JPH04201751A - Alarm device for electrically-operated vehicle - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To prevent forgetting operation release by detecting a current amount, flowing in a power supply circuit to an externally additional device of a turn signal or the like, to obtain a fluctuation of output voltage, and actuating an alarm generating means in the case of fluctuating voltage in the predetermined reference voltage or more. CONSTITUTION:When a command of turn signal 'on' is input to an external addition device 2 by operating a switch 21, on-off action is started in a turn signal. Here, a current amount, flowing in the external additional device 2, is detected by a shunt resistor R, and a voltage signal Vi corresponding to this current amount is output from the shunt resistor R. Next, the output signal Vi is differentiated in a differentiating circuit 8 to obtain a differentiated output Vd input to an inverting input end of a comparator IC1. This signal Vd is compared with reference voltage V1, and in the case of a level of the signal Vd exceeding the reference voltage V1, an output of a monitoring alarm sound drive circuit 11 is set to 'L' by outputting a signal of L level to interruptedly generate an alarm sound matched with the on-off turn signal from a buzzer 12.

Description

[Detailed Description of the Invention] [Industrial Application Field] The present invention relates to a warning device for an electric vehicle, and is particularly suitable as a warning sound generating device when an external additional device (optional device) such as a turning signal is activated. The present invention relates to a warning device for an electric vehicle.

[Background technology] In electric vehicles such as electric tricycles, a dedicated alarm generator is attached to an external additional device such as a turning signal, the operation of the external additional device is monitored, and a warning sound or sound is emitted during the operation of the external additional device. Some devices are designed to generate operating noise. On the other hand, there are some types in which the installation of a warning sound generator is omitted because it is difficult to secure enough space to install the dedicated warning sound generator, and in consideration of cost.

[Problem to be solved by the invention]

However, in the case of the above-mentioned conventional type equipped with a dedicated alarm sound generator, the cost will inevitably increase compared to the type without this, and it is necessary to secure space for installation. For this reason, there are disadvantages in that the installation of other equipment is restricted in its location, or the device becomes larger. On the other hand, in the case of a type that does not include a dedicated warning sound generator, it is easy to forget to release the turning signal, etc., and in such a case, the vehicle may proceed in a direction different from the direction instructed, causing danger to others. Furthermore, since electric vehicles use batteries as a power source, forgetting to release the operation has a large effect on power consumption, and it is desirable to prevent this from happening.

[Purpose of the invention]

The present invention has been made in view of the problems associated with the conventional example, and its purpose is, in particular, to make the operator aware that an external additional device such as a turning signal is in operation, and to An object of the present invention is to provide a warning device for an electric vehicle that can be supplied at a relatively low cost.

[Means for Solving the Problems] The present invention provides current detection means for detecting the amount of current flowing from a power supply to a power supply circuit to an external additional device such as a turning signal, converting it into a corresponding voltage signal, and outputting it; It is provided with a signal processing means for processing the output signal from the current detection means, and an alarm generating means for generating an alarm in the event of an abnormality, which is attached to the signal processing means. The signal processing means includes a fluctuating voltage detecting section that detects fluctuations in the output voltage from the current detecting means, and an alarm generating means that compares the output voltage of the fluctuating voltage detecting section with a predetermined reference voltage. and a voltage comparison section that outputs an alarm generation command signal. This aims to achieve the above-mentioned objective.

〔Example〕

An embodiment of the present invention will be described below with reference to FIGS. 1 to 5.

FIG. 2 schematically shows the overall configuration of an electric vehicle equipped with the alarm device 1 according to this embodiment.

In this figure, the alarm device 1 consists of a shunt resistor R as a current detection means arranged in a power supply circuit from a battery 50 as a power source to an external additional device 2 such as a turning signal, and various monitoring circuits 3. It is configured.

The shunt resistor R connects the battery 50 to the external additional device 2.
Detects the amount of current flowing through the power supply circuit, converts it into a corresponding voltage signal, and outputs it.

Further, various monitoring circuits 3 include a drive motor control section 5
It also forms the main part of the main control device 10, and is supplied with the outputs and battery voltage of various sensors such as a temperature sensor (not shown) and a battery drain sensor that constitute the sensor section 4. When this various monitoring circuit 3 receives these outputs and detects an abnormality in each part, it sounds a buzzer of an alarm drive circuit (described later) to notify the outside of the abnormality, and if necessary, activates the alarm drive circuit from the accelerator device 20. It outputs a signal for canceling the accelerator signal input to the motor control unit 5.

