The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Nov. 05, 1996
Filed:
May. 04, 1995
Hirotada Muraki, Atsugi, JP;
Nissan Motor Co., Ltd., Kanagawa, JP;
Abstract
In an apparatus and method for diagnosing presence of absence of a (wire) breakage in electromagnetic coil means such as a duty ratio controlled solenoid or at least one exciting coil portion between an end of a stator coil and a tap of a stepping motor, a checking circuitry is connected to a junction between the electromagnetic coil means and a driving transistor (switching element) to provide a checking pulse signal which provides a particular level only when an input duty ratio (pulsewidth modulated) signal is at a predetermined non-actuation (low) level and no breakage in the electromagnetic coil means occurs. In the embodiment, the checking pulse signal is sampled at a predetermined sampling period which is shorter than the period of the pulsewidth modulated signal. A historical memory in a sub CPU records (stores) a history of the sampled checking pulse signal. The diagnosis of whether the breakage of the electromagnetic coil means is present or absent is carried out on the basis of the presence or absence of the history of the particular level (predetermined high level) in the stored content, the sampled checking pulse signal during a predetermined diagnosis delay time duration.