Patent Application
20090231148
The present invention relates to a structure to display operation status of a power supply and particularly to a structure that displays operation status of the power supply while rotation speed of an air fan changes due to alterations of operation temperature in the power supply.
A general power supply usually receives city power and transforms to DC power to provide electric power needed in a computer system. Nowadays due to performances of various devices in the computer system such as CPU, hard-disk drives, display cards and the like increase continuously, the power supply also has to provide greater output power to meet those requirements. The power supply of a greater output power generates a greater amount of heat and results in a higher operation temperature.
To overcome the problem of higher operation temperature of the power supply and enable the power supply to provide a desired amount of electric power required in a computer system, an intelligent power supply has been developed. It mainly has a sensor to detect the internal temperature of the power supply. In the event that the loading power of the power supply increases and results in a higher internal temperature, the sensor outputs a detection signal to drive a fan control circuit to increase the rotation speed of an air fan to quickly lower the operation temperature. In addition, to allow users to be informed of output power, temperature or air fan rotation speed of the power supply while the computer is operating, it also has a display device connecting to a first side or a second side thereof to display operation status of the power supply. For instance, R.O.C. patent No. M258494 entitled: “Power supply equipped with loading condition display function” discloses a power supply connecting to a loading display interface. The loading display interface is connected to a linear commutation circuit which is coupled with an output end of a power factor connection circuit located in the power supply. The linear commutation circuit captures output power of the power supply in a use condition and transmits to the loading display interface to display the value to inform users.
Although the aforesaid patent provides the power supply equipped with the loading display interface to enable the users to timely get the operation status of the power supply, to display the power value or amount of the power supply through the loading display interface requires adding the linear commutation circuit. Such a structure makes circuit design of the power supply more difficult.
The primary object of the present invention is to solve the aforesaid disadvantages. The invention provides a structure to display operation status of a power supply that is integrated in a fan driving circuit of a conventional intelligent power supply. The structure, exploiting the relationship of change of rotation speed of an air fan caused by alteration of operation temperature of the power supply, simulates and displays the operation status of the power supply to simplify circuit design.
To achieve the foregoing object, the power supply of the invention provides a power source to transform external power to DC driving power. The power supply has an air fan and a fan driving circuit which is connected to a detection element to detect operation temperature inside the power supply and output a temperature control signal. Through the temperature control signal, the fan driving circuit determines a DC driving power to drive the air fan to achieve a required rotation speed. The power supply further has a status display circuit which includes at least two sets of switches and lighting elements. The switches are set at different ON/OFF levels and triggered by the temperature control signal or the fan driving circuit to determine whether ON/OFF of the switches be activated. The lighting elements are connected to the switches and driven by the DC driving power to emit light in the ON condition of the switches. Hence when temperature changes and the rotation speed of the fan is altered, the status display circuit at the same time drives the lighting elements to alter and display the operation status of the power supply. Thus, there is no need to design an additional circuit to connect to the first side or second side of the power supply. The foregoing, as well as additional objects, features and advantages of the invention will be more readily apparent from the following detailed description, which proceeds with reference to the accompanying drawings.
Please refer to
In an embodiment of the invention, setting ON levels of the switches 16a, 16b and 16c are defined as 16c>16b>16a. The threshold values of ON are defined respectively 20%, 50% and 80% of the power of the power supply 1. When the power of the power supply 1 increases to 20%, the operation temperature of the power supply 1 increases, and the detection element 13 outputs the temperature control signal S1 to the fan driving circuit 14 to trigger the switch 16a ON so that the DC driving power Vs drives the lighting element 17a to emit light, while other switches 16b and 16c are still OFF due to they have higher ON levels and other lighting elements 17b and 17c remain OFF (referring to
As a conclusion, when the loading power of the power supply 1 increases the operation temperature also increases, then the fan driving circuit 14 drives the air fan 12 to increase the rotation speed. There is a corresponding relationship in terms of increase and decrease between the loading power of the power supply 1 and the rotation speed of the air fan 12. The invention exploits such a characteristic to integrate the status display circuit 15 with the fan driving circuit 14 so that when the rotation speed of the air fan 12 changes due to temperature alteration, the switches 16a, 16b and 16c also are triggered to set ON by the fan driving circuit 14 or the temperature control signal S1 to allow the DC driving power Vs to drive the lighting elements 17a, 17b and 17c to emit light to simulate and display the operation status of the power supply 1. Thus there is no need to install an additional output power acquiring means on the power supply 1 to free from the problem of complicated circuit design.
While the preferred embodiment of the invention has been set forth for the purpose of disclosure, modifications of the disclosed embodiment of the invention as well as other embodiments thereof may occur to those skilled in the art. Accordingly, the appended claims are intended to cover all embodiments which do not depart from the spirit and scope of the invention.
