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+--- Thread: Cost effective battery monitoring using Automotive IBS on LIN BUS (/showthread.php?tid=3438)
Cost effective battery monitoring using Automotive IBS on LIN BUS - theseal - 2021-05-07
Monitoring batteries are important, especially if you are a sailor like me.
I have looked at both expensive nautical battery-sensor technology and I have been looking into the DYI-approach.
If you have a big boat and big bank of batteries the nautical solutions can cost a lot, the benefits are that they are often NMEA out the box and PnP...
The DIY approach with I2C seems well implemented byt having a bradboard or proto-solution in a race boat does not seems like something I would like to rely on. Another problem is that the I2C solutions do not offer a big enough shunt for boat use.
Since I am a car geek I have come across Hella Intelligen Battery Sensor that are in every modern car. It is voltage and current monitoring in a neat package on the negative pole:
https://www.hella.com/caravan/assets/media/1303_BI_IBS_GenerationII_12V_HELLA_EN.pdf
It could be implemented to give information on Voltage/Current/SOC/SOH, and in automotive it is really well implemented. The car will start every day until the battery is becoming bad and you will have a "change battery"-code in your dash... then you have 25-50 starts until the battery is completely dead... I have never had a flat battery in my car since the introduction of this technology. In the car this sensor is used to throttle down stuff if you have a bad battery to ensure you could start your car next time around.
The Hella IBS talks LIN-bus. (The LIN bus has other interesting things available for future application in boats.)
The hella sensor is 100U$ new each and they are 5U$ at the scrapper. The module is made for automotive and has a robust automotive grade connector that should last the harsh environment of a boat for a robust solution.
This is something in between the current offer from the nautical companies and the I2C-proto-way.
There are cheep USB/LIN interfaces that could be used:
https://botland.store/can-bus-modules/12379-luc-usb-converter-lin-bus-.html
If I were a better engineer (at all) I would do it myself and contribute to this wonderful project...
Just throwing it out there..