Non-polar series battery compartment structure of gas meter

Abstract

The invention relates to the technical field of gas metering equipment, in particular to a power supply structure design of an intelligent gas meter. A non-polar series battery compartment structure of a gas meter comprises a battery compartment main body, a plurality of compartment grids which are sequentially arranged and used for containing series batteries are arranged in the battery compartment main body, and the two ends, in the battery loading direction, of each compartment grid are each provided with a contact elastic piece set of the same structure; the contact elastic sheet groups of the compartments are connected in series through a preset cross bridge circuit, so that when any battery is loaded into any compartment in any polarity direction, the battery compartment structure can output total voltage with preset polarity and magnitude.

Description

Technical Field

[0001] This invention relates to the field of gas metering equipment technology, and in particular to the power supply structure design of smart gas meters. Background Technology

[0002] Smart gas meters commonly use alkaline batteries as their power source. Currently, most gas meter battery compartments employ a traditional series design, meaning the battery must be correctly installed according to the positive and negative terminals marked inside the compartment for the circuit to conduct. Users must carefully identify and ensure the battery's positive and negative terminals match the markings inside the compartment when replacing batteries. In dimly lit environments, when users have poor eyesight, or in a rush, it's easy to install the battery incorrectly. Incorrect battery installation will prevent the gas meter from powering on, creating an unnecessary false impression of a power outage. Users will then need to reopen the battery compartment and reinstall the battery, increasing the operational steps and causing inconvenience. If users mistakenly believe the gas meter is malfunctioning or the battery is depleted due to incorrect battery installation, they may make unnecessary repair requests or perform repeated operations, increasing service costs and safety risks.

[0003] Chinese patent document CN103441548A discloses a universal charger for a portable power bank with a non-polarized battery box device. Its core principle lies in automatically correcting battery polarity through electronic circuitry. Specifically, the device features an independent conversion circuit composed of MOSFETs at each battery insertion point. When the battery is inserted in any orientation, this circuit automatically detects and controls the current flow, ensuring the output terminal polarity remains correct, thus achieving non-directional battery installation.

[0004] However, the above solution has the following drawbacks. First, the MOSFET circuit it relies on still has a small leakage current even in the off state. For smart gas meters that rely on battery power for several years and are extremely sensitive to power consumption, this will continuously consume electrical energy, significantly shortening the battery life and failing to meet the industry requirements for ultra-low power consumption. Second, the device has a complex structural design, including sliding electrode contacts and other mechanical components. It is mainly optimized for charging scenarios of single or parallel batteries, rather than designed for a fixed structure that uses multiple batteries connected in series for boost power supply. Its reliability, environmental adaptability, and cost control are all difficult to meet the specific requirements of the embedded power supply compartment in gas meters. Summary of the Invention

[0005] To overcome the shortcomings of the prior art, a non-polar series battery compartment structure for a gas meter is provided.

[0006] This invention is achieved through the following technical solution: a non-polarity series battery compartment structure for a gas meter, comprising a battery compartment body, wherein the battery compartment body has multiple compartments arranged sequentially for accommodating series batteries, and each compartment has a contact spring group with the same structure at both ends along the battery insertion direction; the contact spring groups of each compartment are connected in series with each other through a preset cross-bridge circuit, so that when any battery is inserted into any compartment in any polarity direction, the battery compartment structure can output a total voltage of preset polarity and magnitude.

[0007] This invention features identical contact spring sets at both ends of each battery compartment, eliminating the traditional fixed identities of "positive" and "negative" contacts at the physical interface. When a user inserts a battery in any orientation, the battery's positive and negative terminals will always make contact with the inner and outer ring springs of a single contact spring set. Crucially, all the contact spring sets in each compartment are connected in series through a pre-designed "cross-bridge circuit" to form a unified network. Regardless of the polarity of an individual battery within its compartment, its voltage is "absorbed" and redirected by this network in a specific manner, ultimately ensuring that the total voltage polarity and magnitude seen from the entire battery compartment output (Vcc+ and GND) always maintain the preset correct value. Therefore, users do not need to determine any orientation, achieving truly polarity-free installation.

