Kwinn, Its VERY important that you know this pre existing condition........ This motorhome has had electrical problems with "detonation" because the "voltage spikes from the alternators where blowing out the ignition coils". ASE certified technicians came to this conclusion after several ignition system replacements. We have sense installed "a capacitive discharge ignition system". I no longer blow ignition coils. There is two alternators.........huh you want to talk about "amps" there is a combined 500 amps output from them. They are internally regulated. Both have one wire setup. The one alternator is a max output of 320amps it has "duel rectifiers" in its internally regulated circuit. Some nights after a large discharge I start up the engine and hear a slight whining noise emitting from them. They only turn on after 1,000rpms at a minimum of 11.9 volts. The voltage surges would blow the primary coil windings of any ignition system manufacturer before the install of the "capacitive discharge ignition system".
This BS2 unit will have the 219's connected to the same batteries that the high output alternators are connected to.
The one battery bank consists of eight 12volt parallel wired deep cycle and automotive starter batteries ,Trojan 1255's,Autozone group 72 deep cycles,
a commercial grade truck battery. They are connected with 00 gauge tinned marine grade 600volt "welding" wire. I don't know how many "amp hours" they can produce in the first battery bank.
These batteries are linked together with the manufacturer of the DC to AC inverter's recommendations "the shortest distance" from terminal post to terminal post.
I don't need to monitor "power to the equipment". I only need to monitor voltage at the battery bank. The micro controller box does not have any connections to accessories that are connected to the battery bank.
I don't want to over complicate this project by connecting every accessory powered by the batteries. This Mouser box with a BS2 is only being built to monitor the over all floating voltage from the battery bank and then make a decision to turn on the generator or not.
The generator has a: Progressive Dynamics converter charger 9260{60 amp 4 stage battery charger, Radio shack 15amp a/c load ac/dc converter that powers 10inch 12volt fan above generator, Power Max 100 amp four stage converter battery charger.
Only those three things are plugged into the 30amp output Champion Electric Start generator.
The most a/c amps pulled at deepest battery cycle is 29amps
Kwinn I will desolder the 219's so only one of them have the A1 soldered.
Please keep in mind that I cannot connect this box to every accessory that the battery bank is connected to. I just need to monitor voltage not so much consumtion.
Are you sure I should use the 219's because maybe it would be better to use the Arduino 0to25v sensors and a Texas instrument ADC.?????????
Now that you know everything that is in the entire system????
There will be alot of amps from those batteries its not monitoring the 12 volts from a small motor. It will monitor from 12volts to 15 volts with alot of amps.
I am glad I haven't powered this smoke box yet because I don't think I have the 219's wired right.
"sense resistor .01 ohms" I don't understand. Please explain. Is this PDF a schematic of the inside of the 219?
"12.5v at 30amps Battery pack" does this represent my eight 12 volt batteries?
The Vin+ and Vin - at the blue phillips head screw terminal? or the Vin + and Vin - at 6 pin header??
Will I need a different resistor because of all the amperage that my 8 batteries have???
I will show a picture of the updated wires an solder jumpers.
Kwinn I will desolder the 219's so only one of them have the A1 soldered.
Good. just need to modify the code to check the address of the second INA219, but load the program I posted and make sure the first one is working.
Please keep in mind that I cannot connect this box to every accessory that the battery bank is connected to. I just need to monitor voltage not so much consumtion.
That actually makes it simpler. You just need to run a pair of small gauge wires from each of the battery packs to the INA219's
Are you sure I should use the 219's because maybe it would be better to use the Arduino 0to25v sensors and a Texas instrument ADC.?????????
Now that you know everything that is in the entire system????
There will be alot of amps from those batteries its not monitoring the 12 volts from a small motor. It will monitor from 12volts to 15 volts with alot of amps.
Oh yes, the INA219 is definitely the better choice. Since we are not monitoring the current it does not matter how many amps are involved. Automotive systems are notoriously noisy though so you may need to add some filtering to the inputs.
