Dancy
Feb 20, 2004, 03:06 PM
After investigating LiPo batteries I have come to the conclusion that the best way to manage ones expensive batteries is to do so one cell at a time. I am proposing a modular buss system using a lightweight carrier/plug for each cell that would allow the user to easily connect individual cells into usable packs. I.E. say a 3s4p or 3s3p, what ever. Then using the same carrier/plug connects each cell to its own charger for maintenance. I found an intelligent charger chip available from National Semiconductor via Digikey http://www.digikey.com/. They stock this chip and all of the support components. It looks like the charger could be built on a PC board for a cost of under $10 each. The charger boards could be connected to a common power supply and added as the user increases the number of cells in their configuration. The data sheet from NS http://www.national.com/ds/LM/LM3621.pdf illustrates a one-amp charger but I believe it could be easily boosted to 2 to 5 amps to handle the high capacity cells we all are using. Any thoughts or comments would be greatly appreciated.
Dan Clemens
Dan Clemens