Visual Basic and bq evalutaion SW

Hello Derrick,

Welcome to the Forum!

Now, can you be a little more specific in just what you want to accomplish?  It sounds like you want to write a GUI in VB to communicate with an evaluation board instead of the  BQ software.  Is that correct?

Thanks,

hi, thanks for the quick response. that's exactly what i want to do. i want to make a custom bettery charge/discharge application. btw i'm hoping to use vb6. yes i'm old school. lol.

Well, it can be done, but i don't think all the information you need will be readily available.  I have not seen any code for the BQ programmers.

If you have experience with embedded controllers, it would be much easier to program an MCU that has USB and then have you GUI communicate with it.  The MCU would control the configuring of the charger and your GUI would simply pass the parameters.

What EVM  do you currently have?

sorry, no experience with embedded controllers. i thought this would be as easy as sending some commands to the battery. guess not huh? i'll touch base again tomorrow. headed out for the day. thanks again.

sorry, not directly to the battery, to the module that's connected to the battery.

i have the ev2300 module

For that particular EV board, there is a TUSB3210 programmable controller based on the 8052.  You can download the data sheet http://www.ti.com/lit/ds/symlink/tusb3210.pdf and visit the product page for details on how to program it.  It does have the option of being programmable through the USB.  However, I would think that this would be locked out to prevent intentional reprogramming.

You can also search the forums for more details on the device, I don't have any experience using the device.

Thanks,

Let me explain what I'm ultimately after - a charge/discharge fixture that communicates with the gas gauge and based upon one of the parameters, the "state of charge"" either automatically charges or discharges until the target area is reached. a COTS system would be ideal, but cannot seem to find one. do you work for TI? thanks.

I am not aware of such a system, but that doesn't mean there isn't one. 

I am just a community member responding to questions that I find interesting or related to work I am or will be doing.  There are a few projects that involve battery management that I may do, so I'm doing my research by seeing what types of problems/success people are having with different devices.

While you wait for a TI employee to respond, you can always search the forum for what you are after.  Something may turn up that matches your requirements.

Thanks,

Derrick,

You can use the activex object that comes with the EV2300 installation in VB6.  This object will give you access to basic SMBus R/W commmands that will allow you to communicate with the TI device in your battery pack.  As Onyx mentioned, there are some good examples in the documents he provided. 

Regards,

Joe Perino

Nova Battery Systems

Thanks Onyx. I'm working with what appears to be a newer chip - BQ20Z65. I wonder if that makes a major difference?

I don't recall getting any SW with the EV2300. Just the piece of HW. I downloaded the evaluation SW app off TI's website somewhere. I'll look around more though. Thanks.

hi Derrick,

No, it doesn't make a major difference. Majority of the information contained in that app note applies to the bq20z65.

thanks

Onyx