Cost saving for my Battery Management Systems (BMS) - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: BitBoss
author_rank: Newbie
timestamp: October 10, 2024, 08:53:11 pm
content: I don't trust inexpensive Battery Management Systems (BMS) from Amazon or random websites. I don't want my 12kw battery pack to turn on me. I also don't want to spend 300 euro on it, because my project is already eating a lot, because it is a multi discipline endeavor. An alternative idea is to design a PCB based on the evaluation kit, which is sort of open source:www.monolithicpower.com/en/ev2790-000x-fp-00a.html. But I'm no power electronics expert in terms of PCB layout. I mean, I know how to make soldering blobs to ensure good conduction, but not in a deterministic way. But the Cadence .brd files are available, so my thoughts on this is, I can make it way cheaper then buying the ev kit. The PCB will cost me 20 euros and the components itself should be less then 50, I suspect. And additionally, I even planned not to populate all the components, but only use it as charger and bypass the discharging circuitry completely, but keep the balancing active if the load is relatively low. This is not a generic charger, because the load is predetermined for my project. The load circuitry also monitors the power spending, and thus I will combine the controlling roles, making the system as a whole harmonically safe, rather then over engineer individually parts by generalizing it. I will also add an anti spark switch to the mix for extra safety.My question or request to my fellow engineering beings is, can someone please convert it to gerber files for me, specifically some one who has access to Cadence, because first off I don't have a copy of Cadence and secondly I don't own a Windows pc. I can then upload it to the PCB manufacturer, because it fails in it's current format to upload successfully, except for Euro circuits, which is insanely and unrealistic expensive with their quote. BTW is for a private/hobby project.I thank you in advance.

author: Sniper1
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: October 25, 2024, 05:55:58 pm
content: i can try but no promises, will convert to altium/kicad and see what happens

author: Sniper1
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: October 25, 2024, 05:56:41 pm
content: Quote from: BitBoss on October 10, 2024, 08:53:11 pmi can try but no promises, will convert to altium/kicad and see what happens

author: Sniper1
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: October 25, 2024, 07:28:07 pm
content: Quote from: BitBoss on October 10, 2024, 08:53:11 pmApparently it cant be done in kicadalso for altium to do it , it also needs some more file tipe , some type of library files too, that were not on the website.

author: BitBoss
author_rank: Newbie
timestamp: October 28, 2024, 01:11:04 pm
content: Well thank you much for trying, I appreciate it. It was worth a shot (The pun is intended considering your username).In the mean time I also asked monolithicpower directly, but no response. I also uploaded it to Aisler, but no avail. The good news is, Aisler responded and it seems they were able to parse it after I lodged an issue for the upload process. The only down side is, the communication process is slow as hell. They are usually fast when everything works fine.At this point I already considers building the circuit myself, I'm just a little bit scared of 80amps running trough a PCB, this is unknown territory for me, but in the other hand, it might be a good learning experience.

author: Sniper1
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: October 28, 2024, 08:21:21 pm
content: Quote from: BitBoss on October 28, 2024, 01:11:04 pmGood luck my largest current was 20A