I’m trying to finish up the PCBs for the boat this weekend and thought I’d share this little solution I thought was kind of neat.
Among other things, we need to measure the battery pack current, and fairly accurately This is mainly so the BMS can keep track of the approximate battery state of charge — i.e. percent charge remaining. To do this we need to measure the load current and the charger current all the time, and basically count coulombs in and out. (There are some more sophisticated things you can do by doing calibration, tracking impedance and temperature but I don’t plan on doing any of that craziness for something like this. There are some cool state of charge ICs out there as well, and you actually calibrate them with the cell you’ll be using. Pretty cool.)
Have an amazing project to share? Join the SHOW-AND-TELL every Wednesday night at 7:30pm ET on Google+ Hangouts.
Join us every Wednesday night at 8pm ET for Ask an Engineer!
Learn resistor values with Mho’s Resistance or get the best electronics calculator for engineers “Circuit Playground” – Adafruit’s Apps!
Maker Business — “Finally — some data on whether crowdfunding is a good investment or not”
Wearables — Sample code is your new best friend
Electronics — Meaningful gains
Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.