Patent Application
20100007315
The present invention relates to a technology of improving the efficiency and reducing the loss of a power supply device, and more particularly to a power supply device that improves the efficiency of the load balance of a high-efficiency power adapter and its control method by a detection circuit and a switch module to achieve a power saving effect.
As present existing computers usually come with a power supply device (Power supply/PSU) for supplying a 110V or 220V AC power through an external cable, and a power conversion circuit (such as a forward conversion circuit or a twin crystal forward conversion circuit) converts the 110V or 220V AC power into a plurality of 12V, 5V or 3.3V DC voltage sources required by hardware equipments such as a motherboard, a hard disk, and an optical disk drive. However, in a practical application of the power adapter, there is a power output balance issue. For instance, if an output voltage (+3.3V) bears a higher load, the voltage (+5V or +12V) also requires a specific load for balancing the load of the voltage (+3.3V). If the voltage (+5V or +12V) has an insufficient load, the output voltage (+3.3V) will be reduced, and an under voltage protection device for the output voltage in the power supply device will be started. As a result, the power supply device will be turned off. The aforementioned phenomenon occurs frequently when the power supply device is actually connected to the motherboard. Since the design of motherboards produced by different manufacturers varies, some motherboards have an unbalanced load of the output voltage of the power supply device when the system boots instantly, and thus the system cannot boot. In general, if a system cannot boot, users will attempt to reboot the system and waste electric power, or send the system for repair and delay their job or increase the maintenance and repair costs.
Even if the prior art has one or more sets of output load structures for bearing a minimum load required by the load balance as shown in
As the energy crisis becomes increasingly serious, we can save tens of billions of kWh power each year if the operation efficiency of the power supply device can be enhanced for the huge number of computer uses (U.S. well-known Forrester Research estimates that the number of personal computers used in the whole world will be up to one billion by the end of 2008), and thus finding a way of improving the operation efficiency of the power supply device demands immediate attentions, innovative breakthroughs and feasible solutions.
In view of the foregoing shortcomings of the prior art having a poor operation efficiency of power conversion and the system compatibility issue, the inventor of the present invention based on years of experience to conduct extensive researches and experiments, and finally developed a high-efficiency load power adapter and its control method with a smooth and efficient power-saving balanced load power adapter and its control method to overcome the shortcomings of the prior art and fulfill a long desired need.
Therefore, the primary objective of the present invention is to provide a high-efficiency power supply device and its control method that adds a load balance detection circuit and a switch module for detecting the status of one or more sets of power output load terminal. If the load is not balanced, then the switch module is connected to one or more sets of resistor to show a closed circuit status to achieve a load balance. If the load is balanced, then the switch module is connected to one or more sets of resistor to show an open circuit status, so as to reduce the power consumption.
A further objective of the present invention is to provide a high-efficiency power supply device and its control method, such that the power adapter adds a load balance detection circuit for detecting a status of the output voltage, current or waveform of a power output load terminal, such that a balance load device is started before the protection of the power supply device is operated to achieve a load balance and improve the compatible of the power supply device and the motherboard to avoid system down and enhance the operation efficiency of the power supply device, so as to achieve the power saving effect and improve the economic efficiency.
To achieve the foregoing objective, the present invention provides a power supply device comprising a power conversion circuit, and a load balance detection circuit. The power conversion circuit further includes at least one set of switch module, a resistor connected in series with the switch module through an electric circuit, and a power output load terminal for driving a load. The resistor is connected in parallel with a load driven by the power output load terminal. The load balance detection circuit us coupled to the power conversion circuit and the switch module, so that the load balance detection circuit can detect whether or not a load driven by one or more sets of power output load terminals is balanced. If the driven load is not balanced, then the switch module will be connected to one or more sets of resistor to show a closed circuit status, so as to achieve a load balance. If the load is balanced, then the switch module will be connected to one or more sets of resistors to show an open circuit status, so as to reduce power consumption.
To make it easy for our examiner to understand the technical characteristics and performance of the present invention, preferred embodiments together with related drawings are used for the detailed description of the present invention as follows.
The above and other objects, features and advantages of the present invention will become apparent from the following detailed description taken with the accompanying drawing.
With reference to
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After the system boots, each load is no longer situated at an unbalanced condition anymore during the instant boot. Now, the balance load device will turn off the switch module (to show an open status) to reduce the power consumption of the resistor, so that the power supply device can achieve a higher efficiency of power saving.
The detection circuit is the load balance detection circuit 14 as described in the first preferred embodiment, and the balance load device is the switch module 15 and the resistor 16 described in the first preferred embodiment. In the aforementioned step (3), if each set of output load is balanced, then the system operation as described in Step (5) will be performed as shown in
Therefore, the installation of the detection circuit can perform a load test (including the tests for the booting stage and the system operating stage) anytime. If the load is not balanced, then the balance load device will be turned on to achieve a load balance, so as to improve the compatibility between the power supply device and the motherboard, prevent the system from being unable to boot, enhance the operating efficiency of the power supply device, achieve the power saving effect and a high economic efficiency.
In summation of the description above, the present invention improves over the prior art and complies with the patent application requirements, and thus is duly filed for patent application.
While the invention has been described by means of specific embodiments, numerous modifications and variations could be made thereto by those skilled in the art without departing from the scope and spirit of the invention set forth in the claims.
