BATTERY PACK INCLUDING ELECTRONIC POWER SAVER

摘要

A housing (11) of a battery pack (10) contains in addition to standard powercell elements (14-16) a voltage converter (75).The voltage converter (75) is interposed between the power cell elements (14-16) and external output contacts (29, 30, 100) of thehousing (11). The voltage converter (75) regulates the output voltage appliedto the output contacts (29, 30, 100) of the batterypack (10), such that the supply voltage of the battery pack (10) remains at apredetermined value which is independent of thevoltage supplied by the power cell elements (14-16) to the voltage converter(75) and does not vary over the discharge cycle of thepower cell elements (14-16). Excess battery voltage available particularlyduring the initial portion of the discharge cycle of thepower cell elements (14 - 16) is efficiently converted to the predeterminedoutput voltage value which reduces the overall currentdelivered by the power cells (14-l6) to extend the useful life of the batterypack (10) between charges.