PMIC as the ideal power solution?

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jakorten

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For a large project we are trying to make a power module that can:
- charge LiPo's
- report the charging and level status of the LiPo back
- use a soft on solution
- power more than one teensy modules

It needs to become a reliable product. We already have a solution but it uses different chips and has it's own drawbacks.

It came to my attention that the BeagleBone and other systems use so-called PMIC's like the TPS65218

Any advice on this?!
 
There are a lot of potential solutions. PMIC just means power management Integrated Circuit. Do a search on Mouser.com for power management and you will see a plethora of possible chips that can do what you have listed. You have to decide which is the best fit to your specific application. If you want more specific advice, please described the constraints a bit more...
 
I know that is why I'm asking! There are so many! I want to at least power a main Teensy 3.1 but also make sure the teensy knows about the lipo state (charging or not), and the amount of fuel that is left in the lipo (fuel gauge) and if possible also be able to use a soft button to start the teensy when (previously) off.

I now have:
- MAX17048G (lipo fuel gauge)
- MCP73831 (lipo charge controller)
- SI2301CDS / MAX16054 for the soft on switch

And it of course also uses a regulator (SPX2930) that is getting quite hot in my opinion (when charging the lipo I mean), but it works. I want to switch to a better system that is easier to make in production (I only make the prototypes myself and want them to be produced after testing was successful).

I now use a 1s lipo or li-ion solution (actually I use 18650 lithium ion batteries since they are supposedly safer)

I'm b.t.w. considering this one: http://nl.mouser.com/ProductDetail/...=sGAEpiMZZMtWZAo/Kf1JUEZ19Qz0aGnoKnxfGTadIlY= but I'm not totally sure if it is suitable since I can't find a lot of documentation apart from the somewhat confusing datasheet.
 
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I just designed a small one-cell LiPo battery charger add-on board for the Teensy using the STBC08 battery charger. I like it because it is super small and offers 800 mA current for charging (along with options for 300 or 500 mA by a judicious choice of resistors) which can charge a 350 mAH LiPo battery in 48 minutes. I thought about adding a battery fuel gauge (this one) but there is no I2C port conveniently near the USB connector where the add-on board mounts and besides it seems like overkill for a $10 add-on charger. If I were to include a charger for a larger Teensy adapter board with an on-board I2C bus I would use these two. Not sure about the soft switch.
 
@onehorse: it is for quite a large and very serious project. We also need much more endurance than 350 mAh. At this point * 10 but in future maybe even more, would be handy for us to take that at least a little bit into consideration.


Interesting shinji. It might not be an overkill at all. After browsing and searching Lineair / TI / Maxim / etc for almost a day I did not run into the LTC4015. Mouser does not have it b.t.w. but digikey has them! I also like that they say: "Portable Medical Instruments" because we are close to that although we won't connect any real patient to our devices (but for certifications it will be useful, the actual product will be also used in hospital environments).
 
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Did you see that the LTC4015 is a 2-cell charger, the charger you already have (MCP73831) is a single cell charger.
 
If we have a finished module I will definitely publish it! The entire project will become open source b.t.w.
 
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