Power supply device capable of generating status message

Power supply device capable of generating status information

This creation is about a power supply device that can generate status messages, especially a control module that captures the output signal of the power supply device, and the control module uses a microprocessor as the control center and a display as the message The power supply device of the display terminal.

At present, a considerable proportion of consumer electronic products and computers use DC power as their working power source. Therefore, a power supply is installed in the computer to convert AC mains power to DC power and supply it to the host and built-in peripherals. ; As for consumer electronic products, in addition to using batteries to supply DC power, a transformer (adapter) can also be used to convert AC power to obtain DC working power. Since these power supply devices are all supplying the working power required by the load, whether they are safe and working normally depends on whether the power supply specification of the load matches the power supply device. Therefore, the power supply specifications of the aforementioned power supply devices are clearly marked on the products. Let consumers or technicians follow. However, labeling is the same thing. The actual working characteristics and operating conditions of power supply devices cannot be judged solely by appearance. In other words, it is difficult for users to grasp the actual conditions of such power supply devices, especially when the load changes, such as The user upgrades the computer or expands the peripheral equipment, which may increase the load. However, under normal circumstances, it is difficult for the user to analyze and estimate the difference between the power supply device before and after loading, and then determine whether the power supply device can be loaded. This undoubtedly will Uncertain factors are buried in the safety of the operation of the power supply device.

Furthermore, as far as employees are concerned, advertised product quality and service life is one of the important means of promotion, but the actual situation is difficult to objectively confirm the effect based on the consumer's own impression alone.

From the above, it can be seen that the simple element labels of the existing power supply device products are not enough to be used as a basis for users to grasp the working conditions and to verify the performance and life of the reference.

Therefore, the main purpose of this creation is to provide a power supply device that can generate status messages, which exposes various characteristic conditions of the power supply device during operation through visual display, such as output current, power, and accumulated working time, so that users can grasp its work State, or as a proof of life performance.

The technical means adopted to achieve the aforementioned purpose is to make the aforementioned power supply device include: a power converter that converts AC or DC power to generate at least one set of DC output power; a control module that has at least a microprocessor and an analog /Digital converter, the microprocessor is connected to the power converter through the analog/digital converter to capture the output power signal of the aforementioned power converter; a display whose input terminal is connected to the output terminal of the microprocessor; The aforementioned power supply device uses a control module with a microprocessor as the control core. The control module is used to capture the output signal of the power converter supplying DC power to determine its working status and accumulate its working time. The display is displayed, and the user can grasp the working status of the power supply device through the information displayed on the display.

The aforementioned control module is connected with the output current and output power signal lines of the analog/digital converter and the power converter to capture the current and power signal of the output power.

The aforementioned power converter is provided with a temperature sensing circuit, the temperature sensing circuit has an output terminal, and the control module is connected to the output terminal of the temperature sensing circuit with a built-in analog/digital converter to provide the power converter The temperature sensing signal is sent to the microprocessor.

The aforementioned power converter is equipped with a cooling fan and can generate a set of fan speed signals, and the control module further has a built-in counter/timer and a digital/analog converter, which are respectively connected to the microprocessor through the bus; In this way, the microprocessor can capture the fan speed signal of the power converter through the timer/counter, and can also generate a fan speed control signal which is sent to the power converter through the digital/analog converter to control the speed of the cooling fan .

The aforementioned power converter has an alarm signal output terminal to generate an alarm signal before the power supply is stopped, and the control module further has an external interrupt source built in to capture the aforementioned alarm signal as a basis for the storage time of various message data.

The aforementioned control module further has a built-in real time clock (Real Time Clock) for accumulating the use time of the power converter.

The transmission interface of the aforementioned control module transmits data with the personal computer host through a communication protocol, and enables the microprocessor to connect to a monitoring application established in the operating system of the personal computer through the transmission interface, and generate it on the computer screen A display/operation interface for the user to control the status information of the power converter from the computer screen, or generate commands to send back to the control module through the transmission interface to control the fan speed of the power converter.

The aforementioned control module further includes a warning message generator, which is activated when the microprocessor receives an over-temperature message to notify the user.

The power converter of the aforementioned power supply device is a power supply, and its control module has a casing that can be installed on the main body of a personal computer; and the control module further includes a transmission interface for connecting to the personal computer The host is connected; the display is installed on the aforementioned control module and is located on the mainframe of the personal computer.

The power converter can be a transformer, the control module is arranged in the casing of the power converter, and the display is installed on the casing of the power converter.

Please refer to the first figure, which is a preferred embodiment of this creation, which is applied to a personal computer. This creation is composed of a power converter, a control module (20) and a display (30). In this embodiment, the power converter refers to the power supply (10) installed inside the computer host (100) , The control module (20) is installed in the expansion slot (101) of the computer host (100) in the form of peripheral equipment. The display (30) connected to the terminal displays various status messages of the power supply (10). The display (30) is a liquid crystal display (LCD) or light emitting diode (LED) type display.

