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BQ20Z65 Full Charge Capacity error

Other Parts Discussed in Thread: BQ20Z65

I describe briefly a serious problem encountered in the use of gas gauge BQ20Z65. For the development of a 4S6P Li-ion battery pack 14.60V, 31.8Ah nominal we selected the gas gauge BQ20Z65 because it seemed to have all the needed features. In particular, the data sheet (SLUS990) of the device shows that: - The maximum design capacity is 32767 mAh - While the FullChargeCapacity (generally greater than the rated capacity especially at the beginning of the life of the battery) can be up to 65535mAh. During the learning phase of BQ (monitored using the software BQeasy with acquisition of the SMBus through EV2300) we have noticed, however, that once the pack has been fully charged and relaxed the FullChargeCapacity was upgraded to the value 0 and consequently the AbsoluteStateOfCharge was upgraded to the value 0 too (which is obviously wrong). Investigating deeper we found that in the reference manual (SLUU386) the maximum value of FullChargeCapacity was 32Ah. We think that the error in the AbsoluteStateofCharge is due to an overflow of the FullChargeCapacity. - Why this discrepancy between the datasheet and reference (note that the SMBus 1.1 protocol gives 65535 mAh as the maximum value of the Full Charge Capacity)? - AS the BMS PCB for the battery pack has been already developed and prototyped, how can we solve the problem? Could you fix the firmware? Thank you in advance for your precious help

  • Walter

    Unfortunately, this is a mistake in the datasheet and TRM. The maximum capacity is 32 Ah. There is a workaround where you can fake out the calibration and prevent it from overflowing. The downside is that you processor will have to rescale the current and capacity data. Here is a page from one of our Deep Dive sessions that describes what to do.
    Regards

    Tom

    High capacity packs.pdf