This reference design is revolutionising the way to protect and optimize lithium-ion and lithium iron phosphate battery packs, ensuring their safe and efficient operation in power tools, vacuum cleaners, and beyond.
Battery pack monitors ensure the safety, efficiency, and longevity of battery packs used in various applications. By continuously monitoring parameters such as cell voltage, current, and temperature, these devices help prevent dangerous situations like overcharging, overheating, and short-circuiting, which can lead to battery failure or even fires. Battery pack monitors are essential in applications where reliability and safety are paramount, such as electric vehicles (EVs), renewable energy storage systems, portable electronics, medical devices, and industrial equipment. They protect the battery pack, optimise its performance, extend its lifespan, and provide valuable data for predictive maintenance and system diagnostics. As the demand for battery-powered solutions continues to grow, the importance of battery pack monitors in ensuring these systems safe and efficient operation becomes increasingly critical.
This reference design TIDA-010268 by Texas Instruments is crafted explicitly for lithium-ion (Li-ion) and lithium iron phosphate (LiFePO4) battery packs, accommodating 5 to 7 cells and emphasising high cell voltage accuracy. It meticulously monitors cell voltages, pack current, and temperatures of the cells and the metal-oxide-semiconductor field-effect transistors (MOSFETs) with remarkable precision. The design integrates robust protective measures against cell overvoltage, under voltage, overtemperature, charge and discharge overcurrents, and discharge short circuits, ensuring the safety and longevity of the battery pack.
The architecture employs low-side N-channel MOSFETs, renowned for their strong driving capabilities for turning on and off. This feature and its comprehensive monitoring and protection capabilities render the design highly suitable for power tools and vacuum cleaner battery pack applications. Key features include compatibility with 5s to 7s Li-Ion or LiFePO4 battery packs, with a maximum continuous discharge current of 30A, and adaptability to support as few as 2-cell applications with minor modifications. It monitors cell voltages, packs current and temperatures, balances cells, and controls charge or discharge FETs for protection. Hardware protection encompasses discharge overcurrent, short circuit in discharge, overvoltage, and undervoltage. Secondary protection mechanisms for cell overvoltage, undervoltage, and overtemperature enhance the safety of the battery cells. The design integrates small footprint, low on-resistance, and low gate charge MOSFETs for efficient low-side MOSFET control, and features low quiescence current and a low power state suitable for shipment.
The design’s versatility makes it applicable in various industrial contexts, including battery packs with protection only, battery packs with analog front-end (AFE) and microcontroller unit (MCU), battery packs with AFE and cell balancing, battery packs with AFE+MCU, battery packs with only protection, battery packs with protector and fuel gauge, and battery packs with protector+fuel gauge. This reference design provides a comprehensive solution for managing and protecting Li-Ion and LiFePO4 battery packs, ensuring their safe and efficient operation in power tool and vacuum cleaner applications.
TI has tested this reference design. It comes with a Bill of Material (BOM), schematics, test reports, PCB layout, Gerber files, etc. You can find additional data about the reference design on the company’s website. To read more about this reference design, click here.