Since the power supply (10) is a known power supply device, the creative feature of this creation is also not in the improvement of the internal structure of the power supply (10). The internal structure of the power supply (10) will not be further detailed. As for the control module (20) The composition, please refer to the second figure, which includes: a microprocessor (21), which is used as a computing control center; an analog/digital converter (22), which has a plurality of input terminals, which are used to extract power supply Each group of the device (10) outputs the current signal, output power signal and temperature sensing signal of the power supply, and the output terminal of the analog/digital converter (22) is connected to the aforementioned microprocessor (21) through the internal bus; An external interrupt source (23), which is connected to the microprocessor (21) through an internal bus, for the microprocessor (21) to intercept the alarm signal (Power Good) of the power supply (10) through the external interrupt source (23) ; A Real Time Clock (24), which is used to accumulate the use time of the power supply (10) through the internal bus and microprocessor (21); a memory (25) (EEPROM/FLASH RAM) ), in this embodiment, it is set outside the control module (20) and connected to the microprocessor (21) through the bus to store various alarm settings and accumulated use time of the power supply.

When the aforementioned control module (20) has the front-line basic structure, it can capture the current and total output power of each group of the power supply (10), and can accumulate and display the work of the power supply (10) time.

That is, when the host computer (100) starts to work, the power supply (10) also starts to supply power, and the microprocessor (21) of the control module (20) starts to capture the power supply ( 10) Status signals such as current and total output power signals output by each group of power supplies are converted into numerical values and output to the display (30) for display, so that the user can grasp the basic status information of the power supply (10).

Furthermore, the aforementioned control module (20) can accumulate the use time of the power supply (10) and store relevant message parameters. It mainly uses the built-in real-time clock (24) and external interrupt source (23) of the control module (20), where the external interrupt source (23) captures the alarm signal (PG, Power Good) generated by the power supply (10) ), cooperate with the operation of the microprocessor (21) to determine the timing of storing data. The generation of the alarm signal has the basic function of the power supply (10). When the input power of the power supply (10) is interrupted or the output switch is turned off, or protection conditions such as overvoltage and overcurrent occur, the power supply (10) will Turn off its output voltage, but when the above situation occurs, the power supply (10) will send the aforementioned warning signal (PG) in advance to notify the device that the power supply (10) is about to stop outputting voltage, and from the time the warning signal is generated to There is a short period of time when the output voltage is lower than the working voltage of the equipment terminal (please refer to the third figure, it is revealed that there is a power supply (10) each group of power output V33/V5/V12/IS33/IS5/IS12 and alarm signal (PG) Timing relationship), so the control module (20) can know that the power supply (10) is about to shut down by capturing the alarm signal, and the microprocessor (21) will include the accumulated use time of the real-time clock (23), etc. The item information data is stored in the memory (25), and the data includes various alarm setting values and the accumulated use time of the power supply (10).

As shown in the second figure, in addition to the aforementioned components, the control module (20) can be further built-in: a digital/analog converter (26), which has an input through the internal bus and the microprocessor ( 21) Connect, and have an output terminal to send a fan speed control signal to the power supply (10); a timer/counter (27), which has an input terminal to capture and calculate the power supply (10) The fan speed (RPM) has an output terminal, which is connected to the microprocessor (21) through the internal bus; a warning message generator (28), please refer to the fourth figure, by a buzzer It is connected with the microprocessor (21) so as to be activated when the microprocessor (21) judges that the captured temperature sensing signal is too high to notify the user; a transmission interface (29) is through the internal bus The platoon is connected to the microprocessor (21), which itself is a serial communication interface, which can be UART, USB and I²C BUS, etc., in order to connect with the host computer (100) and carry out data transmission; an operating interface (201) is connected to the microprocessor (21) through the internal bus, which can be one set in the control module (20) The outer button group allows the user to actively control the fan speed of the power supply (10).

In addition, the bus between the microprocessor (21) of the control module (20) and the display (30) can generally be divided into serial (for example, HOLTEK HT1611 LCD controller) or parallel; if a serial bus is used , The microprocessor (21) can use fewer pins (PIO), but the speed is slower; when the parallel bus is used, the microprocessor (21) can use more pins (PIO), but the speed is faster. As for the contents that the display (30) can display: output current (each group of current such as 12V, 5V, 3.3V), temperature, fan speed and accumulated use time, etc. When the control module (20) expands the aforementioned components, it can be further achieved The following functions: The power supply (10) is originally equipped with a temperature sensing circuit (11) (as shown in the fifth figure) to detect the internal temperature and generate the aforementioned temperature sensing signal, which is controlled by the microprocessor (21) ) After being captured by the analog/digital converter (22), in addition to outputting to the display (30) for display, it will determine whether the temperature sensing signal is too high. If the temperature of the power supply (10) is too high, it will start The buzzer generates an alarm to notify the user.