FIG. 1 shows the specific configuration of the alarm device 1 together with external additional devices.

In this figure, the various monitoring circuits 3 include a signal processing means 6 for processing the output signal from the shunt resistor R;
The signal processing means 6 includes an alarm generation means 7 attached thereto.

Here, the signal processing means 6 includes a capacitor C1 that absorbs the noise component of the output signal from the shunt resistor R, an inductance L1 of a signal line that forms a low-pass filter (LPF) together with the capacitor C1, and a shunt resistor R. A differentiating circuit 8 serves as a fluctuating voltage detecting section that receives the output voltage V4 from the differentiating circuit 8 through an LPF and differentiates the voltage V and detects its fluctuation. The voltage comparator 9 outputs an alarm generation command signal to the alarm generation means 7 when the output voltage vd exceeds the reference voltage v1.

To explain this in more detail, the differentiating circuit 8 has a capacitor C2
The voltage comparator 9 includes a comparator ICI to which the output voltage 4 of the differentiating circuit 8 is applied to its inverting input terminal, and a resistor R2 that divides the voltage of a predetermined Vcc power supply. , R3.

A reference voltage (2) uniquely determined by the ratio of these resistance values is applied to the non-inverting input terminal of the comparator ICI. This comparator ICI
The output of is connected to a monitoring alarm drive circuit which will be described later.

The alarm generating means 7 includes a monitoring alarm drive circuit 11
and a buzzer I2.

Specifically, the monitoring alarm drive circuit 11 is configured as shown in FIG. 3, for example.

In FIG. 3, the monitoring alarm drive circuit 11 includes a first wired AND circuit 13, a common emitter transistor TRI whose collector is connected to the output of the first wired AND circuit 13, and a transistor TRI whose collector is connected to the output of the first wired AND circuit 13. A comparator IC2 whose output is connected to the base of TRI, and a second wired AND circuit 14 whose output is connected to the inverting input terminal of this comparator IC2.
It is composed of: Here, the transistor TR
The aforementioned buzzer 12 is connected to the collector of I, and the other end of this buzzer 12 is connected to the Vcc power supply.

A predetermined reference voltage is applied to the non-inverting input terminal of the comparator IC2. Further, point B at the output end of the comparator IC2 is connected to the Vcc power supply via a resistor, and is also connected to a flicker signal generation circuit 16 via a diode 15.
A wired AND circuit 17 is configured. Here, abnormality detection signals, which are "L" level signals, can be manually inputted to the first and second wired AND circuits 13 and 14 from various sensors and the like constituting the sensor section 4.

The external additional device 2 operates a turning signal or lights up lamps 22 such as a headlamp in response to an external operation of a switch 21 shown in FIG.

Next, the operation of the above embodiment will be explained with reference to FIGS. 4 and 5.

The switch 21 is operated and the turning signal is turned on.
) J command is input to the external additional device 2, the turning signal starts blinking, and at this time the external additional device 2
The amount of current flowing inside is detected by the shunt resistor R,
A voltage signal corresponding to this amount of current is output from the shunt resistor R.

This output signal (2) is shown in FIG. 4(a). Next, this output signal
It is input to the differentiating circuit 8 via F.

The differentiating circuit 8 differentiates this signal ■positive and produces a differential output ■d
Output. This output signal V4 is shown in FIG. 4(b). Subsequently, this signal V4 is input to the inverting input terminal of the comparator ICI constituting the voltage comparison section 9. Then, in the comparator ICI, this signal 4 is converted to the reference voltage input to the non-inverting input terminal, that is, the reference voltage 4.
Compared to 1, the level of signal 4 is the reference voltage.
If it exceeds , rl (low)" is output, otherwise rH (high)" is output. This output v0 is shown in Figure 4 (
C).

Therefore, every time the output of the comparator ICI becomes "L" level, the output of the first wired AND circuit 13 that constitutes the monitoring alarm drive circuit 11 becomes "L", and as a result, the buzzer 12 turns A warning sound will be emitted intermittently in conjunction with the blinking of the null.

FIG. 5 shows output waveforms of respective parts corresponding to FIG. 4 when the headlamp and turning signal are used simultaneously. In FIG. 5(a), 1. indicates the time when the headlamp starts lighting, t2 indicates the time when the turning signal starts operating, t3 indicates the time when the turning signal finishes operating, and L4 indicates the time when the headlamp turns off. Figures 4(b) and 5(b)
).

