Patent Application
20050077869
The present invention relates to a combinational charger and, more particularly, to a charger having a USB connection interface, which is used as a spare power source of a hand-held electronic device and also used for charging the hand-held electronic device in a DC way.
Along with miniaturization and diversification of electronic products, many hand-held electronic devices such as personals digital assistants (PDAs) and digital still cameras use rechargeable batteries as their primary power source. In order to directly use a charging circuit of hand-held electronic device itself for charging a rechargeable battery, manufacturers usually provide a power adaptor to convert the common electric AC power into a constant DC voltage power used by the hand-held electronic device.
However, the power adaptor can only be used in situations where the common electric AC power is available, and it needs to stay at the same place during charging, resulting in much inconvenience of the user. Therefore, a charger using a USB connection interface for charging has been proposed. For instance, R.O.C. Pat. No. 479,393discloses a USB automatic charger and the operational method thereof, wherein a device having a transmission interface with a rechargeable battery is provided, and the device is connected with a USB interface of a host system. Through the connection, the host system can provide power for charging the rechargeable battery in the device. Also, R.O.C. Pat. No. 443,661 discloses a mobile phone charger having a computer USB interface, wherein a USB connection interface of a host system is used to provide power for charging a mobile phone having a USB connection interface.
Although the above chargers having a USB connection interface can make use of a computer USB connection interface for charging, they need to stay at some place during charging and can't be taken along with a user.
Accordingly, the present invention aims to propose a combinational charger to let a user be able to charge a hand-held electronic device at any situation.
The primary object of the present invention is to provide a combinational charger for charging a hand-held electronic device at any time and at any place.
Another object of the present invention is to provide the above combinational charger, which can make use of a USB connection interface to charge a hand-held electronic device.
Yet another object of the present invention is to provide the above combinational charger, whose USB connection interface further combines the storage function of a flash drive.
Still yet another object of the present invention is to provide the above combinational charger, whose flash drive further combines the MP3 walkman function and the recording function.
To achieve the above objects, a combinational charger of the present invention comprises at least a rechargeable battery, a charging connector, a transmission interface and a switch. The charging connector is movably engaged with a power source port of the hand-held electronic device. The transmission interface is movably engaged with a connection interface of a host system to capture power via the connection interface. The switch is used to switch the rechargeable battery to the transmission interface to let a power source on the connection interface charge the rechargeable battery, or switch the rechargeable battery to the charging connector to let the rechargeable battery charge a battery of the hand-held electronic device.
The various objects and advantages of the present invention will be more readily understood from the following detailed description when read in conjunction with the appended drawing, in which:
As shown in
The combinational charger 1 has a shell 11 with a receiving space formed therein. At least a rechargeable battery 12 is arranged in the receiving space. Due to the progress of the of rechargeable battery technology, existent rechargeable batteries have already the advantages of high capacity and long endurance. The present invention makes use of a fully-charged rechargeable battery 12 as a spare power source of the hand-held electronic device 2 and for charging the battery 21 therein. The combinational charger 1 can be taken along with a user for charging at any time and at any place.
A charging connector 13, a transmission interface 14 and a switch 15 are disposed on the shell 11, the charging connector 13 can be movably engaged with a power source port 22 of the hand-held electronic device 2. The power source port 22 is electrically connected to the battery 21 in the hand-held electronic device 2. The transmission interface 14 can be movably engaged with the connection interface 31 of the host computer 3 to capture power via the connection interface 31. The transmission interface can be a USB interface, an IEEE 1394 interface or a PS2 interface.
The present invention makes use of the switch 15 to switch the rechargeable battery 12. The switch 15 can be used to switch the rechargeable battery 12 to electrically connect the charging connector to let the rechargeable battery 12 charge the battery 21 of the hand-held electronic device 2, or can be used to switch the rechargeable battery to electrically connect the transmission interface 14 to let the transmission interface 14 capture power via the connection interface 31 and then charge the rechargeable battery 12.
Because there are various kinds of the hand-held electronic devices 2, the voltages of the batteries thereof differ. For instance, the voltage of batteries of mobile phones is about 3.6V, while the voltage of batteries of digital still cameras is about 7V. Therefore, the present invention makes use of two rechargeable batteries of 3.7V, which can be series- or parallel-connected together to accomplish an output voltage of 3.7V or 7.4V. For most existent rechargeable batteries 12, a current-limiting protection circuit is generally disposed therein for limiting the charging current to the rechargeable battery 12. Therefore, the battery 21 of the hand-held electronic device 2 can be charged with a higher voltage. The present invention also uses the switch 15 to switch the two rechargeable batteries 12 to be series- or parallel-connected for changing the charging voltage or current outputted to the hand-held electronic device 2, as shown in
As shown in
Besides, the combinational charger 1 of the present invention can combine the flash disk function and the MP3 function. As shown in
The sound capture unit 44 can be a microphone for capturing external sound signals. The sound output unit 45 can be a loudspeaker or an earphone for outputting sound signals. The MP3 encoding/decoding unit 43 is connected with the processing unit 41, the sound capture unit 44 and the sound output unit 45, and can be used to encode external sound signals captured by the sound capture unit 44 into MP3 digital data stored into the memory unit 42 through the processing unit 41, or can be used to decode the MP3 digital data stored in the memory unit 42 into sound signals outputted to the sound output unit 45.
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Although the present invention has been described with reference to the preferred embodiment thereof, it will be understood that the invention is not limited to the details thereof. Various substitutions and modifications have been suggested in the foregoing description, and other will occur to those of ordinary skill in the art. Therefore, all such substitutions and modifications are intended to be embraced within the scope of the invention as defined in the appended claims.
