I have another idea for my Battery Managment System. The other system allowed me to pull energy out of the batteries into the main pack to prevent over-charging. That system still required a seperate charger system, which can be expensive. I decided to reverse it and only control energy flowing into the batteries.
Basically it is a charger for each battery, centrally controlled. That allows individual charging of each battery, preventing over-charging. That isn't a very new idea. But each of these chargers will run from an unregulated DC bus, not AC. When the batteries are under load this DC bus is tied to the main pack voltage. Instead of shunting energy from strong batteries the system will add extra energy for weak batteries that can't quite keep up. It gets this energy from the whole pack. Yes, it isn't very efficient if the battery is very unballanced, but if the batteries are well matched it won't do much of anything. It is there to keep some batteries from being destroyed if they get too unballanced.
The unregulated DC charger current would be as simple as full-wave rectified 120VAC and a capacitor. Each charger will measure current and voltage for the battery it monitors and relay the information to a central controller. The central controller will be able to monitor each battery, adjusting the charging profiles so each battery is at the same state of charge. It would be bad if all of the batteries did not get the same charge when disconnected from the charger and used to power a load.
Is this circuit basically sound?
Thanks for you opinion,
-- Paul
Basically it is a charger for each battery, centrally controlled. That allows individual charging of each battery, preventing over-charging. That isn't a very new idea. But each of these chargers will run from an unregulated DC bus, not AC. When the batteries are under load this DC bus is tied to the main pack voltage. Instead of shunting energy from strong batteries the system will add extra energy for weak batteries that can't quite keep up. It gets this energy from the whole pack. Yes, it isn't very efficient if the battery is very unballanced, but if the batteries are well matched it won't do much of anything. It is there to keep some batteries from being destroyed if they get too unballanced.
The unregulated DC charger current would be as simple as full-wave rectified 120VAC and a capacitor. Each charger will measure current and voltage for the battery it monitors and relay the information to a central controller. The central controller will be able to monitor each battery, adjusting the charging profiles so each battery is at the same state of charge. It would be bad if all of the batteries did not get the same charge when disconnected from the charger and used to power a load.
Is this circuit basically sound?
Thanks for you opinion,
-- Paul
