A METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR DETERMINING BATTERY CHARACTERISTICS

摘要

A battery charging system (200) comprises a battery pack (206) and charger (202). Battery pack (206) includes a thermistor (212) for determining the temperature of battery pack (206) and a zener diode (210) in parallel with the thermistor (212) for informing charger (202) of the current capacity of battery (206) or of another battery parameter. Charger (202) includes a transistor (220) and zener diode (214) for effectively switching between measuring thermistor (212) and zener diode (210) at charger input terminal (224). This effectively reduces the number of battery and charger contacts required to measure two battery parameters as compared to the prior art.