MKR WiFi 1010 - Battery circuit operation

Smile6905 · January 2, 2019, 5:23pm

Hi all,
sorry in advance it's my first post here...

Do we know a bit more about how the bq24195 has been used in this board?
Is the I2C monitoring (Host mode) implemented in some library? It seems like the pins are connected.
Also where do I find more info about analogRead(ADC_BATTERY) implementation?
I would like to write some code where one of the info is the battery charge status and level.

I have seen the MKR Zero Read Battery Voltage - Hackster.io
But I don't understand a couple of points, the LiPO charging level should 4.4V which is more than 3.3V and even with the resistor voltage divider is 3.45V when charging...

Thanks, Ermanno

Ballscrewbob · January 3, 2019, 3:39am

I cannot answer your first part but the second part is a little easier.

Most LiPo's are capable of topping out and giving a max of 4.7 volts.
This is above the normally acceptable level for most 3.3 volt boards.
Nominal is 3.3 Volts it seems they have restricted the absolute voltage to avoid damage or other related issues if I read the schematic properly.

There is also the drop across the voltage regulator to take into account when charging from the 5 volt USB connection.

CrossRoads · January 3, 2019, 3:57am

4.7 seems high. A charger should keep at it 4.2 max usually.

Ballscrewbob · January 3, 2019, 4:02am

4.7 volt does seem high but have had a couple (not on Arduino's) go as high as that.
Depreciates quickly to a more stable voltage of around 4.4 at switch on which is consistent with OP's findings.

Smile6905 · January 4, 2019, 12:54pm

Thanks guys for your inputs... still not quite what I need.

I'm aware of how LiPo charging works...
In fact I believe the way the TI chip used on the MKR board is implemented, run the charging @4.4V.

My interest is more into the monitoring part....
So, PB09 is a dedicated ADC port for the ADC_BATTERY conversion, that's clear.

Two things are not clear to me...

what is the VREF (3.3V, something else?) this ADC_Battery conversion is using?
The math doesn't add up...
If VBAT=4.4V when charging with the voltage divider I will have on PB09 = 4.4 * (1200/(1200+330)) = 3.451 V (if remember ohm's law...lol) !!!! So, unless I'm missing something this is not correct... (schematic, my 4.4V assumption from TI data sheet).

Anyone form Arduino team, maybe can chip in...

So back to my question... Can someone shed some light on this? I made a quick image to make this a bit more clear for people not used to schematics.

Thanks

Smile6905 · January 4, 2019, 1:39pm

I actually found the answer.... (see screenshot)

With some digging into the the TI data sheet, it seems like the chip has been used in autonomous mode.
This makes the VBAT = 4.208V, that converted with the resistor net is a perfect 3.3V

Still would like to have bit more docs about the I2C implementation if any.

Thanks, and I hope this is useful info. I will work on some simple code and post it here later on. Just got a a new LiPO battery in the mail today

arielnh56 · January 30, 2019, 1:22am

I was doing some digging into the way this operates on on the MKR 1010 wifi, and came across this thread, which is not totally the same as my question but it looks like the commenters here will know the answer.

The BQ24195L includes boost converter capability and is wired up in such a way that it should be able to generate 5V (at 1A?) at the 5V pin. Is this chip configured to do this? Curious as I'm working on a shield board and need to know if 5V is available when on battery. No, I don't actually have a battery yet to just test this with, and in any case if the answer is "no" then maybe it can be enabled as the chip is on the I2C bus and could be reconfigured. My limited understanding of the datasheet suggests maybe this just gets enabled when the OTG is plugged into something.

cheers

Alastair

Smile6905 · January 30, 2019, 8:16am

arielnh56:
The BQ24195L includes boost converter capability and is wired up in such a way that it should be able to generate 5V (at 1A?) at the 5V pin. Is this chip configured to do this?

The short answer is no. (that's what my scope confirmed). The 5V pin will report 3.3V when on battery.
The switching circuit (SW out) is boosting up to 3.8V to be rectified to 3.3V for the board Voltage supply lines (there are 2 of this).
You can get the 5V only when on USB or external VDC (controlled by Q2).

It seems like the the USB monitoring function (D+ and D-) of the TI BQ chip is also not implemented.

