Hi,
I'm configuring a hybrid system that features a PbA battery bank that is primarily charged by photovoltaic panels, but is also designed to be charged up by a gas generator if the batteries get too low because the PV panels aren't producing in low light conditions.
Thus, my primary application is monitoring the SOC of the battery bank to determine when the generator should be switched on.
It appears that the BQ34Z100-G1 was a great option for this type of application, so I acquired the BQ34Z100EVM board, but I am running into some difficulties programming it for this application because I am inexperienced in this realm and most of the support forums seem to be for applications with Li-on battery packs.
The battery bank features four 12V PbA Everstart marine batteries, rated for 122 A-hr each. I was running into issues because Design Capacity doesn't appear to support such a high capacity, although I was able to configure the Design Energy with the scaling enabled (2.1 V/cell * 122 Ahr / 10 scaling factor = 25600 mWhr).
I also am running into issues configuring the chemical ID, because there are only a few PbA batteries that appear to be supported, and I have the additional complication that I have 4 of them connected in series. I tried to select ChemID 0708 as it seemed to be one of the closest to the battery I have on hand, but it fails to upload, giving Error 1721 (Chemistry checksum did not verify).
I also had trouble adjusting the Pb Temp Comp and Pb Reduction Rate, as they seem to be stuck at -217780714829400620000000000000000000000000.000 and -13611294676837539000000000000000000000000.000 respectively. I assume this is a bit shifted incorrectly somewhere, but I just get an error ("a read of data written failed comparison") when I attempt to modify these values.
Do you have any recommended steps to follow to solve these issues, or any other helpful posts dealing with configuring this chip to work with PbA battery banks? I definitely appreciate the support!
Best,
Nick A.