Connection device

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-10127173-B2
Application number	US-201414581852-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Dec 23, 2014
Priority date	Dec 23, 2014
Publication date	Nov 13, 2018
Grant date	Nov 13, 2018

Abstract

A connecting device comprises housing, a board with electrical components, including at least one digital bus connection and an input/output section. It allows outsourcing of analog and digital I/O from a connected device, e.g. an HVAC actuator control unit by decentralizing inputs and outputs.

First claim

The invention claimed is:

1. A connecting device configured for HVAC applications, comprising:
a) a housing;
b) a board with electrical components, including at least one digital bus connection;
c) an input/output section; and
d) a bus cable and an I/O cable,
e) wherein a cable jacket of the I/O cable and a cable jacket of the bus cable are fixedly attached to the housing, such that the connecting device, including the respective cable or the respective cables, forms a single cabling unit.

2. The connecting device according to claim 1 , wherein the board includes a microprocessor in order to pre-process the signals in the sense of a decentralized intelligent device.

3. The connecting device according to claim 1 , wherein the input/output section includes a gateway, and the gateway comprises at least one of the group consisting of a wireless gateway such as Bluetooth, EnOcean, ZigBee and NFC, a wire based technology such as BACNET, Modbus and an infrared gateway.

4. The connecting device according to claim 1 , wherein the input/output section also includes signal conditioning means including one of voltage converters and voltage to current converters.

5. The connecting device according to claim 1 , wherein at least one of the cable jacket of the I/O cable and a cable jacket of the bus cable is attached without screw connections to the housing, the attachments of the at least one of I/O cable and a cable jacket being a leak proof connection.

6. An HVAC system, comprising:
a. a damper or valve actuator including a control unit with a digital bus interface;
b. an electrical peripheral device including one of a sensor and an actuator;
c. a connecting device including a housing, a board with electrical components, and a digital bus cable; and
d. the board including at least one digital bus connection and an input/output section,
e. wherein the digital bus cable connects the control unit of the damper or valve actuator to the digital bus connection of the board, and
f. wherein the electrical peripheral device is connected to the input/output section.

7. The HVAC system according to claim 6 , wherein a cable jacket of the bus cable is fixedly attached to the housing of the connecting device without screw connections to the housing, and the connection of the cable jacket of the bus cable to the housing is leak proof.

8. The HVAC system according to claim 7 , wherein a cable jacket of the I/O cable is fixedly attached to the housing of the connecting device.

9. The HVAC system according to claim 8 , wherein the cable jacket of the bus cable and the cable jacket of the I/O cable are fixedly attached to the housing of the connecting device.

10. The HVAC system according to claim 6 , wherein the connecting device includes an I/O cable which connects the electrical peripheral device to the input/output section of the connection device.

11. The HVAC system according to claim 6 , wherein the board is mounted inside the housing, the board being encapsulated insider the housing with a synthetic resin.

12. The HVAC system according to claim 6 , wherein the housing has an elongated rectangular body.

13. The HVAC system according to claim 6 , wherein the digital bus connection is a 3-wire digital bus connection including a signal wire, a power wire, and a ground wire.

14. The HVAC system according to claim 6 , wherein the board includes a microprocessor in order to pre-process the signals in a sense of a decentralized intelligent device.

15. The HVAC system according to claim 6 , wherein the input/output section includes at least one of a digital input, an analogue input, a digital output, an analogue output, and a digital gateway.

16. The HVAC system according to claim 15 ,
wherein the digital bus cable provides a connection to a bus master,
wherein at least one of a digital output, an analogue output, and a digital gateway is connected to a peripheral device, and
wherein a signal can be transmitted from the bus master to a respective input of the peripheral device.

17. The HVAC system according to claim 15 ,
wherein the digital bus cable provides a connection to a bus master,
wherein at least one of the digital input, the analogue input, and the digital gateway is connected to the electrical peripheral device, and
wherein a signal can be transmitted from a respective output of the electrical peripheral device to the bus master.

18. The HVAC system according to claim 6 , wherein the connecting device comprises an external memory including a scalable memory allowing data logging.

Assignees

• Belimo Holding Ag

Inventors

• Schmidlin Peter
• Grogg Silvio

Classifications

• H05K1/16

  incorporating printed electric components, e.g. printed resistors, capacitors or inductors · CPC title

• G05B2219/1204

  Multiprocessing, several plc's, distributed logic control · CPC title

• G06F13/364

  using independent requests or grants, e.g. using separated request and grant lines · CPC title

• G05B2219/2208

  Each processor controls a different function of the machine · CPC title

• H05K1/182

  associated with components mounted in printed circuit boards [PCB], e.g. insert-mounted components [IMC] · CPC title