JP2009194060A - Fan, electronic device, fan stop detection method, program and recording medium - Google Patents

Abstract

<P>PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide a fan which achieves a fan monitoring function using the fan with a built-in RFID tag, an electronic device, a fan-stop detection method, a program and a recording medium. <P>SOLUTION: The fan for cooling an electronic component includes an RFID tag, an activation means for activating the RFID tag with the stop signal of the fan as a switch, and a wireless communication means for wirelessly communicating that the fan is stopped from the activated RFID tag. <P>COPYRIGHT: (C)2009,JPO&INPIT

Description

  The present invention relates to a fan, an electronic device, a fan stop detection method, a program, and a recording medium, and more particularly to a fan, an electronic device, a fan stop detection method, a program, and a recording medium including an RFID tag.

  Various electronic devices are generally formed using active devices such as a large number of semiconductor integrated circuits mounted on a circuit board and passive elements such as resistors and capacitors. A power supply unit or the like that supplies the operating power of the electronic circuit is housed in a housing.

  Various units constituting such an electronic circuit generate heat during operation. The internal temperature of the electronic device casing rises due to heat generation. Since the reliability of various devices decreases when the temperature rises, a method of cooling using a fan is well known.

Fans are parts that need to be replaced regularly. Further, if the electronic device is continuously moved in a state where the fan is stopped, the temperature inside the casing rises and the life of the electronic device is shortened. In order to prevent this, an apparatus having a fan monitoring function (fan drive stop detection circuit or the like) from the design time is known (see Patent Documents 1 and 2) since it is quickly replaced when the fan stops.
JP 2004-71516 A JP 2005-57119 A

  However, since the fan monitoring function provided in the electronic device is incorporated at the time of design, there is a problem that the fan monitoring function cannot be added later. In the case of a device that does not have a function of monitoring a fan, it is necessary to perform a periodic inspection in order to check whether the fan is operating. Also, it is necessary for humans to check whether the fan is moving. If the fan is not in a position where it can be checked from outside the case, the case must be opened and the inside of the device checked. It was very inefficient.

  In addition, even if a monitoring function is provided, the number of fans that can be monitored is limited, and there is a problem that all devices that use a large number of fans cannot be monitored.

  The present invention has been made in view of such a situation, and an object thereof is to realize a fan monitoring function using a fan incorporating an RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) tag.

  A first fan according to the present invention is a fan for cooling an electronic component, and includes an RFID tag, starting means for starting the RFID tag by using a stop signal of the fan as a switch, and a fan from the started RFID tag. And wireless communication means for wirelessly communicating that the communication has stopped.

  A second fan according to the present invention is a fan for cooling an electronic component, and includes an RFID tag, starting means for starting the RFID tag by using an alarm signal of the fan as a switch, and an alarm from the started RFID tag. And wireless communication means for wirelessly communicating the occurrence.

  A first electronic device fan according to the present invention includes the first or second fan, an RFID reader that receives wireless communication from the RFID, and a communication unit that communicates by connecting to a network. The fan includes at least one fan, and the communication unit transmits data received from the RFID tag by the RFID reader from the communication unit to an external device via a network.

  A first fan stop detection method according to the present invention is a fan stop detection method for detecting a stop of a fan that cools an electronic component, and activates an RFID tag included in the fan by using the fan stop signal as a switch. And a step of wirelessly communicating that the fan has stopped from the activated RFID tag.

  A first fan stop detection program according to the present invention is a fan stop detection program for detecting a stop of a fan that cools an electronic component, and activates an RFID tag included in the fan by using the fan stop signal as a switch. The computer is caused to execute a process and a process of wirelessly communicating that the fan is stopped from the activated RFID tag.

  A first recording medium according to the present invention is a computer-readable recording medium that records the processing of the first fan stop detection program.

  According to the present invention, a fan monitoring function can be realized using a fan incorporating an RFID tag.

  Embodiments of the present invention will be described below in detail with reference to the drawings. The embodiments described below are preferred embodiments of the present invention, and thus various technically preferable limitations are given. However, the scope of the present invention is particularly limited in the following description. As long as there is no description of the effect, it is not restricted to these aspects.

  The present invention is characterized in that an RFID reader is connected to a general-purpose interface such as USB (Universal Serial Bus) using a fan with a built-in RFID tag, and the RFID reader detects a stop of the fan by reading a radio signal from the RFID tag. And Furthermore, it is also possible to notify the administrator in real time using communication means such as a LAN (Local Area Network) possessed by the device with data read by the RFID reader.

  In this specification, an RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) tag is also referred to as a wireless tag, an ID tag, or an RF tag, and reads data in a semiconductor memory in a non-contact manner by an induction electromagnetic field or radio wave, and performs short-range communication for writing. It is a general term for things. RFID reader is a general term for radio base stations, readers / receivers, and the like.

  FIG. 1 is a schematic circuit diagram of a fan according to an embodiment of the present invention. The fan 1 includes an RFID tag 6. The RFID tag 6 starts when the power 4 is supplied by using the stop signal 3 of the fan 1 as a switch. The activated RFID tag transmits a radio signal.

  Specifically, the fan 1 outputs a stop signal 3 when stopped, and connects the signal to the base of the transistor 5. When the stop signal 3 is output, a current flows through the base of the transistor 5, and the power supply 4 is supplied to the RFID tag 6 from the power supply 4 supplied to the fan 1. The RFID tag 6 supplied with the power supply 4 transmits a radio signal.

  FIG. 2 is a schematic configuration diagram of an electronic apparatus having fans 8, 16, and 17 having RFID tags. The fan is used as a cooling device for a CPU (Central Processing Unit) 7, for example.

