Battery Level Indicator

[AceOfHearts]

Hi every one,

I want to implement a simple battery level indicator, the level will be displayed on GLCD.

I have no idea on how to implement the hardware that measures the battery level. First of all, what are we measuring, is it the battery voltage level?

I need to measure 8AA batteries that is giving 12V.

Many thanks for any info and circuit diagrams.

PS. I know how to control the GLCD...its just building a suitable circuit to measure the battery level and reading this with the microcontroller connected to GLCD (which suggests that readings will have to be digitised...which means an ADC somewhere? )

Regards.

 

[k7elp60]

From the 12V, I would assume you are talking about alkaline batteries as Ni-Cads and NmH usually measure 9.6V.

 

[AceOfHearts]

From the 12V, I would assume you are talking about alkaline batteries as Ni-Cads and NmH usually measure 9.6V.

Hi k7elp60,

Yep its Alkaline batteries indeed.

 

[AllVol]

Hi k7elp60,

Yep its Alkaline batteries indeed.

Go to the Microchip web site, and in the search box at the top right of the page enter: DS41215C, and check all documents.

Guess what? Tip #1 tells you how to do what you want to do.

By the way, while you're there, familiarize yourself with all their self-help documents. There's a ton of information available on everything from 12-bit Base products all the way to dsxxxx.

 

[audioguru]

Go to www.energizer.com and look at Technical Info where thy hava a datasheet for each battery.
The voltage depends on how much current is being drawn and on how much capacity of the battery is left.

8 new AA alkaline batteries are 12V. If the load is 1A then the voltage quickly drops to 10.4V in about 15 minutes and drops to 8.0V in about 1 hour.

If the load current becomes less then the battery voltage increases. If the load current stops then the battery voltage might become 11.8v or 12v again.

8 AA Ni-MH cells are 12V when fully charged but quickly drop to 9.6V. They drop to 8V in about 1 hour at 1A but can be charged over and over.