Scanning the I2C bus, my board reports:
I2C device found at address 0x60 ! >>> This should be the WiFi chip
I2C device found at address 0x6B ! >>> This should be the TI chip
Which means that the chip it is interfaced but I don't know at what level they have implemented it.
I don't know I2C programming too well but I'm learning, so if someone with a bit more knowledge want to chip in and suggest some code they're welcome. Maybe Arduino team can give us more info too.

arielnh56 · February 6, 2019, 1:23am

Thanks for that answer. I'm working on a multiport I2C shield and this confirms that I need to give users the option to run ports at 5V or 3V3 depending on the application.

ghvisser · May 17, 2019, 2:57pm

Smile6905:
The short answer is no. (that's what my scope confirmed). The 5V pin will report 3.3V when on battery.
The switching circuit (SW out) is boosting up to 3.8V to be rectified to 3.3V for the board Voltage supply lines (there are 2 of this).
You can get the 5V only when on USB or external VDC (controlled by Q2).

The long answer is yes. If you look at the datasheet of the BQ24195L you can find in section 8.3.1.5 that you can enable a boost to 5.1 volts on the PMID port. This is done by setting the OTG pin to high. This pin is connected to PA18 of the SAMD21 via Q3 (see arduino MKR wifi schematic). If you pull PA18 low this will activate OTG functionality and the 5.1V boost (If bus voltage is low enough, which it should be since you are running on battery only). This is connected to the 5V node through D3, a PMEG6020. So something ~5V should be available then.

An easy way to test this is by connecting a USB OTG device to your Arduino and confirming it is powered. Or just short the OTG pin to ground.

kierenj · August 9, 2019, 7:17pm

I've been looking into this myself and it seemed that OTG was the key (as well as setting REG01[5:4] to 10 via I2C, but that might already be the case).

I'm not very au fait with the workings of the Arduino but if someone could tell me if I'm on the right lines here I'd be very grateful:

At a low level, the board is running ArduinoCore-samd/cores/arduino at master · arduino/ArduinoCore-samd · GitHub, which brings it up to a standard "Arduino" interface / library
PA18 is a GPIO pin of the SAMD21, but will not be exposed in the "Arudino" standard interface
If I dig around enough in the Core code (from #1), I can likely find a way to control PA18
I can then surface it to the "Arudino" layer as necessary with a custom Core build

Hopefully I'm not too far off the mark?

Edit: have found:

github.com

arduino/ArduinoCore-samd/blob/master/variants/mkrwifi1010/variant.cpp#L122


      
          |            |       USB        |        |                 |        |     |     |     |     |         |         |        |        |          |          |
          | 22         |                  |  PA24  | USB N           |   12   |     |     |     |     |   3/02  |   5/02  |  TC5/0 | TCC1/2 | USB/DM   |          |
          | 23         |                  |  PA25  | USB P           |   13   |     |     |     |     |   3/03  |   5/03  |  TC5/1 | TCC1/3 | USB/DP   |          |
          | 24         |                  |  PA18  | USB ID          |   02   |     |     | X06 |     |   1/02  |   3/02  |  TC3/0 | TCC0/2 |          | AC/CMP0  |
          +------------+------------------+--------+-----------------+--------+-----+-----+-----+-----+---------+---------+--------+--------+----------+----------+
          | 25         | AREF             |  PA03  |                 |   03   |  01 |     | Y01 |     |         |         |        |        |          |          |
          +------------+------------------+--------+-----------------+--------+-----+-----+-----+-----+---------+---------+--------+--------+----------+----------+
          */
           { PORTA, 24, PIO_COM,     (PIN_ATTR_NONE                                   ), No_ADC_Channel, NOT_ON_PWM, NOT_ON_TIMER, EXTERNAL_INT_NONE }, // USB/DM
           { PORTA, 25, PIO_COM,     (PIN_ATTR_NONE                                   ), No_ADC_Channel, NOT_ON_PWM, NOT_ON_TIMER, EXTERNAL_INT_NONE }, // USB/DP
           { PORTA, 18, PIO_DIGITAL, (PIN_ATTR_DIGITAL                                ), No_ADC_Channel, NOT_ON_PWM, NOT_ON_TIMER, EXTERNAL_INT_NONE },
          