[0008] In a preferred embodiment of the present invention, the contact spring assembly includes: an inner ring spring for contacting the positive electrode protrusion of the battery; an outer ring spring, coaxially sleeved outside the inner ring spring for contacting the negative electrode plane of the battery; and an insulating ring disposed between the inner ring spring and the outer ring spring for electrical isolation.

[0009] In a preferred embodiment of the present invention, the inner ring spring is a circular elastic copper sheet, and the outer ring spring is an annular elastic copper sheet.

[0010] In a preferred embodiment of the present invention, the connection structure of the cross-bridge circuit is as follows: along the battery series connection direction, for any adjacent Nth and N+1th compartments, the outer ring spring at one end of the Nth compartment is connected to the inner ring spring at the bottom and the outer ring spring at the top of the N+1th compartment respectively via conductive lines; at the same time, the outer ring spring at the other end of the Nth compartment is connected to the inner ring spring at the top and the outer ring spring at the bottom of the N+1th compartment respectively via conductive lines; where N is an integer greater than or equal to 1.

[0011] In a preferred embodiment of the present invention, the two inner ring springs of the first compartment located at the beginning of the series circuit are electrically connected and constitute the positive output terminal of the battery compartment structure; the two outer ring springs of the last compartment located at the end of the series circuit are electrically connected and constitute the negative output terminal of the battery compartment structure.

[0012] In a preferred embodiment of the present invention, the contact spring assembly is provided with protrusions; the battery compartment body is provided with a slot that engages with the protrusions.

[0013] In a preferred embodiment of the present invention, each compartment of the battery compartment body is provided with at least one guide rib on its inner wall.

[0014] In a preferred embodiment of the present invention, the side of the battery compartment body is provided with a through hole for welding and leading out connecting wires.

[0015] In a preferred embodiment of the present invention, when no battery is installed, the distance between the center point of the inner ring spring of each contact spring group and the reference plane of its installation position is less than the distance between the outer edge of its outer ring spring and the same reference plane.

[0016] As a preferred embodiment of the present invention, a smart gas meter includes a non-polar series battery compartment structure for the gas meter.

[0017] Compared with the prior art, the present invention has the following beneficial effects:

[0018] This invention provides a non-polar series battery compartment structure for gas meters, which eliminates the need for users to distinguish between positive and negative terminals when replacing batteries, greatly improving operational convenience and fault tolerance. It effectively avoids false alarms and service costs caused by reversed battery installation, fundamentally improving the user experience.

[0019] Furthermore, by adopting a symmetrical design where the inner ring spring contacts the positive electrode protrusion and the outer ring spring contacts the negative electrode plane, combined with an insulating ring for electrical isolation, a reliable electrical connection is ensured, and internal short circuits that may be caused by reverse battery installation are fundamentally prevented, thus ensuring safe use.

[0020] Furthermore, the inner and outer ring springs are made of elastic copper, which not only ensures excellent conductivity, but also maintains continuous contact pressure with the battery terminals through elastic deformation, resisting vibration and deformation; its clear circular and ring structure can accurately fit the geometry of standard batteries, which is conducive to standardization and low-cost manufacturing.

[0021] Furthermore, this invention, through a specific cross-bridge circuit structure, enables the automatic correction of the polarity of any single battery cell in the series circuit. Regardless of the orientation of a single battery cell, it can make a positive contribution to the total voltage, thereby achieving global fault tolerance for battery polarity.

[0022] Furthermore, this structure clearly defines the overall input and output of the battery compartment, providing a stable and constant power output port for the non-polarized system. Regardless of the internal battery orientation, the positive and negative terminals of the output remain unchanged, simplifying the main control board's power interface design, eliminating the need for additional polarity detection circuitry, improving system reliability, and reducing complexity.

