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Portable battery operated power supply

Portable battery operated power supply description/claims

The present invention relates to the field of battery equipped power supply systems for use with handheld electronic devices, and especially portable battery operated power supplies for charging the batteries of handheld electronic devices.

The proliferation of portable battery powered devices, such as cellular telephones, video cameras, portable laptop computers, and the like, has increased dramatically in the last several years and this trend is expected to continue. These devices typically use a rechargeable battery that is built into the device to provide the needed power. The length of time that the battery powers the device is dependent primarily upon the size of the battery and the number of energy consuming features built into the device. For instance, in response to consumer demand, cell phone manufacturers often incorporate into the phones features such as the ability to send and receive digital pictures and/or text messages, and even real-time video transmissions. Unfortunately, the inclusion of these features usually places additional demands on the rechargeable batteries that power the cell phones. The net result is that cell phone run times are becoming shorter due to the increased power demands. At the same time that the electrical demand placed on the battery is increasing, the size and weight of cell phones is decreasing. As the size of the cell phone is reduced, the size of the battery compartment built into the cell phone is also generally reduced. The combination of these two trends, i.e. increased electrical demand and reduced battery size, often causes cell phone users to experience a lost telephone call or data transmission due to the depletion of the phone battery at an inopportune moment. An additional trend that complicates resolution of this problem is that most cell phones require a battery that has specific size and shape characteristics. In order to encourage consumers to purchase replacement batteries from the cell phone manufacturer, the cell phones are made with batteries that have unique shapes, locking mechanisms, voltage requirements, etc. Furthermore, the recharging port built into the cell phones limit the type of charger that can be connected to the cell phone. Collectively, these factors limit the consumer's ability to readily replace the depleted battery with another power source.

Numerous attempts have been made to develop a versatile portable power supply for cellular telephones. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 6,127,801 to D. Manor, for “Battery Pack Assembly”, discloses a power supply that includes a battery pack and a base unit which has bidirectional circuitry. In U.S. Pat. No. 6,479,963 to D. Manor and G. Weinstein, for “Rechargeable Battery Packs”, there is described a rechargeable battery pack for use with cellular telephones or other portable devices, including a conventional rechargeable battery for powering the device, and a user-replaceable primary cell for recharging the rechargeable cell when desired by the user, thus acting as a built-in charger for the device. This battery pack uses as its additional energy source a replaceable primary cell or battery, which when depleted, needs to be replaced by a fresh battery. In another example, U.S. Pat. No. 6,709,784 to O. Resch, for “Back-up Battery for a Cellular Telephone” there is disclosed a battery pack that can be plugged into a cellular phone's contact to recharge the phone's built-in rechargeable battery and/or to directly power the cell phone. This invention does not provide any voltage converting circuitry to match the battery pack output voltage to that required for charging the phone's rechargeable battery, and relies on the internal charge control circuits of the phone to ensure correct voltage compatibility. Furthermore, the battery is preferably packaged with the plug that allows the battery pack to be connected to the phone. Consequently, when the battery is depleted, the entire battery pack, including the plug, must be discarded, increasing consumer costs.

Therefore, there exists a need for an auxiliary direct current power source that uses a commonly available battery that the consumer can readily insert into and remove from a reusable housing, and that can be either a readily available primary cell or battery, or a secondary cell or battery with the added option of recharging the secondary cell or battery inside the device's housing, using the device's usual charging method. The power supply needs to be lightweight, volume-efficient and easily adaptable to a wide array of cell phones or other handheld electronic devices that utilize batteries of various shapes and sizes.

The disclosures of each of the publications mentioned in this section and in other sections of the specification, are hereby incorporated by reference, each in its entirety.

The present invention seeks to provide, according to a first preferred embodiment of the present invention, a new portable battery-powered power supply or charger for use with electronic devices containing a rechargeable battery. In order to control the current flow into and out of its battery, the portable power supply uses a bidirectional battery charge control system, as fully described in co-pending PCT Patent Application by the present inventors for “Bidirectional Battery Charge Controller”, herewith incorporated by reference in its entirety. The battery is installed in a separate housing, connected to the portable electronic device preferably by means of a flexible lead, and plugged thereby into the external charging input of the portable electronic device. In such an embodiment, the bidirectional charge controller is preferably built into the housing containing the battery, usually on a printed circuit board, and enables the battery either to supply current to the device like an external battery powered power supply, or, if it is a secondary battery, allows the battery to be charged by connection to an externally powered charger, such as a wall mains adapter or a car cigarette lighter adapter. The battery can thus be considered to behave as a compact portable external charger for the device, for use, for instance, in situations when the main battery of the device is depleted without access to a mains recharging source of power.

Control of the current flow into and out of the battery is performed by the bidirectional charge controller. The battery powered power supply of the present invention can be powered by one or more cells, though the most convenient embodiment may be for a single cell to be used. The bidirectional charge controller is such that an external charger, such as a mains wall plug charger, generally used to charge the main rechargeable battery of the electronic device, can also recharge the battery in the portable battery powered power supply of the present invention, on condition that it is a secondary battery.

The bidirectional charge controller also acts as a voltage converter, to convert the battery voltage to the voltage generally required for powering the electronic device, or for charging the device's rechargeable battery. The device's battery voltage is usually, though not always, higher than the battery voltage of the battery powered power supply. The ability of the power supply battery to charge the electronic device's battery is particularly useful since readily available primary or secondary cells can be used in the battery powered power supply, in situations where the main battery is depleted without any access to mains power supply for conventional recharging. Furthermore, the bidirectional charge controller is preferably microprocessor controlled, and is programmed to be able to detect the battery chemistry of the battery, and to disable charging current flow into the battery if primary cell chemistry is detected. Likewise, in the reverse direction, the microprocessor algorithm is preferably able to regulate the charging current from the battery to the electronic device rechargeable battery such that optimal energy transfer is obtained for every stage of the device battery's state of charge.

It should be noted that the terms battery and cell, though formally distinct (a battery technically being an assembly of more than one cell), are sometimes used in this application interchangeably in relation to the power supply's battery, since the “battery” may either contain a single cell, or several cells. However, the invention is understood to be applicable regardless of whether a cell or a battery is used as the “battery”, and the meaning is understood to be sometimes interchanged, as in the widespread popular use of the term battery, when in fact only a single cell is intended.

There is thus provided in accordance with a preferred embodiment of the present invention, a portable power supply for a battery operated electronic device, comprising:

(i) a housing for containing a battery, (ii) a rechargeable battery removably disposed within the housing, (iii) a bidirectional charge controller controlling current flow into and out of the rechargeable battery, and (iv) a single connecting port for inputting current through the bidirectional charge controller to the rechargeable battery from an external power supply, and for outputting current from the rechargeable battery through the bidirectional charge controller to the electronic device.

The rechargeable battery preferably has a first terminal voltage, and the device preferably requires a second voltage for operation, and the bidirectional charge controller is such as to convert current output from the rechargeable battery at the first terminal voltage to the second voltage for powering the device.

In accordance with another preferred embodiment of the present invention the device preferably has an internal rechargeable battery for operation, and the portable power supply battery has a first terminal voltage, and the device battery a second terminal voltage, and the bidirectional charge controller converts current output from the portable power supply battery at the first terminal voltage to the second voltage for charging the device battery.

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• Utility Patent

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