Hi! I have found an mind-numbingly perfect Li-polymer battery balancing and charge monitoring chip:
http://focus.ti.com/docs/prod/folders/print/bq78pl114.html - Pros - Does an exquisite job of cell monitoring *and* balancing - Does reasonable if not totally over the top charge gauging - Has 5 LED status output (a must have for coolness) - Talks I2C ("SMB", and is compabible with SBS 1.1) - One chip solution to *everything* on the battery pack - Cons - WAY too god damn complicated and way to overengineered - Wait, that's a CON?! It's just a great little chip, but it needs a dedicated person to understand it, design the board, and, in essence, write an API for it for the software folks so they know how to read it. If no one steps up to the plate, I'll do it, but I'd much rather help someone do it since I'm crunched for time. Andrew -- ------------------------------------------------------- Andrew Greenberg Portland State Aerospace Society (http://psas.pdx.edu/) and...@psas.pdx.edu P: 503.788.1343 C: 503.708.7711 ------------------------------------------------------- _______________________________________________ psas-avionics mailing list psas-avionics@lists.psas.pdx.edu http://lists.psas.pdx.edu/mailman/listinfo/psas-avionics
