Patent Application
20080100142
The present invention is related to an electric appliance with constant power supplied-bus, and more particularly to an electric appliance which can supply DC power to the bus even during the shutdown period.
Current power supplies in many electric appliances can transform the AC power into DC power, and the power supply includes a main power system, which drives the electric appliance through the DC power, and a standby power system, which drives shutdown signal through the DC power, wherein the standby power can provide a standby power in weak current no matter the electric appliance is under operation or shutdown, and as compared to the main power system which is mainly used to drive the operation of the electric appliance, the standby power system utilizes the standby power to achieve a remote control and an automatic power on/off.
Take computer host as an example. For the ATX (Advanced Technology extended) standard of motherboard, one characteristic thereof is that, except the integrally formed design and the DC power (3.3 V, 5 V, 12 V . . . ) provided during operation, a standby power system is also provided for supplying a starting power to the computer host, no matter the computer is under operation or shutdown. Alternatively, other electric appliances, such as TV or media player, also equip with the standby power system for executing remote power/off or time power on/off.
Besides, the current electric appliance technology also can be used in many external electronic devices which are operated independently under the shutdown condition, for example, speaker, night light, playing music CD directly through the panel of CD-ROM drive etc., or a small LED mounted on the case for displaying information of temperature, humidity, time, or a bright and dazzling case with an illuminating efficiency. However, for being applied to the electric appliances more widely, the general provided standby power system always provides a power intensity larger than the practical demand and might cause an energy waste since people pay more and more attention to the environmental consciousness and request to implement a more effective utilization of the energy and also to develop a replacing energy source.
In the bus device developed from the computer field, UBS (Universal Serial Bus) and IEEE-1394 are characteristic of hot plug and plug & play, so that they can be widely applied to various electric appliances owing to the convenience. According thereto, a great quantity of external electronic devices, such as mouse, keyboard, control lever, or other data transmission devices, are derived therefrom. Except for data transmission, because the bus also provide small amount of DC power, many devices which do not process data transmission but only receive power transmission, are further developed, for example, illuminating device, heating device, small LCD and charger for electronic device. Moreover, since the power of bus is supplied by the main power system, after the computer host is shutdown, the power supply of the bus is also stopped, and thus, if there is the need to use the electronic device alone, it has to be connected to a power-on electric appliance with bus for acquiring power through the bus. However, the power supply of the bus has the problem that the main power system always inputs a power larger than the real demand which obviously causes energy waste.
Consequently, if the original USB (or IE-1394) can be improved to provide DC power no matter the computer host is under operation or shutdown through utilizing another kind of electrical architecture, then the external electronic device with matched USB or IEEE-1394 connecter can directly obtain the power even when the computer host is shutdown so as to provide convenience, and also, the energy can be saved.
The object of the present invention is to provide an electric appliance with constant power supplied-bus, in which the electric appliance includes a computer host, a TV, a play station for TV or computer, or a media player, and in the present invention, the standby power system of the power supply can always provide power to the bus, no matter the electric appliance is under operation or shutdown.
For achieving the object described above, a preferred embodiment according to the present invention includes a power supply and a motherboard electrically connected to the power supply. The power supply has a main power system and a standby power system, wherein the DC power outputted by the standby power system is used to drive a power on/off unit, which is used for outputting an electric appliance-operating signal and an electric appliance-shutdown signal. The motherboard has a logic operation circuit and a data transmission port electrically connected to inner electronic device. Further, at least a bus, which can be an USB or IEEE-1394 bus, is installed on the electric appliance and has a power transmission terminal and a data transmission terminal simultaneously or only a power transmission terminal, wherein the data transmission terminal is electrically connected with the data transmission port of the motherboard, and the power transmission terminal is electrically connected to the standby power system, such that the bus can connect to the power supply directly through a power transmission line or indirectly through the motherboard. Thereby, the bus mounted on the electric appliance receives only the power from the standby power system, and thus, the bus can acquire DC power no matter the electric appliance is under any condition (especially as shutdown).
