LiPo Charger Design
Wudagem wrote 07/12/2017 at 12:15 • 0 pointsDoes anyone have any designs kicking around of a real balance charger for LiPOs? Most chargers seem to do balance discharging rather than balance charging, which means putting more wear on the weak cells in the pack (good for the battery manufacturers). The only one I can find is http://www.wattflyer.com/forums/showthread.php?t=20575 which requires a transformer I can't find a source for. Aside from using transformer(s) to get isolated voltages for each cell, any other ideas?
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Thanks, the TI docs appear to be using resistive balancing as well, the BQ4050 used in the second TI link appears to have 200ohm balance resistors internally. The TP4056 module is interesting, but I was aiming for 5A charge current, building the CCCV part isn't terribly hard, the trouble I'm having is coming up with a way to do the isolated power supply for each cell without needing large transformers or multitap transformers. (if there is a way)
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I've been experimenting with this devboard:
http://www.ti.com/tool/tida-00553
It is a multi-cell, balanced LIPO charger and fuel guage with an I2C interface. I have the devboard it works great. I'm planning on using this in my next design.
This doesn't work well for high power applications like quadcopters because the required current sense resistor is too large but this other design does:
http://www.ti.com/tool/tida-00982?HQS=sys-ind-md-drones-pr-rd-tida00982-wwe
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This guy is looking at options for lithium ion: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCeLvy6HuxVhxluphQ8cp8pQ
I have seen someone used a TP4056 module for individual cells and used an isolated power supply for each module so he can connect them in series. Again, that was on YouTube but I don't have a link.
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