Patent application number | Description | Published |
20100118505 | TERMINATION APPARATUS AND METHOD FOR PLANAR COMPONENTS ON PRINTED CIRCUIT BOARDS - The disclosure involves the efficient termination of a winding PCB of a planar inductive component to a main PCB, using relatively little space and providing a low-resistance connection. The disclosed methods are especially suitable for planar structures where several winding PCBs, and/or winding PCBs and a main PCB, are all enclosed by the magnetic path components. The methods allow for a winding PCB to simply rest on the main PCB, or other winding PCBs, without any clearance. The disclosure employs mating sets of conductive annular rings with an optional interlocking terminal pin that allows two PCBs to be fixedly coupled together, while preserving a minimum distance between the solder-mask layers of the two PCBs in order to prevent the formation of unwanted electrical connections between the two PCBs. Solder is used to ensure effective coupling in each assembly of mating annular rings and optional terminal pin. | 05-13-2010 |
20120086430 | High-accuracy low-power current sensor with large dynamic range - A current sensing approach makes use of two shunts in series, embedded in a switching fabric, each shunt the object of a differential measurement of voltage drop across the shunt. Methodical make-before-break cycling of the switches in the switching fabric permit real-time or very near-real-time measurement of nearly all of the errors such as offset errors present in each differential-measurement path. Additional differential measurement paths can be connected with the shunts, with RFI filtering at shorter time constants to serve electronic fuse needs. | 04-12-2012 |
20120176706 | Reliable signaling of fault conditions in battery systems with series-connected cells - A system is used with a plurality of modules, each module requiring galvanic isolation from the other modules. Galvanic isolators are employed, each having an input and an output, the output galvanically isolated from the input, the output responsive to the input according to a response characteristic of the isolator. Each module has, a respective first isolator and a respective second isolator. The input of each respective first isolator and each respective second isolator for each module is disposed controllably to receive an activation signal from the module indicative of a module fault to be annunciated or to receive a test signal from the module, the test signal being smaller than the activation signal. The outputs of the respective first isolators are aggregated to a first node and the outputs of the respective second isolators are aggregated to a second node. A selection circuit selects from the first node and the second node, yielding a fault signal output when the selected node satisfies a predetermined condition. An analog-to-digital converter is coupled with each of the nodes, the analog-to-digital converter disposed to sense an output from one of the isolators indicative of its response characteristic in the event of a test signal being applied to the isolator. | 07-12-2012 |
20120206095 | Charge balancing system - A method, circuit, and topology are provided for utilization of this circuit in Li-Ion or any other battery that benefits from balancing between individual cells. The whole system is characterized as having high efficiency (and thus low heat losses) compared to previous art implementations. The actions of the circuit are continuous and bi-directional in respect to each cell. | 08-16-2012 |
20120326693 | Voltage reference and temperature sensor - A highly accurate voltage reference and temperature sensor circuit requires only several low-cost components in addition to a general-purpose microcontroller with an analog-to-digital converter. Unlike known circuits, the circuit disclosed does not rely on matching between a pair of semiconductor devices, as only a single semiconductor junction is used. All of the signal processing may be performed digitally. | 12-27-2012 |
20130002234 | High precision algorithmically assisted voltage divider with fault detection - A method, an algorithm, and circuits for implementation of a high-accuracy voltage divider are described that include a capability of fault detection. The disclosure allows for correction of non-catastrophic faults, such as significant changes of the components' values. The performance of the circuit built as described is vastly superior to operations achievable with the modern-day components utilized in previous standard and known configurations. | 01-03-2013 |
20130009655 | Current sensor - An apparatus and method make use of a single shunt and two or more instrumentation amplifiers, switchably measuring voltages at the shunt. This permits current measurement. At times each instrumentation amplifier has its input shorted, which permits zeroing out many sources of offset in the signal path of that amplifier. Dynamic range is several orders of magnitude better than known current measurement approaches, permitting coulometry. | 01-10-2013 |
20130328547 | Current Shunt - Methods and circuits for reduction of errors in a current shunt are disclosed, for example sensing lines for Kelvin sensing in which the sensing lines are of identical material to the high-resistance portions of the shunt, and welded thereto. This allows application of a current shunt with lower output voltage and thus lower power losses than the contemporary art implementations, while maintaining high accuracy with regard to temperature changes. | 12-12-2013 |
20140103857 | Charge redistribution method for cell arrays - A topology is described in which each pair of cells in a string shares a single inductor. Switches permit the single inductor to selectively charge one or the other of the cells. In a variant of the topology, the inductor together with additional switches permit selectively charging multiple cells simultaneously (even one or both cells simultaneously in a pair of cells), drawing upon either an external energy source or upon one or multiple other cells in the string. In this way the number of inductors is minimized while providing isolation among the charging circuits. | 04-17-2014 |
20140203737 | Assisting Converter - What is described is a battery management architecture that eliminates previously described problems of the previous solutions and compensates for the extra cost of a cell-balancing circuit. These advantages are achieved by integrating the voltage step-up and balancing functions as well as charging functions inside a single converter topology. Instead of providing the entire output voltage and power, the converter in this configuration is merely assisting the battery by providing a portion of the power delivered to the load, rather than the entirety of the power delivered to the load. This portion of power is proportional to the difference between the output and the battery pack voltages. | 07-24-2014 |
20150077091 | Current sensor - An apparatus and method make use of a single shunt and two or more instrumentation amplifiers, switchably measuring voltages at the shunt. This permits current measurement. At times each instrumentation amplifier has its input shorted, which permits zeroing out many sources of offset in the signal path of that amplifier. Dynamic range is several orders of magnitude better than known current measurement approaches, permitting coulometry. | 03-19-2015 |