Pre-chilling heat sink driving device

Abstract

A pre-chilling heat sink driving device mainly improves the existing heat sink that simply uses the temperature change of a heat source of an electronic device as a parameter source to determine its rotary speed, and the present invention uses a parameter source that will affect the heat source to produce a temperature rise as the parameter source for accelerating the rotation of the heat sink if a temperature rise to the heat source of the electronic device is expected, and thus the invention normally maintains the heat source at a normal operating temperature to assure the operational performance.

Description

FIELD OF THE INVENTION

The present invention relates to a pre-chilling heat sink driving device and its control method, more particularly to a pre-chilling heat sink driving device that timely controls the rotary speed of a heat sink and effectively lowers the temperature of an electronic device.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

Since the precision technology is well developed, the electronic device 10 is getting smaller day after day. However, the demand for high performance continues and the issue of heat dissipation for the electronic device 10 becomes more serious than ever. With reference to FIG. 1, most temperature sensing heat sinks 60 disclosed in the patented technologies and products adopt a design of using a temperature detection circuit 40a of a thermistor or any temperature sensitive component to continuously detect the temperature change of a heat source of the electronic device 10 during its operation. If the temperature of a hot source detected by the temperature detection circuit 40a exceeds a predetermined standard, then a signal will be sent to a drive circuit 50 to control a heat sink 60 to accelerate its rotary speed as to increase the cooling efficiency. However, such arrangement no longer can meet the requirements of an electronic device 10. If the electronic device 10 is a power supply for example and the power of an external power source 30 is supplied to the electronic device 10 and converted into a power output for a load 20 and the potential of such load 20 is increased (resulting an increase to the load 20), then the electronic device 10 will automatically start its operation with the power that gives rise to an increase of temperature to the heat source. It is necessary to wait for a while, before the heat sink 60 starts accelerating its rotary speed to lower the temperature. Since the high power output conditions of the electronic device 10 remains unchanged, the heat sink 60 can only suppress the temperature of the heat source operated under a high power output condition, but cannot really achieve the objective of effectively lowering the temperature. Furthermore, the temperature change of the electronic device 10 has a critical point, and the predetermined temperature standard of a general temperature detection circuit 40a bases on this critical point as a standard. In other words, the traditional temperature sensing heat sink 60 can only give a virtual temperature drop, so that the electronic device 10 will continue its operation under a high-temperature environment. Furthermore, even though the equipped heat sink 60 is capable of effectively lowering the temperature, the components in the electronic device 10 gain tremendous heat before the temperature drops. Therefore, the electronic device 10 still has the shortcomings of lower performance and short life, due to its hot expansion and cold contraction effect or an increase of its thermal impedance.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

Therefore, the primary objective of the present invention is to solve the foregoing problems and avoid the existing deficiencies by adopting a suppression measure to detect a parameter source that will affect the heat source to produce a temperature rise and use such parameter source as the parameter source for controlling the rotary speed of a heat sink instead of the traditional way of controlling the rotary speed of a heat sink by increasing the temperature and then lowering the temperature of a heat source of an electronic device. Thus, the electronic device and its heat source in accordance with the present invention achieve the effects of suppressing a temperature rise and operating normally in a specific temperature range.

To achieve the foregoing objective, the present invention is applied to an electronic device having a heat source and a pair of heat sinks for lowering the temperature of the heat source, and the electronic device comprises a drive circuit for controlling the efficient of the heat sinks, wherein the drive circuit is connected to a detection circuit, and the detection circuit obtains a detective signal from a parameter source that will affect the heat source to produce a temperature rise, such that the detection circuit outputs an acceleration signal or a deceleration signal to the drive circuit according to the detective signal for controlling the heat sink to pre-chill or lower the temperature of the heat sink in advance.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

FIG. 1 is a schematic circuit block diagram of the temperature sensing drive circuit according to a prior art.

FIG. 2 is a schematic circuit block diagram of a preferred embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 3 is a schematic view of a first control method according to the present invention.

FIG. 4 is a schematic view of a second control method according to the present invention.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS

The above and other objects, features, and advantages of the present invention will become apparent from the following detailed description taken with the accompanying drawing.

