Mains powered battery charger with overcurrent switching - uses electronic circuit to measure rectifier or battery voltage and compute and display average voltage per cell

摘要

The battery charger comprises a rectifier (2), an automatic current interrupter (12) between the rectifier output and the battery (24) under charge, and a battery voltage measurement and display circuit (16,18). There are two connections to the voltage measuring circuit (16), one (28) from the rectifier output, and the other (34) from the battery terminals through a diode (32) connected in reverse parallel with the current interrupter (12). The diode has its anode connected to the positive battery terminal (22) and allows battery voltage to be displayed in digital format when rectifier output falls below the battery voltage. The electronic circuit (18) performs the operation of division of the total battery voltage by the number of cells in the battery and displays the average voltage per cell.