As is clear from the comparison between FIG. 4(c) and FIG. 5(c), in this case as well, the output of the signal processing means 6 is the same as when the headlamp is not used. As a result, the buzzer 12 starts emitting an alarm sound intermittently in synchronization with the flashing of the turning signal as before.

In addition, when the noise component of the signal, the current fluctuation component, etc. are high and the reference voltage V of the comparator ICI is set high because it is necessary to reliably separate the differential output 4 from these components, the output v0 of the signal processing means 6 When the convergence (interval between pulses) is narrow, as shown in Fig. 6, by adding a one-shot multivibrator 30 to the output stage of the comparator Icl, it is possible to obtain a signal as shown in Fig. 7 (C). The output of buffer 31 is ■. A wide pulse can be obtained by closing the pulse. FIG. 7(a) shows the output of the differentiating circuit 8, and FIG. 7(b) shows the output of the comparator ICI.

As explained above, according to this embodiment, external additional equipment such as a turning signal can be installed by using the buzzer 12 attached to the monitoring alarm drive circuit 11 that sounds in response to the input of abnormality detection signals from each sensor, etc. Since an alarm sound can be generated when WL2 is activated, there is no need to separately provide a dedicated alarm sound generator. Therefore, it is possible to reduce costs. In addition, it can be used simultaneously with a constant current load such as a headlamp, and even when the constant current load is activated,
It is possible to generate an alarm such as a turning signal in the same way as when the constant current addition is not used. Therefore, an external additional device, a headlamp, etc. can be connected to the same line.

〔Effect of the invention〕

As explained above, according to the present invention, the current detection means detects the amount of current flowing from the power supply to the power supply circuit to an external additional device such as a turning signal, converts it into a corresponding voltage signal, and outputs it. Further, the fluctuation of this output voltage is detected by a fluctuation voltage detection section constituting the signal processing means, and the output voltage of this fluctuation voltage detection section is compared with a predetermined reference voltage in a voltage comparison circuit. Case 1 For example.

If the output voltage of this fluctuating voltage detection section exceeds the reference voltage, or vice versa,! The pressure comparator outputs an alarm generation command signal to the alarm generation means. For this reason, by using the alarm generating means for abnormal alarms as a means for generating an alarm sound when a turning signal or the like is activated, there is no need to provide a dedicated alarm generator, and costs can be reduced in this respect. In addition, since the reference voltage of the voltage comparator is compared with the fluctuation of the output voltage of the current detection means, that is, the fluctuation of the detected current, if the load is a constant current, the external additional device and They can be connected on the same line, so there is no need to add more circuits each time the load increases.Therefore, an alarm can be emitted to alert the operator that an external additional device such as a turning signal is in operation. As a result, it is possible to effectively prevent forgetting to release the operation, and it is also possible to provide an unprecedented and excellent warning device for an electric vehicle that can be supplied at a relatively low cost.

[Brief explanation of the drawing]

1 is a circuit diagram showing the configuration of an alarm device according to an embodiment of the present invention, FIG. 2 is a bronch diagram showing the entire circuit configuration of an electric vehicle equipped with the alarm device of FIG. 1, and FIG. The figure is the first
Figure 4(a) to C) is a circuit diagram showing a specific configuration example of the monitoring alarm drive circuit, Figure 4(a) or C) is a diagram showing the output signals of each part of the alarm device when the turning signal is activated, and Figure 5(a) is a circuit diagram showing a specific configuration example of the monitoring alarm drive circuit.
) or C) is a line diagram showing the output signals of each part of the alarm system when the turning signal and headlamp are used at the same time, Figure 6 is a circuit diagram showing a modified example, and Figure 7 (a) or c) ) is a diagram showing output signals of each part in FIG. 6. 2...External additional device, 6...Signal processing means, 7...Alarm generation means, 8...Differentiating circuit as a fluctuating voltage detection section, 9 ...Voltage comparator, 5o... power supply and battery, R...
...Shunt resistor as a current detection means.

Claims (1)

[Claims] (1) A current detection means that detects the amount of current flowing from the power supply to the power supply circuit to an external additional device such as a turning signal, converts it into a corresponding voltage signal, and outputs it, and processes the output signal from this current detection means. and an alarm generation means for generating an alarm in the event of an abnormality, which is attached to the signal processing means, and the signal processing means includes a fluctuation voltage detection section that detects fluctuations in the output voltage from the current detection means. and a voltage comparison section that compares the output voltage of the fluctuating voltage detection section with a predetermined reference voltage and outputs an alarm generation command signal to the alarm generation means in a predetermined case. A warning system for electric vehicles.