LoRaWAN Battery Monitor

Release status: experimental

Description LiPo battery monitor to regularly check cell voltages
Last Version  0.1 (2021-01-03)
Platform  ATMega328
License  CC BY-SA 4.0
LoRaWAN Battery Monitor on hackaday.io

The LoRaWAN Battery Monitor is a LoRaWAN connected device based on the ATMega328 LoRaWAN Node to automatically measure the individual cell voltages of a Lithium Ion battery pack (up to 7S)

Parts

Note: Antenna and LoRaWAN module are dependent on the local frequency band used for LoRaWAN. The selected items are meant for 868Mhz, which is the frequency band for Europe

Part

Partnumber

Amount

Source

Notes

PCB

LoRaWAN Battery Monitor PCB v0.1

1

-

Microcontroller

ATMega 328P-PU

1

Reichelt

IC socket

28pin

1

Reichelt

Quartz

8Mhz, HC49U-S

1

Reichelt

Resistor

R4: 10k 0805

1

Reichelt

Capacitors

C4, C5: 22pF

2

Reichelt

C6, C7: 100nF

2

Reichelt

Reset button

SW1

1

Reichelt

Measurement

Resistor

R5: 10k 0805

1

Reichelt

R6: 33k 0805

1

Reichelt

R7: 75k 0805

1

Reichelt

R8: 110k 0805

1

Reichelt

R9: 160k 0805

1

Reichelt

R10: 200k 0805

1

Reichelt

R11: 240k 0805

1

Reichelt

R12: 270k 0805

1

Reichelt

Multiplexer

U4: 74HC 4051 (SO-16)

1

Reichelt

Voltage regulator for >3.3V input

Voltage Regulator

U3: 3.3V, LDO, TO-92 -> LP2950-3.3

1

Reichelt

Capacitor

C2, C3: 4,7µF Elko, >16V

2

Reichelt

LoRa Modem section

Antenna

868Mhz SMA

1

DigiKey
Amazon US
Amazon DE
AliExpress

Antenna Connector

SMA Edge mount

1

DigiKey
Amazon US
Amazon DE
AliExpress

u.FL surface mount

1

DigiKey

To connect an SMA antenna, you will need a matching pigtail

LoRa Module

RFM95 868Mhz

1

DigiKey
Amazon US
Amazon DE

Input voltage measurement

MOSFET

Q1: BSS 84

1

Reichelt

Resistors

R1: 100k 0805

1

Reichelt

R2: 150k 0805

1

Reichelt

max input voltage for this R2/R3 combination: 16V

R3: 10k 0805

1

Reichelt

Capacitor

C1: 100nF

1

Reichelt

Connectors

ISP

J1: 2x3, 2.54mm

1

Reihelt

2x4 connector is much cheaper than 2x3, but you can simply cut off one section

Pin headers

P3, P5, P6, P9, P10

(many pins)

Reichelt

Just get one long row, and cut off those you need

Screw terminals (Power In)

P2 (outer pins): 2 pole, 5.08mm

1

Reichelt

only if using voltage regulator

Battery connector

J2: 14pin

1

Reichelt

Notes

  • Splitting the voltage divider as I did didn’t work out, due to the protection diodes and other circuitry within the 4051. There have to be full voltage dividers “in front” of the multiplexer, basically adding a 10kΩ resistor to ground on R6-R12. This leads to continuous power consumption. Scaling up the resistors should help though.
    • Recommendation on twitter was to use the BQ76930 chip by TI as an alternative. Looks very interesting, but I think I’ll go with the voltage dividers for now. Power consumption shouldn’t be that big of a deal in this case.

License

  • Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 Unported License (CC BY-SA 4.0)