I have a solar lipo charger application where I have 3 ACS 711 hall current sensors taking the current readings out of my solar panel, battery 1, and battery 2 every 5 seconds. These batteries are connected to the same source and are connected to a switch relay to ensure that they do not feed into each other due to its parallel connections.
I was looking to retrieve the net mah or some kind of graph representing the mah ratings at different times of the day. All I have retrieved is the current every 5 seconds, is there a way to represent the mah generated in a day? I have attached an image at the bottom of this post to represent the current vs time graph I am referring to.
For illustration if you assume that the mA reading is constant at 273mA during a 5 second interval then for that period you will have 273 * 5 milliamp seconds or 273 * 5 / 60 / 60 milliamp hours.
If you accumulate those values over time you will have the mAh produced or consumed during that time.
It would probably be a bit more accurate to assume the mA during a 5 second interval is the average of the new reading and the previous reading.
Solar panel output can vary very quickly in cloudy conditions and a more frequent measurement might be warranted.
Hello iqasi096,
I did something similar but in my case for calculating the battery capacity based on discharge for a UPS. My measurements are taken every second, this is the for the capacity:
To explain, this is intended to calculate the capacity based on discharging the battery, which is why the current is shown as -ve. The division by 3600 reflects that there are 3600 samples per hour.
So, every second 1/3600 of the battery current gets added to the cumulative battery capacity.
[EDIT]
Ironically, while I was typing this one of my circuit breakers tripped meaning my UPS was supplying its intended load from the batteries. I suspect it might be something in the UPS that tripped the breaker because, although it is working, the mains monitor part seems to have died.
[EDIT EDIT]
Nothing wrong with the mains monitor circuit, don't know what tripped the breaker.
PerryBebbington:
Hello iqasi096,
I did something similar but in my case for calculating the battery capacity based on discharge for a UPS. My measurements are taken every second, this is the for the capacity:
To explain, this is intended to calculate the capacity based on discharging the battery, which is why the current is shown as -ve. The division by 3600 reflects that there are 3600 samples per hour.
So, every second 1/3600 of the battery current gets added to the cumulative battery capacity.
[EDIT]
Ironically, while I was typing this one of my circuit breakers tripped meaning my UPS was supplying its intended load from the batteries. I suspect it might be something in the UPS that tripped the breaker because, although it is working, the mains monitor part seems to have died.
[EDIT EDIT]
Nothing wrong with the mains monitor circuit, don't know what tripped the breaker.
Robin2:
For illustration if you assume that the mA reading is constant at 273mA during a 5 second interval then for that period you will have 273 * 5 milliamp seconds or 273 * 5 / 60 / 60 milliamp hours.
If you accumulate those values over time you will have the mAh produced or consumed during that time.
It would probably be a bit more accurate to assume the mA during a 5 second interval is the average of the new reading and the previous reading.
Solar panel output can vary very quickly in cloudy conditions and a more frequent measurement might be warranted.
...R
Perfect, just the feedback I needed! Thank you both very much
PerryBebbington:
Hello iqasi096,
I did something similar but in my case for calculating the battery capacity based on discharge for a UPS. My measurements are taken every second, this is the for the capacity:
To explain, this is intended to calculate the capacity based on discharging the battery, which is why the current is shown as -ve. The division by 3600 reflects that there are 3600 samples per hour.
So, every second 1/3600 of the battery current gets added to the cumulative battery capacity.
[EDIT]
Ironically, while I was typing this one of my circuit breakers tripped meaning my UPS was supplying its intended load from the batteries. I suspect it might be something in the UPS that tripped the breaker because, although it is working, the mains monitor part seems to have died.
[EDIT EDIT]
Nothing wrong with the mains monitor circuit, don't know what tripped the breaker.
On a side note, may i also see the rest of the code for future reference to your design please?
Robin2:
For illustration if you assume that the mA reading is constant at 273mA during a 5 second interval then for that period you will have 273 * 5 milliamp seconds or 273 * 5 / 60 / 60 milliamp hours.
If you accumulate those values over time you will have the mAh produced or consumed during that time.
It would probably be a bit more accurate to assume the mA during a 5 second interval is the average of the new reading and the previous reading.
Solar panel output can vary very quickly in cloudy conditions and a more frequent measurement might be warranted.
...R
I also very much appreciate your post on serial input basics. It helped me out a lot when i was first starting out with arduino telecommunications so thank you for that
iqasi096:
On a side note, may i also see the rest of the code for future reference to your design please?
Not wishing to seem unhelpful but no for a few reasons. The whole code is a complex project that I don't want to share or have to explain the workings of. It occupies 5 C and 5 header files, and I don't want to put that lot on here and it is not written for Arduino so does not really belong on this site. OK, so C is pretty universal but there are many things that are different to any Arduino you can think of because of the way ports and other peripherals are driven.
Sorry.