Batteries Figure 2. A detailed hardware block diagram of the ESCU.
controls an on-board isolated gate driver, ADuM4120, that drives an N-FET connected to an external contactor (which sits on the battery board, for example). This has a protection function as the MCU will switch the MOSFET on and off through the ADuM4120 to open the contactors and disconnect the batteries in emergency or fault cases. Figure 2 illustrates a high level block diagram highlighting the main elements of the ESCU. The PCB comes in a small factor of 10cm × 9cm. The main interfaces are shown in Figure 3. Software information
Figure 3. The top side of the ESCU.
On the software side, ADI provides a complete solution that includes an open-source graphical user interface (GUI) that can be used to communicate with the controller board. The GUI supports up to three ADBMS devices connected to the daisy chain. The GUI communicates with the MCU through a well-defined open-source communication protocol that can be easily extended. The protocol defines messages that are sent to the MCU over the serial port. The messages are cyclic redundancy check (CRC)-protected to enable error detection. These messages allow the user to connect and disconnect with the MCU in an orderly fashion; set system parameters, perform measurements, enable and check for faults, and write any necessary commands to the ADBMS part. The application code in the MCU makes use of free RTOS threads to perform parallel operations. This is useful because a measurement thread can run in parallel with a fault-checking thread so that a fault interval time can be implemented.
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higher data rates and support of the low power cell monitoring (LPCM) function that is present in the latest ADI BMS ICs). Power management: Power can be supplied by either a DC jack or a USB connected to the PC via a USB 2.0 interface (a USB-C connector is available).
A prioritiser circuit, using the LTC4415, manages and selects the supply source. It chooses between the DC jack or USB-C input based on the load at the controller and peripherals’ side. For example, if an Arduino shield is connected and running, the power consumption of the board will increase beyond what USB-C can provide. The ideal diode-OR architecture of the LTC4415 will then switch over to select the DC jack as a supply source.
The power chain provides different voltage rails (3.3V, 2.5V, and 5V), which are configurable through jumpers.
Safety and protection: The MAX32626 22 April 2025 Components in Electronics
www.cieonline.co.uk.uk Figure 4. System tab of user application.
A software interface is provided with the BMS controller board and is written in Python. The main user sections are the following:
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