  The RFID reader 12 reads data transmitted from an RFID tag built in the fan. Specifically, when the RFID reader 12 receives the wireless signals 13 to 15, it can be seen that the fans 8, 16, and 17 provided in the electronic device are stopped.

  The RFID reader 12 is connected to a general-purpose interface 11 such as a USB (Universal Serial Bus). The RFID reader 12 receives the radio signal 13 from the RFID tag built in the RFID built-in fan 8 and manages the received data in real time from the communication means (for example, LAN 9) provided in the electronic device via the general-purpose interface 11, for example. It is possible to report the fan stop to the person terminal.

  Such a notification system is realized by an application for reporting data read by the RFID reader 12 using communication means of an electronic device. As a result, it is possible to detect the stop of the fan in real time without the need for human confirmation of the fan.

  Even if an electronic device does not have a function to monitor the stop of an existing fan, the fan stop can always be monitored from the outside by replacing the existing fan with the fan having a built-in RFID according to this embodiment. . Further, by sending the monitoring data obtained by the RFID reader from the communication means as described above, it is possible to know the monitoring status of the fan from a remote location in real time.

  Next, the operation process from the fan stop to the notification according to the embodiment of the present invention will be described. FIG. 3 is a flowchart showing operation processing according to the present embodiment.

  When the fan 1 is operating normally, the power supply 4 is not turned on to the RFID tag 6 and the RFID tag 6 does not transmit a radio signal (step S1 / No).

  When the fan 1 stops (step S1 / Yes), the fan stop signal 3 is output (step S2).

  Using the output of the stop signal 3 as a switch, the power supply 4 is supplied to the RFID tag 6, and the RFID tag 6 is activated (step S3).

  The RFID tag 6 supplied with the power supply 4 transmits a radio signal (step S4). The RFID reader 12 receives a radio signal from the RFID tag 6 (step S5).

  When the RFID reader 12 receives the signal, the application uses the electronic device communication means (LAN 9) to notify the administrator terminal of the abnormality detection (step S6).

  According to the above-described embodiment, if a fan with a built-in RFID tag is used, it is possible to monitor fan stop even in an electronic device that does not have a function of monitoring fan stop. In particular, the monitoring function can be realized by replacing the fan with a built-in RFID tag according to the present embodiment with an existing fan.

  In addition, since RFID tags are used, there is no limit on the number of fans to be monitored.

  In addition, since the RFID tag is used, information on the stopped fan can be obtained from data transmitted from the RFID tag.

  Further, since the RFID reader is connected to the electronic device, it is possible to make a report using the communication means of the electronic device.

  As another embodiment of the present invention, the RFID tag activation switch may be other than the fan stop signal as described above. For example, it is conceivable to use an alarm signal.

  An alarm signal is output when the rotational speed of the fan drops below a certain value, and such an alarm signal can be used as a switch. Thereby, since it can detect that the fan rotation speed fell, abnormality can be detected before a fan stops completely.

  The program for the CPU to execute the processing shown in the flowchart of FIG. 3 constitutes a program according to the present invention. As a recording medium for recording the program, a semiconductor storage unit, an optical and / or magnetic storage unit, or the like can be used. By using such a program and a recording medium in a system having a configuration different from that of each of the above-described embodiments and causing the CPU to execute the program, substantially the same effect as the present invention can be obtained.

  Although the present invention has been specifically described above based on the preferred embodiments, it is needless to say that the present invention is not limited to the above-described ones and can be variously modified without departing from the gist thereof.

1 is a schematic circuit diagram of a fan including an RFID tag according to an embodiment of the present invention. It is a schematic block diagram of the electronic device which has a fan provided with the RFID tag which concerns on embodiment of this invention. It is a flowchart which shows the operation | movement process which concerns on embodiment of this invention.

Explanation of symbols

1 Fan 2 GND (Ground)
3 Stop signal 4 Power supply 5 Transistor 6 RFID tag 7 CPU
8, 16, 17 RFID tag built-in fan 9 LAN
DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 10 Network 11 General-purpose interface 12 RFID reader 13-15 Wireless signal 18 Administrator terminal

Claims (8)

A fan for cooling electronic components,
RFID tags,
An activation means for activating the RFID tag by using a stop signal of the fan as a switch;
And a wireless communication means for wirelessly communicating that the fan has stopped from the activated RFID tag. A fan for cooling electronic components,
RFID tags,
An activation means for activating the RFID tag with the fan alarm signal as a switch;
And a wireless communication means for wirelessly communicating that an alarm has occurred from the activated RFID tag.   3. The fan according to claim 2, wherein the alarm signal is generated when the rotation speed of the fan becomes equal to or lower than a predetermined rotation speed. A fan according to any one of claims 1 to 3,
An RFID reader for receiving wireless communication from the RFID;
A communication means for communicating by connecting to a network,
The fan includes at least one fan,
The electronic device, wherein the communication unit transmits data received from the RFID tag by the RFID reader from the communication unit to an external device via a network. The electronic device includes a general-purpose interface,
The electronic apparatus according to claim 4, wherein the RFID reader is connected to the general-purpose interface. A fan stop detection method for detecting a stop of a fan for cooling an electronic component,
Activating an RFID tag provided in the fan with the fan stop signal as a switch; and
Wirelessly communicating from the activated RFID tag that the fan has stopped, and a fan stop detection method. A fan stop detection program for detecting a stop of a fan that cools an electronic component,
A process of starting an RFID tag provided in the fan by using a stop signal of the fan as a switch,
A fan stop detection program causing a computer to execute a process of wirelessly communicating that a fan has stopped from the activated RFID tag.   A computer-readable recording medium for recording the processing of the fan stop detection program according to claim 7.

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