          
 { PORTA,  3, PIO_DIGITAL, (PIN_ATTR_DIGITAL                                ), No_ADC_Channel, NOT_ON_PWM, NOT_ON_TIMER, EXTERNAL_INT_NONE }, // DAC/VREFP
          
          
/*
          +------------+------------------+--------+-----------------+--------+-----------------------+---------+---------+--------+--------+----------+----------+
          | Pin number |  MKR  Board pin  |  PIN   | Notes           | Peri.A |     Peripheral B      | Perip.C | Perip.D | Peri.E | Peri.F | Periph.G | Periph.H |
          |            |                  |        |                 |   EIC  | ADC |  AC | PTC | DAC | SERCOMx | SERCOMx |  TCCx  |  TCCx  |    COM   | AC/GLCK  |
          |            |                  |        |                 |(EXTINT)|(AIN)|(AIN)|     |     | (x/PAD) | (x/PAD) | (x/WO) | (x/WO) |          |          |
          +------------+------------------+--------+-----------------+--------+-----+-----+-----+-----+---------+---------+--------+--------+----------+----------+
          |            | WiFi SPI         |        |                 |        |     |     |     |     |         |         |        |        |          |          |

Points to ArduinoCore-samd/variant.h at master · arduino/ArduinoCore-samd · GitHub (PIN_USB_HOST_ENABLE)
...

After all that, do I just need:

pinMode(PIN_USB_HOST_ENABLE, OUTPUT);
digitalWrite(PIN_USB_HOST_ENABLE, LOW);

?

kierenj · August 10, 2019, 6:40pm

Further to the above, I've tried

pinMode(PIN_USB_HOST_ENABLE, OUTPUT);
digitalWrite(PIN_USB_HOST_ENABLE, LOW);

and just for kicks

pinMode(PIN_USB_HOST_ENABLE, OUTPUT);
digitalWrite(PIN_USB_HOST_ENABLE, HIGH);

But in neither scenario does the 5V pin output 5V when running on battery.

edit: I'm piecing it together I think..

Looking at ArduinoCore-samd/variant.cpp at 020b419fc1dbca49b23b7c0b5e47d50fb2a04485 · arduino/ArduinoCore-samd · GitHub - looks to set REG01 to 0x1B which means "charge mode" but p28 of http://www.ti.com/lit/ds/symlink/bq24195l.pdf wants 0x2B I think for OTG.

So I can copy that code to write 0x2B. But I wonder when I should do so.

The battery-related startup for the board: ArduinoCore-samd/variant.cpp at 020b419fc1dbca49b23b7c0b5e47d50fb2a04485 · arduino/ArduinoCore-samd · GitHub

Can anyone help with:

How I can detect if USB power is being applied to know when to switch this on?
Should I just write 0x2B when I detect no USB (and try the above code again), 0x1B when I detect USB again?
disable_battery_fet looks important, can anyone help me with what it does? [[from docs: When battery is not attached, the BATFET should be turned off by setting REG07[5] to 1 to disable charging and
supplement mode.]]

Smile6905 · August 11, 2019, 2:54pm

@kierenj : Yep you're on the right track.

The OTG pin alone is not enough, that's why my initial answer was not possible, you need to set I2C register on the BQ chip.

As you correctly pointed out the data sheet specify:

"USB current limit selection pin during buck mode, and active high enable pin during boost mode.
In buck mode with USB host, when OTG = High, IIN limit = 500 mA and when OTG = Low, IIN limit = 100 mA. The boost mode is activated when the REG01[5:4] = 10 and OTG pin is High."

I can help you test if you have further ideas.
Cheers,
Ermanno

Smile6905 · August 11, 2019, 3:05pm

ghvisser

ghvisser:
The long answer is yes. If you look at the datasheet.....

Of course I read the data sheet, you probably didn't.

The long answer is still NO, unless you set the register in BQ chip it will not work.
"The boost mode is activated when the REG01[5:4] = 10 and OTG pin is High."

Smile6905 · August 11, 2019, 3:11pm

arielnh56:
Thanks for that answer. I'm working on a multiport I2C shield and this confirms that I need to give users the option to run ports at 5V or 3V3 depending on the application.

