• Data on CS pin (pluged to a charger)

    Thomas Flayols • 11/07/2022 at 08:00 • 0 comments

    Putting a scope on the CS line with battery connected to the charger, I can see some communication. It seems that the charger has a pull-up to 5V on his CS pin, and the battery generate the data with an open collector (or open drain) output.

    About the data itself:

    The frame seems constant and identical on my two 8Ah batteries. It is this a repeated sequence (about 4Hz). 

    Bit rate is 1kHz. At first I was thinking UART, but the stop bit doesn't match any 5-9 bits words with or without parity.

    For now this is how I interpret the data: The battery says it can be charged, maybe specifying the current depending on the battery model,  cell balancing state, temperature etc, but it doesn't seems to include sensor data itself.

    The charger do not respond back anything. I've included a 4.7kHz in series with the CS connection to confirm the data is only set low by the battery. This allowed me also to determine that the pullup value is about 7 kOhm.

    Something very useful to remember: When the charger is plugged, the Bluetooth is awakened. This might come handy if we decide to implement the under voltage protection via bluetooth.

  • Not so smart Battery?

    Thomas Flayols • 11/06/2022 at 09:20 • 0 comments

    I've played with the android app that connect to the battery via bluetooth. At first it looks really interesting with capacity %, charge and discharge current measurement, temperature etc.

    I've also took one apart to check the circuit:

    We can see a few interesting things:

    The bluetooth module is labeled BT7L and we can inf more information here https://developer.tuya.com/en/docs/iot/bt7l?id=K96gqp1dp6iiw It's a system on chip with programable MCU. The lidl app ask me for an OTA update of the battery. Good thing to keep in mind if we really want to push the hack and design a custom firmware ! There is also a pin header near the chipset that I suspect to be a programming or debug interface.

    We can see a the balancing circuitry in the middle. 

    On the left corner there is a push button that allows to wake up the bluetooth, and to show the charge state on 3 LEDs. A long press can enable / disable the BT.

    As I expected from other reviews (https://www.reddit.com/r/AskElectronics/comments/s2wswc/how_are_the_new_lidl_parkside_batteries_limit_the/)

    the output power pins are directly connected to the cells terminals (via a fuse).

    Current measurement?!

    I was thinking that the fuse (top right corner) was acting as a shunt resistor as well, to provide the "charge/discharge current" in the app.

    If I were to design this, I'd have put the shunt resistor on the lowside as it simplify a lot the design ! And surely they did not bother with a High side current measurement, this is just a Fuse. 

    How does the app report the current status then?! Here come the disappointment.

    I've hooked up the battery to a resistive load to draw 4Amps from the battery, run the app, and it shows ... 0A !

    I think the battery get this information from the tool itself. so there is some sort of communication going on.

    Pinouts of the battery

    From the PCB silkscreen:

    • P+ (Positive cell terminals)
    • CS  ?
    • DS  ?
    • P- (Negative cell terminals)

    I measured 12k Ohm between P- and CS, and 512 kOhm between P- and DS.

     CS pin is present on the charger and labeled "ID" (not a "smart" charger). DS in not.

    I do not have tools to spy the communication, If anyone have information please comment.

    My guess is that the battery need to be compatible with the old line. The fast charger needs to know which type of battery are installed. It also need to read the temperature of the cell to safely charge them.

    The tool needs to know the battery voltage to protect from over discharge, but of course it can do this by simply measure it internally. 

    I've connected a scope to the DS and CS lines while discharging the battery via resistive load and observed nothing (0V).

    It is difficult to follow the traces without accessing the bottom of the PCB.

    What next? 

    I really would like to RE the wired communication, but I don't want to buy expensive tool. I will have a look at the communication with the charger.

  • Select and buy batteries

    Thomas Flayols • 11/05/2022 at 13:12 • 0 comments

    So I've bought batteries from LIDL labeled PAPS 208 A1

    The specs are quite nice for the application I have in mind:.. a DIY ebike !

    • 20V 8Ah (6S2P) 21700 type cells 
    • High current < 100A
    • Bluetooth :
      • Settable discharge min discharge of the cells, 
      • Settable maximum output current
      • Reading of charge / discharge current
      • Reading of temperature
    • 60 Euros in France.

    I've also bought a dual fast charger (not "smart") for 28 Euros.