Embedded Lab

K.C. Lee‘s dual channel battery charger is a microcontroller-based efficient switching mode power supply design for not only the charging job but also for determining the charge/discharge characteristics of batteries.

Dual channel battery charger

It is a battery charger/analyzer. It is not going to save the world from an alien invasion or cure cancer or something equally noble. It is a nice tool for recycling or buying cheap batteries of unknown capacity/performance as it’ll let you test the discharge characteristics.

What set this charger design different are:

• Flexible power source – two independent buck/boost converters allow higher/lower than input voltage. So you could be charging batteries from USB, vehicle power or green power source such as unregulated power from small solar power panel/wind power etc.

• High switching frequency beyond traditional uC PWM type of design can offer. This allows for the use of much smaller components and also reduces input/output ripple current.

• During discharge mode, the switch mode converter works to draw power away from the battery. The power can be diverted to external use. e.g. charging a Super capacitor bank, light. etc.

• Scalable design for additional channels and/or higher power.