Importance

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Abstract

A battery detect circuit (32) is connected to the battery with the current input to the battery and extracted from the battery measured with a sense resistor (50) and then converted to charge and discharge pulses with a V/F converter (52). A microcontroller (64) is operable to increment a Nominal Available Charge (NAC) register (180) during a charge operation, and to increment a Discharge Count Register (DCR) (184) during a discharge operation. The NAC register (180) indicates the available charge, which value is output to a display (34). The maximum value to which the NAC value can rise is limited by a value stored in the last measured discharge register (182). This value represents the value stored in the DCR (184) whenever the battery is discharged from an apparent full state to a fully discharged state. This results in a qualified transfer to the LMD register (182) such that no knowledge of the actual battery charge is necessary.

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First Claim