Therefore, the electric appliance with the constant power supplied-bus can solve the problem that the general electric appliance might cause an energy waste owing to the standby power system continuously supplying an excess current during the power off period, or if it intends to employ the bus alone as the power output source, the electric appliance has to be powered on, which obviously might waste more energy. Thus, the multiple-purpose bus can be the power output source no matter the electric appliance is under any condition, such that the input power of the electric appliance (especially the power supplied by standby power system) can be utilized adequately so as to improve the using efficiency.
The foregoing aspects and many of the attendant advantages of this invention will be more readily appreciated as the same becomes better understood by reference to the following detailed description, when taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings, wherein:
Refer to
a power supply 30 having a main power system 31 electrically connected to an external power source 20 (which can be mains electricity) for converting thereof into DC power, and a standby power system 32 parallel connected with the main power system 31 for converting the external power source into DC power, wherein the DC power outputted by the main power system 31 is used to drive at least one inner electronic device 40 (such as motherboard, hard disk drive, CD-ROM drive . . . , etc.) and the DC power outputted by the standby power system 32 is used to drive a power on/off unit 80, which is used for outputting a computer operating signal and a computer shutdown signal, thereby controlling the operating or shutdown of the computer, so that, under operation, the main power system 31 has a DC power output, and during shutdown, the main power system 31 interrupts power supply (but the standby power system 32 remains to supply power under the AXT standard);
a motherboard 50 electrically connected to the main power system 31 and the standby power system 32, wherein the electrical connection between the motherboard 50 and the power supply 30 is provided by a power line 301 from the power supply 30 plugging into a socket 51 on the motherboard 50 so as to transmit power signal (including 5Vstb), and the motherboard 50 has a logic operation circuit and data transmission ports (which are also called I/O ports, and only a data/power transmission port 52 (including a data transmission port 52a and a power transmission port 52b) connected to the bus 60 is depicted in the drawings) for electrically connecting to other inner electronic devices 40, so that the inner electronic devices 40, such as hard disk drive, CD-ROM drive, may transmit data signal to the motherboard 50 through the data transmission port 52a for being processed by the logic operation circuit, and wherein the motherboard 50 further includes a starting-power transmission port 53 which may equip the DC power outputted by the standby power system 32 through the circuits on the motherboard 50, and a power transmission line 81 of the power on/off unit 80 is namely plugged into the starting-power transmission port 53 so as to electrically connect to the standby power system 32; and
a bus 60 (which is not limited to be USB (Universal Serial Bus) or IEEE 1394 bus) installed on the surface of computer host 10 and having terminals divided into a power transmission terminal 601 and a data transmission terminal 602, wherein multiple buses 60 can be integrated into an interface base, the data transmission terminal 602 is electrically connected with the motherboard 50 or other inner electronic devices 40 for data transmission, and the power transmission terminal 601 is electrically connected to the standby power system 32 for drawing the DC power so that the bus interface 60 can receive the DC power outputted from the standby power system 32, no matter the computer host 10 is under operation or shutdown.
In this preferred embodiment, the bus interface 60 is connected to the motherboard 50 by a power/signal transmission line 61 (which is an integration of a power transmission line 612 and a signal transmission 611 as shown in
Refer to
Furthermore, please refer to
Besides, the electric appliance with constant power supplied-bus according to the present invention also can be applied as
In the aforesaid, the bus 60 of the electric appliance with constant power supplied-bus according to the present invention is electrically connected to the standby power system 32 of the power supply 30 in a direct or indirect manner, so that the DC power supplied by the standby power system 32 can be utilized under any condition, especially as shutdown, the bus 60 also can be the power output source without re-powering on the appliance.
It is to be understood, however, that even though numerous characteristics and advantages of the present invention have been set forth in the foregoing description, together with details of the structure and function of the invention, the disclosure is illustrative only, and changes may be made in detail, especially in matters of shape, size, and arrangement of parts within the principles of the invention to the full extent indicated by the broad general meaning of the terms in which the appended claims are expressed.
This application is a continuation-in-part, and claims priority, of from U.S. patent application Ser. No. 11/586,641 filed on Oct. 26, 2006, entitled “Computer Host with Bus Interface”.
| Number | Date | Country | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Parent | 11586641 | Oct 2006 | US |
| Child | 11783724 | US |
