Sony Corporation

Maxim Japan Co., Ltd.

Kazuyasu Nawa

Hideyuki Sato

Yukio Tsuchiya

Ryoichi Nakashima

Hisashi Aoki

Ryuji Nakamichi

Tatsuya Yamazawa

A battery pack detachably connectable to an equipment body to supply power to the equipment body, the battery pack including a battery cell, a microcomputer for communicating with the equipment body, a connection terminal connected to the microcomputer, a positive power supply input terminal connected to a cathode of the battery cell; and a negative power supply input terminal connected to an anode of the battery cell. After the power of the equipment body is turned on, the microcomputer alternately sends to the equipment body by serial communication via the connection terminal information to be used in authentication processing executed by the equipment body and information to be used in a battery residual quantity count executed by the equipment body. After the authentication processing is complete, the microcomputer sends to the equipment body information to be used in updating the battery residual quantity count executed by the equipment body.

Battery residual quantity display method and electronic equipment

The present invention is directed to a battery residual quantity display method for performing display of battery residual quantity of a battery pack mounted at an electronic equipment and serving to supply power to the electronic equipment. When power is turned ON, a first microcomputer () of the camera body () side serves to first acquire, by serial communication, information for battery residual quantity display from a second microcomputer () of the battery pack () side loaded at the camera body to perform battery residual quantity display on the basis of the acquired information to subsequently acquire, by serial communication, information for authentication processing from the second microcomputer of the battery pack side to perform an authentication processing for judging on the basis of the acquired information as to whether or not the battery pack connected to the camera body is genuine battery pack to update, after the authentication processing, the content of the battery residual quantity display on the basis of information for battery residual quantity display acquired by serial communication from the microcomputer of the battery pack side.

A battery pack which stably implements a protection function of a secondary battery mainly under software control and reduces a circuit installation area and parts costs. The battery pack has a discharge current cutoff means and a charge current cutoff means for selectively cutting off discharge and charge currents of the secondary battery. The battery pack has a protection process means for controlling operations of the discharge current cutoff means and the charge current cutoff means in accordance with an inter-electrode voltage between positive and negative electrodes of the secondary battery. The battery pack executes an initialization process for the protection process means at a timing when a power supply voltage supplied to the protection process means reaches lowest voltage to start the protection process means. Further, the battery pack sets a threshold voltage needed for operation control of the discharge current cutoff means and the charge current cutoff means to start the protection process at another timing when the power supply voltage reaches voltage that is higher than lowest voltage and is smaller than or equal to a voltage for stable driving.

Battery pack, battery protection processing apparatus, and startup control method of the battery protection processing apparatus

The temperature of a battery cell measured by a temperature measurement means is stored into a measured temperature history storage means for storing a history of temperature. An in-cell temperature inference means extracts a minimum temperature from the history of a predetermined time from the measured temperature history storage means, and infers the minimum temperature as a current temperature within the battery cell. A remaining power calculation means calculates remaining battery power based on the inferred temperature within the battery cell. Instead of directly using the measured temperature for the calculation of the remaining battery power, the inferred temperature within the battery cell is used, whereby even if the measured temperature rises rapidly, it is possible to prevent the phenomenon instantaneous increase of the calculated remaining battery power.

Battery pack and remaining battery power calculation method

The present invention is to provide a display for a secondary battery in response to the status thereof. For this end, the secondary battery is provided with the display section including LEDs and the switch. If the switch is operated while the secondary battery is being exhibited in a shop, displays to give an image what happens after purchase of the secondary battery are preformed in the display section. Such displays differ from each other in the charging mode and the discharging mode of the secondary battery. For example, in the charging mode, LEDs are sequentially lighted to indicate that the secondary battery is being charged. Additionally, by controlling the LEDs based on the timing calculated from the charging current magnitude through the secondary battery, it is possible to indicate such information if the charging is approaching to the final stage.

Growing community of inventors

Tokyo, Japan

Kazuyasu Nawa