Intelligent serial battery charger and charging block
First Claim
1. A serial battery charger including a charging section which includes at least first and second parallelly connected branches, said first parallel branch includes an electronically controllable by-passing switch and said second parallel branch includes positive and negative terminals for receiving respectfully the positive and negative terminals of a battery and an one-way electronic device connected in series, said by-passing switch has a very low impedance when turned-on and a very high impedance when turned-off, said one-way electronic device is characterised in that it has a very low-impedance when current flows from said charging section into said battery terminals and it has a high-impedance when said by-passing switch is turned on.
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Abstract
A serial battery charger including a number of serially connected battery charging sections in which the battery charging section is characterized by a first and second parallelly connected branches. The first branch includes terminals for connecting to the battery to be charged and a current blocking device and the second branch includes a by-passing switch which shunts across the terminals of the first branch when activated. The blocking device in the first branch prevents adverse reverse current flow from the battery to the charger when there is no power supply and also functions as a current block to prevent adverse flow of current from the battery into the shunting by-passing switch when the power supply to the charging section is in operation. This invention provides a simple solution to fulfil the conflicting requirements of an intelligent serial battery charger.
31 Citations
41 Claims
- 1. A serial battery charger including a charging section which includes at least first and second parallelly connected branches, said first parallel branch includes an electronically controllable by-passing switch and said second parallel branch includes positive and negative terminals for receiving respectfully the positive and negative terminals of a battery and an one-way electronic device connected in series, said by-passing switch has a very low impedance when turned-on and a very high impedance when turned-off, said one-way electronic device is characterised in that it has a very low-impedance when current flows from said charging section into said battery terminals and it has a high-impedance when said by-passing switch is turned on.
- 8. A charging block for use in a serial battery charger including at least first and second parallelly connected branches, said first parallel branch includes an electronically controllable by-passing switch and said second parallel branch includes positive and negative terminals for receiving respectfully the positive and negative terminals of a battery and an one-way electronic device connected in series, said by-passing switch has a very low impedance when turned-on and a very high impedance when turned-off, said one-way electronic device is characterised in that it has a very low-impedance when current flows from said charging section into said battery terminals and a high-impedance when said by-passing switch is turned on.
- 10. A serial battery charger including a battery charging section which includes at least first and second parallely connected branches, wherein said first branch includes a diode serially connected with the terminals for connecting the battery to be charged and said second branch includes a MOSFET by-passing switch, said by-passing switch is connected across said first branch and provides low-impedance shunting when activated, said blocking diode has a low-impedance when current flows into said battery to be charged and has a high-impedance when there is no power supply from said battery charger or when said by-passing switch is turned on.
- 12. A battery charger including a plurality of battery charging sections which are connected in series, wherein each said charging section includes at least first and second parallelly connected branches, said first parallel branch includes an electronically controllable by-passing switch and said second parallel branch includes positive and negative terminals for receiving respectfully the positive and negative terminals of a battery and an one-way electronic device connected in series, said by-passing switch has a very low impedance when turned-on and a very high impedance when turned-off, said one-way electronic device is characterised in that it has a very low-impedance when current flows from said charging section into said battery terminals and it has a high-impedance when said by-passing switch is turned on.
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15. A serial battery charger for charging a plurality of discrete batteries, the battery charger comprising:
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a charging current source, a plurality of battery charging sections connected in series for charging a corresponding plurality of discrete batteries, and a micro-controller;
wherein each one of said battery charging sections comprises first and second branches which are connected in parallel, said first parallel branch including an electronically controllable bypassing switch, and said second parallel branch comprising a positive terminal and a negative terminal for receiving respectively the positive and negative terminals of a battery and a one-way electronic device connected in series;
wherein each said bypassing switch has a very low impedance when turned-on and a very high impedance when turned-off, wherein each said one-way electronic device has a very low impedance to a battery charging current which flows from said current source into the positive battery terminal, and said one-way electronic device has a very high impedance when said bypassing switch is turned on, and wherein said micro-controller is configured so that the bypassing switch of a battery charging section is activated to form a low-impedance shunt across that battery charging section upon physical removal of a battery from that battery charging section to permit charging of other batteries in other battery charging sections of said battery charger to continue. - View Dependent Claims (4, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41)
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Specification