In addition, the aforementioned power supply (10) is equipped with a cooling fan (not shown in the figure), and generates a fan speed signal (generally in the form of PLUSE), and the counter/timer (27) in the control module (20) It is read and determined by the microprocessor (21) that its speed is too high or too low. If the microprocessor (21) determines that the fan speed is abnormal, it generates a fan speed control signal and transmits it through the digital/analog converter ( 26) Send to the power supply (10) to adjust the speed of the cooling fan. In addition, the user can also actively adjust the fan speed through the control module (20). Assuming that the fan speed control signal generated by the microprocessor (21) is 8 bits, which is 512 levels, assuming a digital/analog converter (26) The output voltage is 0~12Vdc, the user can change its level through the button group (operating interface (201)) on the control module (20), and the digital/analog converter (26) will follow the settings The level output voltage is relatively equal, if the level is 128, the output voltage of the digital/analog converter (26) is 6V (the conversion ratio is (12V-0)/256=46.875 V/bit), and the voltage signal is used to The fan power can be changed to control its speed.

Furthermore, in this embodiment, the transmission interface (29) of the control module (20) performs data transmission with the computer host (100) through a communication protocol, wherein the operating system of the computer host (100) can be Create a monitoring application linked to the control module (20), which can generate a display/operation interface on the computer screen for the user to control the status information of the power supply on the computer screen, or input operations The command is sent back to the control module (20) through the transmission interface (29), and the fan speed of the power supply (10) is controlled through the control module (20).

From the above description, we can understand the specific implementation content of this creation on a personal computer. Using these technologies, the control module can capture the output signal of the power supply to determine its working status and accumulate its working time, and then through the connected display By displaying it, the user can use the information displayed on the display to grasp the working status of the power supply device and understand its accumulated working time.

This creation can also be applied to the adapter of general consumer electronic products. As shown in Figure 6, when the creation is applied to the transformer (40), the transformer (40) itself is a power converter, which controls The module is arranged inside the transformer (40), and the display (30) is arranged on the outer shell of the transformer (40).

As shown in the seventh figure, according to the product characteristics of the transformer (40), the control module (20) at least includes: a microprocessor (21) as a computing control center; an analog/digital converter (22) ), which has a plurality of input terminals, which respectively capture the current signals of each output power supply of the transformer (40), output power signals and temperature sensing signals, etc., and the output terminal of the analog/digital converter (22) is through the internal confluence The row is connected to the aforementioned microprocessor (21); an external interrupt source (23), which is connected to the microprocessor (21) through an internal bus, for the microprocessor (21) to intercept the transformer through the external interrupt source (23) (40) Power Good signal; a real time clock (24), which is used to accumulate the working time of the transformer (4) through the internal bus and the microprocessor (21); The memory (25) (EEPROM/FLASH RAM), which is connected to the microprocessor (21) through the bus, is used to store various alarm settings and the accumulated use time of the aforementioned real-time clock (24); an operating interface ( 201), which is connected to the microprocessor (21) through an internal bus, which can be a button set outside the control module (20).

In this way, the transformer (40) of a general consumer electronic product can still display the current, power and temperature of its output power source through the external display (30), and can also display the accumulated use time to verify the quality and working life.

<p>(100). . . Computer host</p><p>(101). . . Expansion slot</p><p>(10). . . Power Supplier</p><p>(11). . . Temperature sensing circuit</p><p>(20). . . Control module</p><p>(twenty one). . . microprocessor</p><p>(twenty two). . . Analog/digital converter</p><p>(twenty three). . . External interrupt source</p><p>(twenty four). . . Real-time timing generator</p><p>(25). . . Memory</p><p>(26). . . Digital/analog converter</p><p>(27). . . Count/timer</p><p>(28). . . Warning message generator</p><p>(29). . . Transmission interface</p><p>(201). . . Operation interface</p><p>(30). . . monitor</p><p>(40). . . transformer</p>

The first figure: is a schematic diagram of the appearance of a preferred embodiment of this creation.

The second figure: is a block diagram of the circuit of a preferred embodiment of the invention.

The third figure: It is a waveform diagram of the timing relationship between the output power of each group of the power supply and the alarm signal.

Figure 4: It is a possible circuit diagram of the built-in warning message generator in the control module.

Figure 5: It is a possible circuit diagram of the temperature sensing circuit in the power converter.

Figure 6: It is a plan view of the appearance of another preferred embodiment of this creation.

Figure 7: is a circuit block diagram of another preferred embodiment of this creation.