Anyone,
we are using TI's EVM board for both charger and monitor. The battery pack thermistor is directly connected to the gas gauge and is reading correctly (22degC). We verify that the voltage and current are all calibrated so that the gas gauge can perform its monitoring activities with enough accuracy. However, despite many attempts, the update status just does not change from 0x00 to 0x01. Let me start with a few questions:
1. There are 2 "Update Status" - "Update Status 0" and "Update Status 1". Which one should be updated? If both should be updated, in what order should they be done and to what value?
2. What does "set" means? I read in the forum of various value, such as VOK, QEN, etc., being set and that value being set but what does it mean? Does it mean turning from green to red? Red to green? Green? Red?
3. There is no Enable IT button in bqEASY. Are there other versions of bqEASY to use?
4. Why were we able to manually change the Update Status? We manually change "Update Status 0" to 2 and we were allow to proceed to upload the golden file. Why is that?
Here's our process:
1. We use bqEASY to discharge our battery pack (discharge automatically stop by monitor when battery voltage reaches 2.9V).
2. Once discharged, we start the learning cycle by clicking on bqEASY's start learning cycle button
3. Once fully charge, we waited 30mins after quit current is reached
4. Once 30mins is over, we start the discharge cycle
That didn't work (Update Status remains at "0"). We always waited for more than 5 hours during relaxation stage but with worse result, which is we couldn't even start the discharge cycle because the capacity was determined by the monitor to be "not full". However, during charging even current way below the quit current, the monitor determined the capacity of the battery to be "Full". I don't understand that because there was no load for the battery to discharge to and hence its capacity could not have drop. We verified it by measuring the battery's voltage with a meter and it read 4.19 (full charge voltage value was set at 4.2V on the monnitor). However, the monitor perceived the value to be 4.0V which is strange because the monitor was calibrated with a precise 2.75V voltage reference.
There are so many parameters associated with the bqEASY. That itself is not a problem. The problem is no documentations that describe the parameters seem to exist. Personally, I think there may be issue with bqEASY software. Perhaps there is a latest version that is more user friendly?
Can anyone assist me wgoing through this learning phase?
I have to add that we are charging 4 batteries in a 2-in-series with 2-in-parallel configuration. However, following TI's recommendation, we voltage divide down the pack voltage, from 8.4V to 4.2V, before presenting it to the monitor. The hardware portion of the setup is deemed correct (we have verified so many times over and so the likelihood of it being incorrect is very small).
Thanks,
Jay