[0023] Furthermore, the contact spring assembly, with its protrusions, fits tightly into the slots on the battery compartment body, enabling quick, accurate, and secure installation without the need for screws or adhesive. This fixing method effectively prevents the contact spring assembly from loosening due to repeated battery insertion and removal or vibration, ensuring long-term structural stability and electrical connection reliability.

[0024] Furthermore, guide ribs on the inner walls of each compartment in the battery compartment guide the battery to slide in along the correct axis, preventing misalignment, jamming, or scratching against the contact spring assembly during installation. This protects the springs, reduces installation difficulty for users in dimly lit environments, and improves the user experience and product durability.

[0025] Furthermore, the through-holes on the side of the battery compartment facilitate the soldering and routing of connecting wires from the outside. This design simplifies the assembly process, improves production efficiency, facilitates subsequent maintenance and inspection, and helps maintain the neatness of the internal wiring, avoiding the risk of interference or short circuits that may be caused by messy wires.

[0026] Furthermore, by defining the shape of the contact spring assembly when it is not installed, the center point of the inner ring spring is made more convex, while the outer edge of the outer ring spring is relatively concave. This design optimizes the contact mechanical properties after the battery is pressed in, ensuring that the inner ring spring can preferentially and tightly contact the positive electrode protrusion of the battery, while allowing the outer ring spring to obtain sufficient elastic travel and contact pressure, ensuring synchronous and reliable dual contacts.

[0027] Applying the aforementioned non-polarized battery compartment structure to smart gas meters can significantly improve the user experience and maintenance efficiency of end products. Users can easily and accurately replace batteries without training, greatly reducing service requests and "false failures" caused by improper operation, enhancing product market competitiveness, and driving progress in user-friendliness within the gas meter industry.

[0028] Other features and advantages of the present invention will be disclosed in detail in the following detailed description and accompanying drawings. Attached Figure Description

[0029] The invention will be further described below with reference to the accompanying drawings:

[0030] Figure 1 This is a schematic diagram of the contact spring assembly of the present invention;

[0031] Figure 2 This is a cross-sectional view of the contact spring assembly of the present invention;

[0032] Figure 3 A schematic diagram of the structure and circuit of a non-polar series battery compartment structure for a gas meter according to the present invention;

[0033] Figure 4 A schematic diagram of the storage compartment structure of the present invention.

[0034] The annotations in the attached figures are explained as follows:

[0035] Battery compartment body 1, compartment 11, contact spring group 2, inner ring spring 21, outer ring spring 22, insulating ring 23, battery 3. Detailed Implementation

[0036] The technical solutions of the embodiments of the present invention will be explained and described below with reference to the accompanying drawings. However, the following embodiments are only preferred embodiments of the present invention and not all of them. Other embodiments obtained by those skilled in the art based on the embodiments in the implementation methods without creative effort are all within the protection scope of the present invention.

[0037] In the following description, terms such as “inner,” “outer,” “upper,” “lower,” “left,” and “right” are used only to facilitate the description of embodiments and simplify the description, and are not intended to indicate or imply that the device or element referred to must have a specific orientation, or be constructed and operated in a specific orientation, and therefore should not be construed as a limitation of the present invention.

[0038] like Figures 1 to 4 This embodiment provides a non-polar series battery compartment structure for a gas meter according to the present invention. Its core lies in achieving non-directional installation of multiple series-connected batteries through a completely passive mechanical structure and circuit design. The structure mainly includes a battery compartment body 1, multiple series-connected compartments 11, and identical contact spring groups 2 disposed at both ends of each compartment 11.