All projects of Alastair Young | Hackaday.io

Maybe a Mosfet level converter will do. I use normally these little handy fellows from Nexperia: BSS138BKS
BSS138BKS

Sorry too quick answering... not on battery of course

kierenj · August 11, 2019, 4:15pm

Smile6905:
ghvisser
Of course I read the data sheet, you probably didn't.

The long answer is still NO, unless you set the register in BQ chip it will not work.
"The boost mode is activated when the REG01[5:4] = 10 and OTG pin is High."

...which is a case of just writing something over I2C. So how is the answer no? Am I missing something - forgive me for saying but it sounds like you're being quite rude to this guy?

kierenj · August 11, 2019, 7:10pm

Update - I've done some experimentation and found that reading REG08 can indicate whether or not USB 5v is connected. It's basically just the PG_STAT (Power Good) flag - if it's 1, USB +5V is present. If it's 0, we're just running on batteries. That's via:

byte getPowerState() {
Wire.beginTransmission(PMIC_ADDRESS);
Wire.write(PMIC_REG08);
Wire.requestFrom(PMIC_ADDRESS, 1);
byte val = Wire.read();
Wire.endTransmission();
}

However, I'm not having luck enabling +5V.

Currently I'm trying:

Wire.beginTransmission(PMIC_ADDRESS);
Wire.write(PMIC_REG01);
Wire.write(B00101011); // see http://www.ti.com/lit/ds/symlink/bq24195l.pdf p28 - don't reset, normal watchdog, 10=OTG mode,1011 = 3.5V min sys voltage
Wire.endTransmission();

pinMode(PIN_USB_HOST_ENABLE, OUTPUT);
digitalWrite(PIN_USB_HOST_ENABLE, LOW);

I'm on battery only, and having it flash out the bits of the REG08 status register.

Without the above, I get 00000000:

Unknown
Not charging
Not DPM
Not Power Good
Normal
Not in VSYSMIN regulation

With it, I SEEM to get 00101011:

Unknown
Fast Charging
VINDPM or IINDPM
Not Power Good
In Thermal Regulation
In VSYSMIN regulation

BUT that doesn't make much sense, and just happens to be the value I just wrote to REG08.

I'm just using a multimeter on GND/5V on the headers on the board, but seeing a solid 3.33V.

Can anyone point me in the right direct - I2C write problem, something else I've missed?

Smile6905 · August 12, 2019, 6:16am

kierenj:
...which is a case of just writing something over I2C. So how is the answer no? Am I missing something - forgive me for saying but it sounds like you're being quite rude to this guy?

I didn't meant to be rude but he also did seem polite to me.... anyway...

No, you didn't miss my point which in fact was the beginning of the thread.

I was looking myself for ways to control the BQ chip for battery monitoring. Do you think can be done?

kierenj · August 12, 2019, 6:25am

Smile6905:
I didn't meant to be rude but he also did seem polite to me.... anyway...

No, you didn't miss my point which in fact was the beginning of the thread.

I was looking myself for ways to control the BQ chip for battery monitoring. Do you think can be done?

Ah.

For that all I can see is:

Reading REG08 via getPowerState above tells you if it's not charging (00), initial charge (01), fast charge (10) or charge complete (11) in bits 4 and 5
Reading ADC_BATTERY gives you the battery voltage

I2C seems to work for reading (e.g. that state register) .. it feels like I've just got some problem writing.

Smile6905 · August 12, 2019, 6:40am

kierenj:
Ah.

For that all I can see is:

Reading REG08 via getPowerState above tells you if it's not charging (00), initial charge (01), fast charge (10) or charge complete (11) in bits 4 and 5

Reading ADC_BATTERY gives you the battery voltage

I2C seems to work for reading (e.g. that state register) .. it feels like I've just got some problem writing.

Did you check this... You probably did, just to make sure..

" When the charger is in default mode, REG09[7] is HIGH. When the charger is in host mode, REG09[7] is LOW. After power-on-reset, the device starts in watchdog timer expiration state, or default mode. All the registers are in the default settings.
Any write command to bq24195L, bq24195 transitions the device from default mode to host mode. All the device parameters can be programmed by the host. To keep the device in host mode, the host has to reset the watchdog timer by writing 1 twice to REG01[6] before the watchdog timer expires (REG05[5:4]), or disable watchdog timer by setting REG05[5:4] = 00."

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MKR WiFi 1010 - Battery circuit operation

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