This thread has been locked.

If you have a related question, please click the "Ask a related question" button in the top right corner. The newly created question will be automatically linked to this question.

bq40z50: Minimum practical sense resistor value?

Other Parts Discussed in Thread: BQ40Z50

Can the bq40z50 be used with a sense resistor value lower than 1 milliohm? We have an application that has a steady 5A-30A current draw with pulses, from 300mS-1500mS long, of 80A-150A occurring occasionally.

With an input voltage range of +/-100mV the coulomb counter will be unable to properly handle these pulses if we use a 1 milliohm sense resistor. Can we reliably go down to 0.75 or even 0.5 milliohms?

Or, perhaps, can we use a 1 milliohm resistor and just have the pulses not read accurately? Depending on how the IT algorithm handles things like this, could the bq40z50 deal with these pulses and still keep accurate track of SOC since the pulses are so short?

  • John

    You should be able to use a 500 uohm sense resistor to support higher currents. You just lose resolution on the low end. You do not want to just let the voltage exceed the max rating, because you could run into a short circuit or over current detection fault.

    Regards

    Tom

  • Tom,

    Good point about SC and OC conditions! It appears that the SRP/SRN abs max voltage is -0.3 to 0.3V. With a 1 mohm sense resistor, that would be +/-300A max before we damage something. But, we would lose coulomb counting accuracy at above +/-100A. Or is it +/-121.5A since full scale range is Vref1/10?

    Using a 500 uohm resistor would allow coulomb counting up to +/-200A (or is it +/-243A?) and a max SC/OC rating of 600A. This would be great. Perhaps I can even find a 500 uohm resistor to mod an EVM with for low current preliminary testing before we spin our first board. Thanks!

    John

  • John,

    The full scale range is +/-121mV, but we do not recommend exceeding +/-100mV for the best accuracy.

    Regards

    Tom

  • Tom,

    Thanks! We should be able to stay below +/-100mV.

    John