Hello,
I need to charge a 4.8V NiMH battery pack from a USB port. Currently my system is shown with a roughs sketch block diagram attached. at the bottom. I'm realizing this is a poor design because when the system is left on (running from battery power) it just discharges until the buck regulator can't generate 3.3V output from the battery. I am boosting the 5V from USB up to ~7V and current limiting the battery pack so it trickle charges.
The problem I'm having is that if I leave the device running until it dies my TI Tiva C Arm processor gets damaged some how and I have to replace it. This is a big problem and I"m assuming it's because of my system architecture here which is obvious now that it is not that great. Does it make sense that this power setup I have could be killing my processor? If I replace it, the system works fine again. Are there any simple solutions or semi "all in one" charging chips that would be able to take 5V USB power and charge/protect a 4.8V NiMH battery pack? I looked around at TI's parts but I'm very uneducated when it comes to this topic so I'm currently just lost. Any recommendations?
Thanks!
