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WCL CORPORATION ANNOUNCES THE DEVELOPMENT OF A FULLY CUSTOMIZABLE
ACTIVE CURRENT, VOLTAGE OR POWER LIMITATION CIRCUIT FOR USE IN
INTRINSICALLY SAFE BATTERY-POWERED APPARATUS, US PATENT PENDING
On December 22, 2016, the United States Patent and Trademark Office
(PTO) published (Publication Number US 2016/0372917 A1) a patent
application by co-inventors Albert Abnett of Caliber Instruments,
Nevada, Ohio and William Lowers of WCL Corporation, Columbus, Ohio.
Because all industrial applications are different, the basic circuit
requires broad ability to customize over variations in cell type,
ambient temperature range, load current, cell voltage, number of
cells in series (actual circuit voltage), and operation over all
states of cell charge/discharge, set points, and several other
parameters. This ability to deal with this variability in
specifications delivers wide applicability to this circuit.
The advantages of active limitation, particularly for current, are
that the traditional method of current limitation in Intrinsically
Safe circuits is passive resistance for which the manufacturer pays
a high price. Lost battery life given up as heat in the resistance,
leads to increased charge cycles, reduced life on rechargeable
battery packages, increased maintenance costs for primary cell
(non-rechargeable) replacement, and difficult engineering tradeoffs
between voltage, loss of headroom for voltage regulators and the
like. The loss in active circuits is tenths of ohms versus sometimes
several ohms, which causes the delivery of more voltage, better
charge utilization and other circuit performance improvements.
The heart of the invention is that our circuit uses energy from the
battery to test for voltage and current compliance in the load prior
to enabling full voltage and current to be delivered to the load.
Our prior art search indicated that this is new, and it is the
basis of our patent claims.
WCL Corporation is offering this circuit for sale to Hazardous
Location customers, with design services for the purpose of
customization. Use of the circuit in customer's or other company's
products will require the execution of our Value Added Reseller
(Royalty) Agreement, which will be specific for each application.
WCL Corporation is exploring other applications where the use of
this circuit can be beneficial including a wide variety of Lithium
Primary and Lithium Ion secondary battery protection in both ordinary
locations and Hazardous (Classified) Locations, including
introduction into other Hazardous (Classified) Locations technologies.
The published patent application can be found here. For more
information or a quotation, please call 614.451.9256 or fill out our
Contact Form.
We do require an Non-Disclosure Agreement be
executed before detailed technical information can be exchanged.
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