[0039] The battery compartment body 1 is preferably integrally injection molded from insulating plastic, and its interior forms multiple (usually four) cylindrical compartments 11 arranged in a straight line to accommodate standard AA or AAA alkaline batteries 3. Each compartment 11 has a set of contact springs 2 fixedly installed at both ends along the battery insertion direction (i.e., axial direction). The inner wall of each compartment 11 preferably has two or more axially extending guide ribs, which can guide the user when inserting the battery 3, ensuring that the battery 3 slides in accurately along the axis and avoids side scratches with the contact springs 2.

[0040] like Figure 1As shown, the contact spring assembly 2 is a key component of this invention, and it adopts a symmetrical design. Each contact spring assembly 2 includes a circular inner ring spring 21, an annular outer ring spring 22 coaxially sleeved outside the inner ring spring 21, and an insulating ring 23 disposed between the two. The inner ring spring 21 is preferably a flexible circular copper sheet with a diameter of 5 mm, designed to contact the metal protrusion of the positive electrode of the battery 3; the outer ring spring 22 is preferably a flexible annular copper sheet with an inner diameter of 7 mm and an outer diameter of 10 mm, designed to contact the flat end face of the negative electrode of the battery 3. The insulating ring 23 is usually made of plastic, which completely isolates the inner ring spring 21 and the outer ring spring 22 physically and electrically to prevent short circuits. To ensure a secure installation, the contact spring assembly 2 is provided with protrusions. Correspondingly, the battery compartment body 1 is machined with a slot. Through the interference fit between the protrusions and the slot, the contact spring assembly 2 can be securely snapped onto the end of the compartment 11, making it convenient to weld the contact spring assembly 2 onto the compartment 11.

[0041] To achieve non-polarity functionality, all contact spring groups 2 of all compartments 11 are connected by wires according to a specific "cross-bridge circuit". For example... Figure 3 As shown, this is a schematic diagram of the circuit principle of the present invention (for clarity, structures such as insulating rings are omitted). The specific connection rules are as follows: Along the series connection direction of the batteries 3, for any two adjacent compartments (defined as the Nth compartment and the N+1th compartment), the outer ring spring 22 at one end (e.g., the top) of the Nth compartment is connected to the inner ring spring 21 at the bottom (opposite end) and the outer ring spring 22 at the top (same side) of the N+1th compartment through two conductive wires, respectively; at the same time, the outer ring spring 22 at the other end (e.g., the bottom) of the Nth compartment is also connected to the inner ring spring 21 at the top and the outer ring spring 22 at the bottom of the N+1th compartment through two conductive wires, respectively. Here, "top" and "bottom" only describe the relative positions. This connection pattern is repeated between all adjacent compartments 11.

[0042] The input and output terminals of the entire circuit are defined as follows: In the first compartment 11 at the beginning of the series circuit, the two inner ring spring contacts 21 at both ends are short-circuited together by a wire, serving as the positive output terminal (Vcc+) of the entire battery compartment structure; in the last compartment 11 at the end of the series circuit, the two outer ring spring contacts 22 at both ends are short-circuited together by a wire, serving as the negative output terminal (GND) of the entire battery compartment structure. All connecting wires can be soldered and led out through through holes on the side of the battery compartment body 1.

[0043] In a preferred design, to ensure contact reliability, such as Figure 2As shown, in the state without battery 3 installed, the height of the center point of the inner ring spring 21 of each contact spring assembly 2 relative to its mounting reference plane is set to be slightly higher than the height of the outer edge of the outer ring spring 22. This ensures that when battery 3 is installed, the positive electrode protrusion will preferentially contact the inner ring spring 21 and press it down, and then the negative electrode plane will contact the outer ring spring 22, thereby ensuring that both contact points can obtain sufficient and stable elastic pressure.

[0044] When a user inserts four batteries 3 into the four compartments 11 in any orientation, each battery 3 will cause the contact spring groups 2 at both ends of its respective compartment 11 to carry a specific potential. Due to the existence of the cross-bridge circuit, if any battery 3 is installed in reverse, the reverse voltage it provides will not cause the circuit to break or the total voltage to cancel out. Instead, it will be "absorbed" by the circuit topology and redirected. From the perspective of the overall network effect, the voltage contributions of all batteries 3 are ultimately superimposed in the same direction, thus maintaining a preset 6V voltage between the positive output terminal (Vcc+) and the negative output terminal (GND) (taking four 1.5V batteries as an example), and the polarity is always correct.

