Abstract: In a secondary cell charging apparatus and secondary cell charging method, an internal power supply circuit of a personal computer is used as a power supply for performing a charging operation on a secondary cell. The personal computer uses a charging processing operation program and displays information relating to the charging operation.

Abstract: An electrical vehicle energy supply system has an electrical vehicle which carries in a prescribed location a freely removable cassette-type battery and an energy supply station which has at all times a plurality of the cassette-type batteries and which performs charging processing of units of these batteries which include the number of batteries required by one such electrical vehicle, and performs the function of storing said batteries in a fully charged condition. In this system, when an electrical vehicle enters the energy supply station, all of the batteries are removed therefrom, these being replaced by an equal number of fully charged batteries that had been stored at the energy supply station, the single or multiple batteries that had been removed from the electrical vehicle being charged, the electrical vehicle heading toward a next energy supply station and the energy supply station awaiting the arrival of a next electrical vehicle.

Abstract: In a secondary battery charging system and charging apparatus, when using either a step-down method or a constant-current/constant-voltage method of charging a secondary battery, a switching regulator is used to vary the charging current supplied to a secondary battery in accordance with the duty cycle of one pulse, so that a voltage that exceeds a pre-established voltage value is not applied to the secondary battery.

Abstract: A high-speed secondary cell charging system is provided which accurately measures the amount of time to achieve a full-charge condition in a secondary cell. In this system, when charging a secondary cell while detecting a charging characteristic of the secondary cell, charging is performed of the secondary cell using a prescribed amount of charging current. Then, when a prescribed condition with regard to the secondary cell is detected, the secondary cell is charged once again, this time with a current that is smaller than the previous charging current. When a condition indicating the completion of the charging of the secondary cell is detected, the charging is stopped. If this condition is not detected, a yet smaller charging current is set and the charging of the secondary cell is performed once again, the above operations being repeated until a condition which indicates that the charging of the secondary cell is complete is detected.