Opensource industrial battery charger (2-12s Lipo) for smart/dumb battery

We are working on a smart battery charger: rotoye.com/batcha

Features

  • 2-12S LiPo Charge
  • Two ports. Charge two battery simultaneously. Optional expansion puck to charge 4x smart batteries per port
  • 500 watt total power. Shareable to either ports
  • Max charging current per port: 20A
  • Smart battery data interfaces:
    • I2C: Two wire based protocol such as SMBUS
    • CAN BUS: Two wire differential pair robust protocol for UAVCAN
    • LIN BUS : Single wire communication protocol for micro drones and connectors with single
  • USB interface for monitoring and controlling charge workflow from PC
  • Optional: Integrated Raspberry Pi Compute module for Wi-Fi and Ethernet connectivity
  • User interface engineered for speed and safety. Plug-in to charge-start in less than 4 seconds
  • Design optimized for robustness and repairability

Feedback requested

  1. BatCha uses a TE connector rated for ~70A of current with multiple data wires on the connector. We believe it would be in good interest of the community to have a common pin out for the connector for charger perspective. Welcome the feedback on the this. Attached is the draft of the pin out

  2. BatCha can help with the control of battery charging and logging individual battery charge status by connecting to a PC(see pic below). We welcome feedback on the data protocol for this communication. Currently it is a text based system, but would be good to universal format.

  3. If BatCha can help with your project needs please reach out .

How do you connect the cells for balance?
4 x 12S will need 48 wires.

If its a smart battery such as one made with batmon, the balancing is onboard.
For dumb batteries, we have a puck that it can connect to, to balance.