Hewlett-packard Company

Agilent Technologies, Inc.

Other

Motoalliance

Surgx Corporation

Jimmie Doyle Felps

Brian L Richardson

Scott Charles Heupel

James B Intrater

Gerald R Behling

Karen P Shrier

Kailash C Joshi

David Nelson Kimbley

Donald Earl Schott

Mike Olla

Gerald R Kinsley

Timothy A Figge

Brett B Bamesberger

Frank P Leri

A winch control system having a solid state winch contactor and a boost power supply for a vehicle equipped with an electric winch and especially for off-road vehicles, is disclosed. This invention automatically provides three winch speeds: a 'slow start' ('creep') speed for 'parking' the hook and for &#x201c;sneaking&#x201d; up on a load, a normal speed for normal winch operation and a fast speed for taking less time to unwind and rewind the winch rope when there is no load on the winch. Protection features for the winch contactor and/or the winch include, but are not limited to, electronic winch motor braking, current limiting, over temperature, undervoltage and reverse battery. Winch current limiting is adjustable from 100 amps to 300 amps, chosen for the purpose of accommodating various winch sizes.

Electronic winch and winch control

A winch control system having a solid state winch contactor and a boost power supply for a vehicle equipped with an electric winch and especially for off-road vehicles, is disclosed. This invention automatically provides three winch speeds: a 'slow start' ('creep') speed for &#x201c;parking&#x201d; the hook and for &#x201c;sneaking&#x201d; up on a load, a normal speed for normal winch operation and a fast speed for taking less time to unwind and rewind the winch rope when there is no load on the winch. Protection features for the winch contactor and/or the winch include, but are not limited to, electronic winch motor braking, current limiting, over temperature, undervoltage and reverse battery. Winch current limiting is adjustable from 100 amps to 300 amps, chosen for the purpose of accommodating various winch sizes.

Three speed electronic winch contactor

A battery supervisor system having an integral smart winch controller is provided for a vehicle equipped with an electric winch system and especially for off-road vehicles such as all-terrain-vehicles (ATVs), utility-task-vehicles (UTVs). and extreme-terrain-vehicles (XTVs) which are generally equipped with small batteries. The purpose of this invention is to prevent over discharge of the vehicle battery to a point where it would be difficult or impossible to start the vehicle engine and to prevent damage to the electric winch system, either of which has the potential of stranding an operator in a remote area. The battery supervisor monitors the state-of-charge of the vehicle's battery to automatically control the power to the winch and the vehicle's accessory loads. In addition, the smart winch controller takes a unique approach to protecting the winch by controlling the short term pulse (or pulses) of energy delivered to the winch and by forcing a fixed off time for the winch system to cool down, in lieu of trying to determine if components in the winch system are experiencing excessive temperatures and then turning the winch off.

Battery supervisor system having smart winch control

An on-board battery supervisor that monitors the state-of-charge (SOC) of a lead-acid vehicle battery and automatically disconnects loads from the battery to prevent over-discharging of the battery, is disclosed. As the battery is being discharged, the on-board battery supervisor disconnects loads at an SOC level that leaves enough energy in the battery to reliably start the vehicle engine, while providing as much energy as possible to accessory loads. The loads are automatically reconnected as the battery is charged. Some preferred embodiments of the invention are designed specifically for use in watercraft and a dual output version of the invention simplifies the electrical system. All embodiments have circuit breaker outputs, high peak current capability, a low quiescent current drain and a dual timer that allows accurate determination of the SOC of the battery.

On-board battery supervisor

A housing carries a male push-lock precision BNC connector. The function of the BNC latch of the male connector carried therein is performed by a spring-biased lock ring captive in a housing and that fits snugly and concentrically over a male sleeve, resulting in a double shell of two rigidly attached cylindrical portions that are coaxial, coextensive, yet separated to accept a BNC female shell. The double shell is held captive by anchoring it to the inside of the housing. The male sleeve has a slot and/or cut-away portion to accept the forward travel of the bayonet pins, which, when the connector halves are engaging, extend beyond the thickness of the sleeve and into the region occupied by the lock ring. The lock ring has grooves having various portions that engage the bayonet pins. As the housing containing these male parts is without rotation moved toward the female connector, the lock ring rotates as the grooves contact the bayonet pins. After sufficient angular rotation the grooves allow the two connector halves to approach each other without further rotation of the lock ring. After the male and female halves are essentially fully mated along the axial direction, the grooves clear the bayonet pins, and a bias spring rotates the lock ring, whose grooves now present a path at right angles to the axial path. The lock ring now blocks the separation of the connector halves. To create the tension needed to draw the precision BNC connector parts firmly together, the grooves resume a shallow angled path (ramp). The bias spring continues to provide the force to rotate the lock ring. Eventually the bayonet pins resist any further motion of the lock ring. The lock ring has a thumb tab that extends out from the housing to allow the motion of the lock ring to be reversed when removing the push-lock connector.

