Power Control Electronics

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Chris Spencer's Avatar (by Gravatar)Chris Spencer posted on
October 2, 2005, 11:05 pm
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I'm considering adding power control and regulation electronics to my
bot. I'd like this it to be able to turn itself off, read its battery
level, allow hotswapping of batteries, and handle recharging when an
external power supply is connected. Is this something most people design
from scratch, or are there any pre-designed boards you can buy? I've
Googled for it, but have found nothing. You'd think with the plethora of
boards out there for processing, sensors, and motor control, there would
be something for a mundane task like power regulation.

Chris

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Frithiof Andreas Jensen's Avatar (by Gravatar)Frithiof Andreas Jensen posted on
October 26, 2005, 12:41 pm
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Re: Power Control Electronics



Usually one rips a reference design.

Maybe Maxim http://www.maxim-ic.com/PowerSupplies.cfm  will have an
evaluation board for reasonable money that does what you want?

They tend to do a lot of battery applications.



Tim Auton's Avatar (by Gravatar)Tim Auton posted on
October 26, 2005, 2:38 pm
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Re: Power Control Electronics



There are battery management / power management ICs which may do some
of what you want - Maxim, National, TI and others make them. There are
a lot of options to wade through and most are designed for portable
devices so come in small (hard to hand-solder) packages.

Another option is a microcontroller and a custom board. The Open
Automaton Project has schematics and code for on-board power
management and an intelligent docking station, which you could modify
to fit your needs:

http://oap.sourceforge.net/

(look at the bottom of the Project page for the power management
stuff)


Tim
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