Sanyo Electric Co., Ltd.

Kazunobu Yokotani

Hideaki Aoki

Kazushige Kakutani

Keiji Kishimoto

Kazufumi Ushijima

Fumitake Kondo

Minoru Nakanishi

Takeshi Fukunaga

Makoto Ochi

Shinsuke Nakamura

Hiromasa Sugii

Masao Saito

Fumio Yasutomi

Noritake Okada

A first power storage section and a second power storage section are connected in parallel. The first power storage section includes a first non-aqueous electrolyte secondary battery. The second power storage section includes parallel-connected second non-aqueous electrolyte secondary batteries. Each of the second non-aqueous electrolyte secondary batteries has a higher energy density than that of the first non-aqueous electrolyte secondary battery. In a case where the second power storage section is discharged at a current value corresponding to a first assumed maximum discharge current value, the parallel-connected number of the second non-aqueous electrolyte secondary batteries is set such that a discharge rate of each of the second non-aqueous electrolyte secondary batteries becomes the preset reference discharge rate or less.

Power supply system

A battery system includes a battery pack, a detecting portion, a storage portion, and a determining portion. The battery pack includes serially-connected parallel battery units each of which includes battery cells connected in parallel. The detecting portion detects voltage and current of the units, and calculates the accumulated current value of each of the units. The storage portion stores reference voltage values to be associated the accumulated current value of each of the units. The determining portion reads, from the storage portion, one of the reference voltages corresponding to the accumulated value of each of the units, and compares the read reference voltage with the detection voltage of the each of the units. Thus, a battery cell internal short circuit is detected if the difference between the detection voltage and the read reference voltage exceeds a threshold.

Battery system and method for detecting internal short circuit in battery system

A battery system including battery blocks () having a plurality of battery cells () stacked with cooling gaps () established between the battery cells to pass cooling gas; ventilating ducts (), which are supply ducts () and exhaust ducts (), disposed on both sides of the battery blocks to forcibly ventilate the cooling gaps; and ventilating apparatus () to force cooling gas to flow through the ventilating ducts. Cooling gas forcibly introduced by the ventilating apparatus flows from the supply ducts through the cooling gaps and into the exhaust ducts to cool the battery cells. In addition, the battery system has temperature equalizing walls () disposed in the supply ducts. The temperature equalizing walls are long and narrow with length in the direction of flow greater than the width, and each temperature equalizing wall gradually narrows towards the upstream end.

Battery system having temperature equalizing walls in ducts

The invention provides a load detecting system comprising a core () of magnetostrictive material, a coil () disposed in the vicinity of the core, and a load detecting circuit () connected to the coil () for detecting the magnitude of a load acting on the core (). The load detecting circuit () comprises an exciting circuit () for passing an a.c. detecting current through the coil (), a pulse current generating circuit () for passing through the coil a detection preparing current having a current value greater than the maximum value of the detecting current, a change-over circuit () for effecting a change-over between the exciting circuit () and the pulse current generating circuit () to pass the detecting current through the coil after passing the detection preparing current therethrough, and a microcomputer () for deriving the magnitude of the load acting on the magnetostrictive element based on an impedance variation produced in the coil during the period of passage of the detecting current through the coil.

Load detecting system and automatic washing machine equipped with the system

Load detecting system and automatic washing machine equipped with a system for detecting the magnitude of the load acting on a magnetostrictive element

An electrically assisted bicycle includes a human power drive mechanism for transmitting human power from a pedal to a rear wheel, a motor drive mechanism for auxiliarily driving a front wheel or the rear wheel by a motor, a battery for supplying the motor with electric power, a brake lever operated by a driver, a brake mechanism for braking the front or rear wheel that is not driven by the motor drive mechanism, by human power transmitted from the brake lever, and a motor control circuit for controlling the motor so that the motor is regeneratively braked to act as a power generator when the brake lever is operated.

Electrically assisted bicycle

Growing community of inventors

Hirakata, Japan

Kazunobu Yokotani