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Bq27500 HPA219 evkit software with custom I2C pod

Philip Pemberton
Intellectual 255 points
Other Parts Discussed in Thread: BQ27500, BQ27500-V130, CDCE925, BQ27510, BQ27510-G2, BQ27510-G1, BQ2014

Hi,

I'm looking into using the Bq27500 (specifically, the Bq27500-V130). The problem is, my local TI distributor doesn't stock the BQ27500EVM evkit and EV2300 I2C pod...

I have put together a Bq27500 on a prototyping board which mirrors the 27500 evkit, but I get the impression the software (BqEASY) is geared up to communicate with the chip using an EV2300 pod. Is it possible to use BqEASY with a different I2C pod, e.g. a TotalPhase Aardvark or one of the many FTDI-based pods (like the CDCE925 evkit comms pod)?

 

Thanks,

Phil.

  • 0
    TI__Genius 14985 points

    Unfortunately the bq27500 EVSW only works with the EV2300.  If you can get a hold of an EV2300 either by ordering online from TI or getting it with another EVM (like bq27510) then it will work fine with your proto-board, though.  You'll just need to make sure you have I2C pull-ups on your board.

     

    You can use the Aardvark or other pod to talk to your board, but the bqEASY wizard won't work with it and you'll have to manually do a lot of stuff.

     

    By the way, is there a reason you chose the bq27500-V130 over the bq27510-G2?  The '510 has an integrated LDO but more importantly the firmware is much newer and has our latest improvements in the Impedance Track algorithm rolled in.  You probably wouldn't notice any difference unless you were operating under some weird conditions, but it's always nice to go with whatever has the latest lessons incorporated.

  • 0 in reply to dMax
    Intellectual 255 points

    It doesn't look like Farnell have any of the gas-gauge evkits :(

    Buying a 2300 separately might be an option, but there's not much price difference between that and a bq27500 or 27510 evkit, which (correct me if I'm wrong) is an EV2300 comms pod bundled with a breakout board for the Bq27500.

    I'm using the 27500 because I had some product samples from a few months ago -- I got an email at about the same time I was ordering some parts for an S/PDIF PCM/DTS/AC3 decoder. I had one slot left on the sample order and figured "why not?" Truth be told -- I didn't know about the bq27510-G2, and Farnell only stock the bq27510-G1 (and even that is listed as "awaiting delivery from manufacturer" with a 69 day leadtime). I probably didn't spot it because it's listed in their catalogue as a battery authenticator, not a gas gauge...

    Going down the Aardvark / FTDI route -- are any of the calibration algorithms used by BqEASY documented, or is calibration and golden-image generation a "black box" procedure? I did notice the firmware upgrades (SENC files) appeared to be encrypted...

     

    What I'm doing at the moment is an off-the-books "skunkworks" evaluation of the bq27500 series -- my budget is "zero or as close to zero as you can get", and the goal is just to see what the 27500 can do, and how well it handles the battery packs we're using (read as "cheap third-party digital camera batteries"). This is why I asked if I could get away without buying the EVKIT... I did this with one of the old Benchmarq NiCd gas gauges (bq2014 if memory serves), which used the DQ protocol. In the end, I took the datasheet and appnotes and wrote a tool to program the battery parameters and force resets and calibration runs. I doubt I've still got the code, but it was an interesting project (an issue with the charge controller forgetting the battery charge state forced the use of another chip though -- like I said, this was a very early RAM-based part).