Push-lock precision BNC connector

An electrical connection system, such as a Bayonet Niel-Concelman (BNC) connection system, includes two connector assemblies and enables electrical connections between the two connector assemblies to be established and maintained. The two connector assemblies respectively include a first connector and a second connector. One of the connector assemblies includes a contact pin, and the other connector assembly includes a mechanical support having a tapered recess. The first connector interlocks with the second connector, and the contact pin is received by the recess and engages the mechanical support, when the first and second connectors are interlocked. Because the recess is tapered, the contact pin is guided toward the center of the recess as the contact pin is pressed against the surface of the mechanical support exposed by the recess, making it easier to establish and maintain an electrical connection with the contact pin.

System and method for mating electrical connections

An electrical probe is provided for use with an electrical instrument, such as an oscilloscope. The probe includes a probe body, a sensing element affixed to the probe body for sensing an electrical parameter and a storage device containing probe information that uniquely identifies the probe. The probe information is electronically transferred from the storage device to the electrical instrument when the probe is connected to the electrical instrument. The electrical instrument stores calibration information that is associated with the probe. The electrical instrument uses the probe information received from the storage device in the probe to access the associated calibration information. The accessed calibration information is used to calibrate measurements made with the probe.

Calibrating combinations of probes and channels in an oscilloscope

A locking assembly for releasably locking together a mating connector pair comprises a housing having a central aperture therethrough and adapted to be mounted to the first connector portion of the mating connector pair. A locking sleeve also having a central aperture is sized to receive the first connector portion and is also sized to be slidably received by the central aperture of the housing so that the locking sleeve can be rotated within the housing from a locked position to an unlocked position. The locking sleeve also includes a locking pin engaging boss for releasably engaging a locking pin associated with the second connector portion of the mating connector pair. Specifically, the locking pin engaging boss rotates the locking sleeve to the unlocked position as the first connector portion is engaged with the second connector portion. The locking pin engaging boss also allows the locking sleeve to be rotated to the locked position when the first and second connector portions are fully engaged. A biasing device associated with the locking sleeve biases the locking sleeve to the locked position.

Push-lock BNC connector

A method and apparatus for automatically acquiring and storing a waveform measurement using a measuring instrument having a video display, such as an oscilloscope or spectrum analyzer, is disclosed. According to the invention, an operator first instructs the measuring instrument to automatically measure a probed waveform one or more times and to automatically store at least one selected sample set representing each probed waveform measurement. Thereafter, the operator is not required to interact with the measuring instrument during a measurement or series of measurements. Once measurement acquisition and storage is automatically completed, the measuring instrument alerts the operator by providing at least one indication for each selected sample set stored. The invention offers several advantages, for example, by allowing the operator to focus on a measurement probe in contact with a waveform source, instead of diverting his or her attention to observe the graphic display or otherwise interact with the measurement instrument during one or more measurement operations.

Method and apparatus for automatically acquiring a waveform measurement

An improved reference loop for a digital-to-analog converter (DAC) uses an approximate 50% duty cycle to improve the DC performance and the drift of the DAC at mid-scale. The 50% duty cycle also allows the DAC to provide the same performance over all outputs irrespective of the number of bits supplied to each input. The 50% duty cycle for the reference loop may be obtained from one of the DAC system outputs by forcing that output to supply a square wave output signal which may be used as input for the reference loop. The reference loop may alternatively be supplied by a DAC clock that is divided to obtain the desired 50% duty cycle input to the reference loop, in which case all outputs of the DAC are available for system output.

Reference loop for a digital-to-analog converter

A precision bipolar digital-to-analog converter (DAC) allows a first DAC channel to provide significantly reduced bipolar zero offset voltage. By supplying an additional DAC output as input to the first DAC channel, bipolar zero offset voltage in the first channel may be significantly reduced.

Precision bipolar digital-to-analog converter for an instrument probe interface

A mass-producible, cost-effective discrete electrical protection device utilizing a precision gap between two electrically conductive members attached to an electrically insulating substrate to provide over-voltage protection to an electrical device. In one aspect, the electrical protection device is a surface mountable device. In another aspect, the device has through-holes for accommodating leads on an electrical connector. Methods are provided also for making the electrical protection device.

Over-voltage protection device and method for making same

An operational amplifier that may be fabricated on an integrated circuit is disclosed. Three precision emitter followers and four additional transistors comprise the major components of the op-amp. Two of the precision emitter followers are connected to the inverting and non-inverting inputs of the op-amp, respectively. The outputs of these two precision emitter followers are connected together to form a differential pair of precision emitter followers. Four additional transistors are used to convert the differential output of the precision emitter follower differential pair to a single-ended output and to provide gain. Two of the four additional transistors are used to mirror the currents in the drive transistors of the differential pair of precision emitter followers. These two mirrored currents are then fed to the drive and sense transistors of a current mirror respectively to convert the differential currents into a single-ended voltage. This single-ended output is coupled to the third precision emitter follower that is used as an output stage.

High performance operational amplifier

A first current source supplies current to the collector of an emitter follower stage and a sense transistor. The sense transistor programs a current mirror so that most of the base current required by the emitter follower transistor comes from the current mirror instead of the input. A second current source that requires more current that the first current source supplies is connected to the output of the emitter follower and sinks the current coming out of the emitter of the emitter follower and the collector current of a load transistor. The load transistor supplies the difference in current between the amount of current supplied by the first current source and the amount sunk by the second current source.

Growing community of inventors

Colorado Springs, CO, United States of America

Jimmie Doyle Felps