The real issue with external power source for Insight battery charging is the SOC determination, and the charge termination. The pack can be damaged by over charging, and the detection of the full condition based on voltage alone is not sufficient to assure proper SOC determination.
Whatever the source of charge current, the charge must be stopped when the pack is full.
The Insights pack is monitored for amps in/out, to determing SOC. The temperature is monitored on the whole pack, as well as on several subpacks. There are 10 taps to measure the voltage of each subpack.
It has been demonstrated that the SOC monitoring hall effect ammeter can be easily fooled into thinking that more charge than actual or less charge than actual is happening.
When I get into fooling with the battery pack, I will hijack the battery voltage monitoring, and SOC amp monitoring signals, and replace them with signals that I generate with a new battery management system. That way with MIMA to control the charging, and my own monitoring system, larger capacity packs could be used, or packs with completely different chemistrys could be used.
Step one is to monitor all pack temperatures, and subpack voltages, as well as determining the SOC indepentantly in MIMA. Then we will have the info to do our own pack monitoring, and charge control. This would be accomplished with another Micro based system just for battery management. The results of this monitoring will allow us to fool the stock system into displaying the correct SOC on the battery bargraph, even if the new pack were of different capacity.
Lots of possibilities.
:wink:
Whatever the source of charge current, the charge must be stopped when the pack is full.
The Insights pack is monitored for amps in/out, to determing SOC. The temperature is monitored on the whole pack, as well as on several subpacks. There are 10 taps to measure the voltage of each subpack.
It has been demonstrated that the SOC monitoring hall effect ammeter can be easily fooled into thinking that more charge than actual or less charge than actual is happening.
When I get into fooling with the battery pack, I will hijack the battery voltage monitoring, and SOC amp monitoring signals, and replace them with signals that I generate with a new battery management system. That way with MIMA to control the charging, and my own monitoring system, larger capacity packs could be used, or packs with completely different chemistrys could be used.
Step one is to monitor all pack temperatures, and subpack voltages, as well as determining the SOC indepentantly in MIMA. Then we will have the info to do our own pack monitoring, and charge control. This would be accomplished with another Micro based system just for battery management. The results of this monitoring will allow us to fool the stock system into displaying the correct SOC on the battery bargraph, even if the new pack were of different capacity.
Lots of possibilities.
:wink:
