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US 8,134,308 B2Granted
Method for driving a PTC electrical load element
AssigneesFreescale Semiconductor, Inc., Conti Temic microelectronic GmbH
InventorsLaurent Guillot, Kamel Abouda, Philippe Rosado, Helmut Henssler, Uli Joos, Josef Schnell, Norbert Stuhler
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Abstract
A method is intended to make it possible to drive a PTC electrical load element with a switching unit with the highest possible operational reliability. For this purpose, the electric current is switched off if a predetermined current threshold value is exceeded, the magnitude of the current threshold value being determined from the operating parameters of the load element.
Claims20
Method for driving a PTC electrical load element with a switching unit comprising:
- switching off an electric current to the PTC electrical load element by the switching unit when a current threshold value is exceeded;
- changing the current threshold value depending on an operational time of the PTC electrical load element;
- determining a parameter value of at least one operating state and/or operating parameter of the load element in case the electrical current is switched off;
- and
- setting the current threshold value depending on the determined parameter value when said electrical current is switched on.
2 more elements
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.