Power Supply Microcontroller Integrated Memory Fault Recording
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Solution Overview
Problem
Conventional power supplies lack integrated monitoring and data storage capabilities, making it difficult to diagnose faults and resulting in high costs due to unnecessary returns and lack of recorded operational data, which is crucial for fault analysis.
Innovation Solution
A power supply with a microcontroller integrated memory that monitors, records, and reports operating conditions, including efficiency, energy consumption, fault timestamps, and component temperatures, using non-volatile solid-state storage like EEPROM or flash memory, allowing for efficient fault diagnosis and prediction.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If conventional power supplies implement monitoring and data storage capabilities, then fault diagnosis capability is improved, but device complexity and cost increase
Solution Approach 1:
The patent merges the monitoring, data storage, and fault diagnosis functions into a single integrated system within the power supply unit. The microcontroller combines monitoring of operating parameters with direct access to non-volatile memory for storing fault records, eliminating the need for separate external memory devices and complex communication interfaces.
Solution Approach 2:
The microcontroller serves multiple functions simultaneously: it monitors operating parameters (voltage, current, temperature), stores fault records in integrated non-volatile memory, processes diagnostic information, and communicates with external systems. This multi-functional approach reduces overall system complexity while improving fault diagnosis capability.
2Loss of information
If power supplies store operational data in external memory, then data storage capability is improved, but cost and circuitry complexity increase
Solution Approach 1:
The patent integrates non-volatile memory directly within the microcontroller, combining the data storage function with the processing unit. This eliminates the need for separate external memory devices, reducing circuitry complexity while ensuring operational data is retained even when the power supply is returned for diagnosis without external system connection.
3Measurement precision
If power supplies lack recorded operational data, then device simplicity is maintained, but diagnostic accuracy decreases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent implements preliminary recording of operational parameters (voltage, current, temperature, power-on hours) and fault conditions in non-volatile memory before failures occur or before the power supply is returned for diagnosis. This ensures that diagnostic information is already available and preserved, improving diagnostic accuracy without requiring complex real-time data collection systems.
Data Source
AI summary
An apparatus, system, and method are disclosed for event, time, and failure state recording in a power supply. Disclosed is a power supply that receives AC voltage as an input and provides regulated DC voltage as an output; a microcontroller integrated into the power supply that regulates output voltage and monitors, records, and reports operating conditions of the power supply; and a non-volatile solid-state storage that can be repeatedly read from, written to, and erased by the microcontroller and integrated within the microcontroller such that only a single address is needed to access both the microcontroller and the solid-state storage, the solid-state storage configured to store operating data received from the microcontroller, the operating data including the recorded operating conditions of the power supply.