ipyrom at regular intervals to detect that the handy terminal has been raised. If they respond correctly, it is determined that the handy terminal is loaded on the cradle, and the battery voltage data is taken from the coprocessor (503). When the battery voltage is lower than the reference voltage by comparing with the predetermined reference voltage, forced charging is performed, or the charging condition is searched for (504, 505).

In other words, the coprocessor and Epyrom must respond correctly in order for the cradle to recognize that the handy terminal has been raised. However, the Y pyrom 114 used in the battery pack uses the voltage of the battery cell at Vcc, and the operating voltage should be at least 2.5V. Therefore, when the battery pack is left for a long time, the ypyrom 114 may not respond due to the low voltage. Therefore, the cradle 120 communicates with the coprocessor 111 to receive voltage data of the battery cell prior to requesting communication with the ypyrom 114. Here, when the voltage is too low, the charging is forcibly performed until the Y pyrom 114 is in a voltage state in which it can operate.

While the charging condition is being searched, the green LED and the red LED are turned on alternately at 0.5 second intervals. Under normal conditions, the green and red LEDs alternately turn on five to six times before entering a charged state. In the charging condition search state, the following three conditions are searched to start charging (506).

First, check whether there are "6c" or "73" among the pyromium data. If the data is not confirmed, it stops the communication and goes back to the standby state and if it is confirmed, it reads and stores the battery information (manufacturer, serial number, charge / discharge frequency, date of manufacture) at the defined position of YPIROM. Second, the coprocessor 111 stores the A / D converted value of the temperature data received from the thermistor mounted in the battery pack, and the cradle 120 requests this data through I2C communication. If the temperature data received from the coprocessor 111 satisfies the condition, and if it is not satisfied, the charging condition search state is maintained until the data satisfies the condition, and if the next condition is checked. Thirdly, the controller checks whether the battery charging condition is satisfied. The charge control IC determines whether the battery is suitable for charging according to the battery voltage and battery temperature.

Subsequently, charging is performed when the charging condition is satisfied, and when charging is completed, intermittent charging is performed (507 to 510). In the charging state, the red LED is turned off and only the green LED is blinking. When the DC is directly applied to the battery during the high-speed charging, the charge control circuit is controlled in consideration of the fact that the battery becomes excessive due to overcurrent.

6 is a flowchart illustrating a battery diagnostic procedure according to the present invention. Referring to FIG. 6, when the I ² C communication is performed with the handy terminal 110 or the battery pack 113, the cradle 120 determines that the corresponding device is mounted on the cradle (611). If the battery or the handy terminal is mounted, the stored data is read from the EPIROM 114 and the temperature and voltage data of the battery is read from the coprocessor 111 (612).

Next, the charging voltage is checked, the battery information is checked, the communication function is checked, and according to the test result, the state of the battery is displayed using LED lights and a buzzer as shown in Table 1 below (613,616).

division Condition LED Buzzer green Red common Initial power on light on 500msec Hand Terminal Breakaway light on 30msec 30msec only 3 times Handy terminal with battery pack Full of charge (3.8V or more) light on 500msec Insufficient charge light on Repeats 6 times 30msec in 30msec charge Flashing 100msec Discharge Flashing 200 msec Waiting for charging Flashing Flashing Battery Information Error light on light on Repeats 6 times 30msec in 30msec Battery and communication error light on light on Repeat 30msec, 30msec, 3 times Communication error with Handy Terminal light on light on 200 msec 5.3V line break light on light on 30msec / 30msec single repetition Battery pack only Battery Information Normal light on light on 200msec Battery Info Error light on light on Repeat 30msec, 30msec, 3 times

As shown in Table 1, by displaying the LED and the buzzer sound according to the diagnosis result and operation state, the operator can easily grasp the state of the battery and take appropriate measures. For example, the battery information error is a case where the data of EPIROM is broken, and the green LED and the red LED are turned on, and the intermittent sound of 30 msec at 30 msec is repeated six times. Therefore, the operator can hear the LED and the buzzer, determine that it is a battery information error, and then rewrite the normal data to the battery's Y.Pyrom so that the battery can be charged.

As described above, according to the present invention, after checking the voltage, temperature, communication function, battery information, etc. of the battery when charging the battery of the handy terminal for the remote meter reading, and informs the failure details by LED or buzzer when a failure occurs There is an advantage to taking appropriate measures depending on the nature of the disability.

Claims (3)

In the charging control method using the cradle of the remote meter reading system that charges the battery pack of the handy terminal, and provides a communication path between the handy terminal and the computer (PC), Detecting a connection with the handy terminal and the battery pack; Communicating with the handy terminal to read temperature and voltage data of a battery pack; And Determining the state of the battery pack by comparing the read data with a predetermined reference value, and expressing the state of the battery pack with an LED and a buzzer sound according to the determination result. Way. The method of claim 1, further comprising reading the battery information from the ypyrom of the battery pack, inspecting the state of the battery information, and then expressing the battery information. The method of claim 1, wherein the step of expressing the state of the battery pack is a diagnostic of the battery of the handy terminal charging cradle, characterized in that the LED of different colors to turn on / off or flashing, and represented by a buzzer sound according to the interruption of a predetermined time Way.