[0045] The above are merely specific embodiments of the present invention, but the scope of protection of the present invention is not limited thereto. Those skilled in the art should understand that the present invention includes, but is not limited to, the contents described in the accompanying drawings and the specific embodiments above. Any modifications that do not depart from the functional and structural principles of the present invention will be included within the scope of the claims.

Claims

1. A non-polar series battery compartment structure for a gas meter, comprising a battery compartment body (1), wherein the battery compartment body (1) has a plurality of compartments (11) arranged sequentially for accommodating series-connected batteries (3), characterized in that, Each of the compartments (11) is provided with contact spring groups (2) with the same structure at both ends along the battery (3) insertion direction; the contact spring groups (2) of each compartment (11) are connected in series with each other through a preset cross-bridge circuit, so that when any battery (3) is inserted into any compartment (11) in any polarity direction, the battery (3) compartment structure can output a total voltage of preset polarity and magnitude.

2. The non-polar series battery compartment structure for a gas meter according to claim 1, characterized in that, The contact spring assembly (2) includes: an inner ring spring (21) for contacting the positive electrode protrusion of the battery (3); an outer ring spring (22) coaxially sleeved outside the inner ring spring (21) for contacting the negative electrode plane of the battery (3); and an insulating ring (23) disposed between the inner ring spring (21) and the outer ring spring (22) for electrical isolation.

3. The non-polar series battery compartment structure for a gas meter according to claim 2, characterized in that, The inner ring spring (21) is a circular elastic copper sheet, and the outer ring spring (22) is an annular elastic copper sheet.

4. The non-polar series battery compartment structure for a gas meter according to claim 2, characterized in that, The connection structure of the cross-bridge circuit is as follows: along the series connection direction of the battery (3), for any adjacent Nth and N+1th compartments, the outer ring spring (22) at one end of the Nth compartment is connected to the inner ring spring (21) at the bottom and the outer ring spring (22) at the top of the N+1th compartment respectively through a conductive line; at the same time, the outer ring spring (22) at the other end of the Nth compartment is connected to the inner ring spring (21) at the top and the outer ring spring (22) at the bottom of the N+1th compartment respectively through a conductive line; where N is an integer greater than or equal to 1.

5. The non-polar series battery compartment structure for a gas meter according to claim 4, characterized in that, The two inner ring springs (21) of the first compartment located at the beginning of the series circuit are electrically connected and constitute the positive output terminal of the battery (3) compartment structure; the two outer ring springs (22) of the last compartment located at the end of the series circuit are electrically connected and constitute the negative output terminal of the battery (3) compartment structure.

6. The non-polar series battery compartment structure for a gas meter according to claim 2, characterized in that, The contact spring assembly (2) is provided with protrusions; the battery compartment body (1) is provided with a slot that engages with the protrusions.

7. The non-polar series battery compartment structure for a gas meter according to claim 1, characterized in that, Each compartment (11) of the battery compartment body (1) has at least one guide rib on its inner wall.

8. The non-polar series battery compartment structure for a gas meter according to claim 1, characterized in that, The battery compartment body (1) has through holes on its side for welding and leading out connecting wires.

9. A non-polar series battery compartment structure for a gas meter according to claim 2, characterized in that, When the battery (3) is not installed, the distance between the center point of the inner ring spring (21) of each contact spring group (2) and the reference plane of its installation position is less than the distance between the outer edge of its outer ring spring (22) and the same reference plane.

10. A smart gas meter, characterized in that, Includes a non-polar series battery compartment structure for a gas meter as described in any one of claims 1 to 9.

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