Battery simulator design

Jun 28, 2008 4 Replies

I'm thinking of building myself a (one-off) battery simulator to test some LiIon charging ICs I'm using. The "battery's" voltage would be between, say,



1-4.5V, sourcing current up to 7A and sinking current up to 3A. To build this I'm thinking...


-- Totem-pole output: 5V bus to P-channel FET to "Vbat" terminal, Vbat to N-channel FET to ground



-- Error amplifier compares battery's setpoint voltage (adjusted by a pot) to the Vbat terminal



-- If Vset - Vbat > 0, I need to souce current -- take the error voltage, compute 5V-Verr with an op-amp, feed to P-channel FET's gate



-- If Vset - Vbat < 0, I need to sink current -- invert the error voltage, feed to N-channel FET's gate



So effectively then are two control loops (one for each FET), both being run off the same error amplifier output.



Does this sound reasonable? Is there an even simpler strategy?



Thanks,



---Joel


JOEL 7 AMPS THRO A FET IS A LOT. ALSO COSTLY TRY USING A 78 AND 79 SERIES VOLTAGE CONT. TO TRANSISTORS. SOME USED ELEC PARTS PLACES SELL STUFF CHEAPLY AS YOU REQUIRE. [[[[[[WILL ]

Yeah, I know, but I have plenty of big heat sinks lying around. Worst case I'd be dropping about 4V across the FET at 7A = 28W -- seems quite doable.

I'll keep it in mind; I'd still need big FETs (or transistors) for the higher currents though.

Thanks for your input,

---Joel

There is an good Analog Devices app note on batt simulator.

For what its worth.. You could get a discharger, though it isn't exactly what you're looking for:

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