Please refer to FIG. 2 for the present invention, which is applied to an electronic device 10 having a heat source and a pair of heat sinks 60 for lowering the temperature of the heat source, and the electronic device 10 installs a drive circuit 50 for controlling the performance of lowering the temperature of the heat sink 60, wherein the drive circuit 50 is connected to a detection circuit 40, and the detection circuit 40 obtains a detective signal from a parameter source that affects the heat source to produce a temperature rise, and based on the detective signal, the detection circuit 40 outputs an acceleration signal or a deceleration signal to the drive circuit 50 to control the heat sink 60 for pre-chilling or lowering the temperature of the heat source in advance.

Please refer to FIG. 3 at the same time. The control method of the present invention maintains a normal rotary speed of the heat sink 60 or sets it to a suspending status. By the drive circuit 50 or detection circuit 40, a parameter source that affects the temperature change of the heat source is obtained. If the value change of a detective signal obtained from the parameter source increases, the rotary speed of the heat sink 60 is accelerated or the operation D is started to suppress the temperature rise of the heat source; if the value of the temperature change drops, then the heat sink 60 maintains its current state and continues the detection.

The present invention could also work jointly with a current existing temperature sensing control method as shown in FIG. 4, and this method is described below:

A. The heat sink 60 maintains a normal rotary speed or suspends its operation;

B. Check whether or not the temperature of the heat source exceeds the temperature standard by installing a predetermined value of the temperature standard in the drive circuit 50 for detecting the heat source. If the temperature of the heat source is lower than the value of the temperature standard, the heat sink 60 will normally keep its regular rotary speed or stop operating and go to the next step. If the temperature of the heat source is higher than the value of the standard temperature, then the heat sink 60 will accelerate its rotary speed to lower the temperature or start the operation for lowering the temperature D;

C. Receive and determine an external parameter change value: The detection circuit 40 obtains a parameter source that affects the temperature change of the heat source; if the value of the change of a detective signal obtained from such parameter source increases, the heat sink 60 accelerates its rotary speed or starts the operation D to suppress the temperature rise; and if the value of the change drops, then the heat sink 60 will maintain its existing conditions and continue its detection.

The heat sink 60 adopted in the present invention could be a primary heat sink under normal operating conditions or a standby heat sink when it is idle. The electronic device 10 could be a computer system or a power supply, and the following embodiment adopts a power supply to describe the parameter source that affects the heat source and the control method in accordance with the present invention as follows.

1. The parameter source is a power source 30 for supplying the electric power for the operation of an electronic device 10. According to the measures adopted by the current existing technology, an electronic device 10 is usually connected to a power supply 30 such as an uninterruptible power supply in addition to a local electric power. If the power input quality cannot be maintained to a standard voltage (such as 110V) for the electronic device 10, the electronic device 10 working with a poor power input quality which is lower than the standard voltage (such as an actual input voltage of 90V) and calculated by the same power conversion standard has to improve its operating performance to maintain a normal power output. Then, the electronic device 10 will cause a temperature rise to the heat source due to a power loss. In the present invention, if the detection circuit 40 has detected a fluctuation of the power input signal S2, a signal will be sent to the drive circuit 50 to accelerate the rotary speed of the heat sink 60 and lower the temperature of the heat source to cope with the increased power loss of the electronic device 10. Therefore, the heat source is suppressed and its operation is maintained at an environment with a regular temperature. The heat source of this embodiment is a power conversion component such as a transformer, a capacitor or an inductor installed in the electronic device 10, and the detective signal could be an ON/OFF signal or a power conversion signal of a power supply 30 in addition to the power input signal S2. If the electronic device 10 is a backup power supply comprised of a stack of power supplies, the detective signal could be an operation performance ratio signal S1 (such as in a load 20 balance status) of the heat source. For example, the balance ratio of the load 20 for each of the five sets of power supplies is 20%, and if one set breaks down, the rest four sets of power supplies have to increase their balance ratio of the load 20 from 20% to 25% for each of the rest four power supplies, and thus the heat sink 60 has to accelerate its rotary speed to improve its performance of lowering the temperature.

2. If the parameter source is the load 20 driven by an output signal of the electronic device 10, then the power outputted and converted from the electronic device 10 must provide many loads 20, and the power consumption of the loads 20 determines whether the electronic device 10 is partially or fully loaded, and also determines a temperature change at different power performance of the heat source of the electronic device 10. Particularly, external devices are very popular now and these external devices will affect the power performance of the electronic device 10. By then, the detective signal of the present invention is a power consumption signal S3 of the load 20. If there is a change of quantity or potential value of the loads 20 connected to the electronic device 10, a detective signal will be obtained by a detect unit, so that the heat sink 60 can accelerate its rotary speed and improve its performance of lowering the temperature according to the power performance of different electronic devices 10.

The aforementioned two control methods are provided as examples for describing the embodiment of the present invention. The detection circuit 40 and the drive circuit 50 of the present invention can be integrated into an integrated circuit, and the pin assignment of the integrated circuit depends on the quantity of different parameter sources. The present invention also can be used jointly with the existing temperature sensing control method, so that if the electronic device 10 is still operated abnormally and a temperature rise is resulted after eliminating each setting parameter source, the electronic device 10 will directly output a temperature change signal S4 to the drive circuit 50 and let the drive circuit 50 control the heat sink 60 to accelerate the rotary speed of the heat sink 60 as to achieve the purpose of lowering the temperature in a similar way.

While the invention has been described by means of specific embodiments, numerous modifications and variations could be made thereto by those skilled in the art without departing from the scope and spirit of the invention set forth in the claims.

Claims

1. A pre-chilling heat sink driving device, being applied to an electronic device having a heat source and a pair of heat sinks for lowering the temperature of said electronic device, and said electronic device including a drive circuit for controlling and lowering the temperature performance of said heat sink, characterized in that:

said drive circuit is coupled to a detection circuit, and said detection circuit obtains a detective signal from a parameter source that affects said heat source to produce a temperature rise, and said detective signal drives said detection circuit to output an acceleration signal or a deceleration signal to said drive circuit for controlling said heat sink to pre-chill and lower the temperature of said heat source in advance.

2. The pre-chilling heat sink driving device of claim 1, wherein said parameter source is a power source for supplying the electric power for the operation of said electronic device.

3. The pre-chilling heat sink driving device of claim 2, wherein said detective signal is an ON/OFF signal, a power input signal or a power conversion signal of said power source.

4. The pre-chilling heat sink driving device of claim 1, wherein said parameter source is a load driven by an output signal of said electronic device.

5. The pre-chilling heat sink driving device of claim 4, wherein said electronic device is a power supply.

6. The pre-chilling heat sink driving device of claim 4, wherein said detective signal is a load power consumption signal.

7. The pre-chilling heat sink driving device of claim 1, wherein said detective signal is an operation performance ratio signal of said heat source.

8. The pre-chilling heat sink driving device of claim 1, wherein said electronic device having a heat source and a pair of heat sinks for lowering the temperature of said electronic device is a power supply.

9. The pre-chilling heat sink driving device of claim 1, wherein said electronic device having a heat source and a pair of heat sinks for lowering the temperature of said electronic device is a computer system.

10. The pre-chilling heat sink driving device of claim 1, wherein said detection circuit or said drive circuit further detects said heat source for obtaining a temperature change signal.

11. The pre-chilling heat sink driving device of claim 1, wherein said drive circuit is controlled by a method comprising:

said heat sink maintaining a normal rotary speed or pausing its operation;

detecting whether the temperature of said heat source exceeds a temperature standard by pre-installing a temperature standard in said drive circuit for detecting said heat source; if the temperature of said heat source is lower than said temperature standard, then said heat sink normally maintains a regular speed for its operation or stops operating to go to the next step; if the temperature of said heat source is higher than said temperature standard, then said heat sink accelerates its rotary speed to lower the temperature or starts the operation of lowering the temperature; and

receiving a parameter change value by obtaining a parameter source that affects the temperature change of said heat source, and if the change value of a detective signal obtained from said parameter source increases, the rotary speed or initial operation of said heat sink suppresses the temperature rise of said heat source, and if said change value drops, then said heat sink maintains its current conditions and returns to a previous step for continuing its detection.

12. The pre-chilling heat sink driving device of claim 1, wherein said drive circuit is controlled by a method comprising:

said drive circuit obtaining a parameter source that affects the temperature change of said heat source if said heat sink maintains a normal rotary speed or pauses its operation;

said heat sink accelerating its rotary speed or starting the operation of suppressing the temperature rise of said heat source, if said parameter source detects an increase of said change value of a detective signal; and

said heat sink maintaining its current conditions and continuing its detection if said change value drops.