Health monitoring for power converter capacitors
First Claim
1. A method for detecting a performance degradation of a capacitor in a power converter, the method comprising:
- detecting a ripple voltage across the capacitor;
converting the detected ripple voltage to a pulse width modulated (PWM) signal, the PWM signal having a duty cycle that corresponds to a magnitude of the ripple voltage;
detecting the performance degradation of the capacitor based on the duty cycle of the PWM signal; and
generating a warning signal after detecting the performance degradation of the capacitor.
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Abstract
A method for detecting a performance degradation of a capacitor in a power converter is disclosed. The method includes monitoring a voltage across the capacitor, detecting the performance degradation of the capacitor based on the monitored voltage, and generating a warning signal after detecting the performance degradation of the capacitor. A power converter is including at least one capacitor and a processor operably coupled to the at least one capacitor for monitoring a voltage across the at least one capacitor is also disclosed. The processor is configured for detecting a performance degradation of the capacitor based, at least in part, on the monitored voltage, and for generating a warning signal after detecting the performance degradation of the at least one capacitor.
44 Citations
28 Claims
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1. A method for detecting a performance degradation of a capacitor in a power converter, the method comprising:
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detecting a ripple voltage across the capacitor; converting the detected ripple voltage to a pulse width modulated (PWM) signal, the PWM signal having a duty cycle that corresponds to a magnitude of the ripple voltage; detecting the performance degradation of the capacitor based on the duty cycle of the PWM signal; and generating a warning signal after detecting the performance degradation of the capacitor. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7)
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- 8. A power converter comprising at least one capacitor, a ripple voltage sampling circuit, and a processor, the ripple voltage sampling circuit operably coupled to the at least one capacitor for monitoring a ripple voltage across the at least one capacitor and converting the ripple voltage to a pulse width modulated (PWM) signal having a duty cycle corresponding to a magnitude of the ripple voltage, the processor configured for detecting a performance degradation of the capacitor based on the duty cycle of the PWM signal, and for generating a warning signal after detecting the performance degradation of the at least one capacitor.
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13. A method for detecting a performance degradation of a capacitor in a power converter, the method comprising:
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monitoring a ripple voltage across the capacitor; converting the ripple voltage across the capacitor to a DC signal representing a magnitude of the ripple voltage across the capacitor; detecting the performance degradation of the capacitor based on the DC signal representing the magnitude of the ripple voltage across the capacitor; and generating a warning signal after detecting the performance degradation of the capacitor. - View Dependent Claims (14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20)
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- 21. A power converter comprising at least one capacitor, a ripple voltage sampling circuit, and a processor, the ripple voltage sampling circuit operably coupled to the at least one capacitor for detecting a ripple voltage across the at least one capacitor and generating a DC signal representative of a magnitude of the ripple voltage, the processor configured for detecting a performance degradation of the at least one capacitor based on the DC signal representative of the magnitude of the ripple voltage, and for generating a warning signal after detecting the performance degradation of the at least one capacitor.
Specification