I get the feeling that all of this could be done by the BS2 alone, although I am not 100% certain of that since I do not have a good overall idea of your setup. I will be looking over the information you posted in the previous four or five posts before proceeding.
Ok, I think I understand what you want the BS2 to accomplish, but just to be sure here is a list of the functions.
INA219 #1 monitors the voltage of battery pack #1
INA219 #2 monitors the voltage of battery pack #2
The Basic Stamp reads the voltage from both of the INA219’s, and if either voltage is less than 12.3 Volts it will turn on the “SONG CHUAN 896-1CH-D1 Coil:12VDC 40A/30A 14VDC C1012 ” relay. That will start the alternator to charge the battery packs.
Is that correct? How long should the relay stay on?
What is the function of the “GERI FRM01” and the “EAZY VLC _V20 DUEL PROGRAMMABLE TIMER” in all of this?
Second bread board or relay is not on there. The red wire at lower right corner goes to center of M center positive female jack where battery bank + and - enter the box.
Ok, I think I understand what you want the BS2 to accomplish, but just to be sure here is a list of the functions.
INA219 #1 monitors the voltage of battery pack #1
INA219 #2 monitors the voltage of battery pack #2
The Basic Stamp reads the voltage from both of the INA219’s, and if either voltage is less than 12.3 Volts it will turn on the “SONG CHUAN 896-1CH-D1 Coil:12VDC 40A/30A 14VDC C1012 ” relay. That will start the alternator to charge the battery packs.
Is that correct? How long should the relay stay on?
What is the function of the “GERI FRM01” and the “EAZY VLC _V20 DUEL PROGRAMMABLE TIMER” in all of this?
Ok the SONG relay was replaced by two micro pc board radio shack 12 volt 1amp relays. black box in center of photo.
Kwinn said"That actually makes it simpler. You just need to run a pair of small gauge wires from each of the battery packs to the INA219's"
so I should just wire it the way I had it with the back of the female center positive M jack just negative from batteries BLACK to Vin- blue header
positive from battery bank RED to Vin + ???????
Ok no more RED wire jumped into header with orange wire from blue header Vin+ waiting for resistor. Now direct connect blue header to battery bank M connector
Kwinn ,your help is very much appreciated and needed. I am going to take a break here for a few hours an let you catch up to all my entries. Thankyou for your time.
I am glad I haven't powered this smoke box yet because I don't think I have the 219's wired right.
"sense resistor .01 ohms" I don't understand. Please explain. Is this PDF a schematic of the inside of the 219?
"12.5v at 30amps Battery pack" does this represent my eight 12 volt batteries?
The Vin+ and Vin - at the blue phillips head screw terminal? or the Vin + and Vin - at 6 pin header??
Will I need a different resistor because of all the amperage that my 8 batteries have???
I will show a picture of the updated wires an solder jumpers.
I need to find schematic drawing software.
Yes, the "12.5v at 30amps Battery pack" does represent your eight 12 volt batteries!
The wiring from the battery packs is very simple.
For battery pack 1 the positive terminal is wired to the Vin+ terminal of INA219 #1. The negative terminal of battery pack 1 is connected to the Gnd pin of INA219 #1.
For battery pack 2 the positive terminal is wired to the Vin+ terminal of INA219 #2. The negative terminal of battery pack 2 is connected to the Gnd pin of INA219 #2.
That is all that is connected from the batteries. Nothing is connected to either of the Vin- terminals.
I got it to activate the EAZY programable duel relays with a Radio Shack "SPDT Micromini 12VDC Relay Rated 1A at 120AC/24VDC PC contacts" I took the 12volts from the back of my switch on the mouser box and wired it directly to the EAZY "+" terminal relay. Then I took the micromini relay and used it to connect the "-" terminal on the EAZY relay to ground circuit for the whole box. It works!!:) . I took the output "HIGH 0" PIN 0 and put it through a 2N3904 Transistor NPN sillicon. Instead of that giant space hog automotive relay now I have this tiny relay on the white board. The next thing on the agenda is to program the Parallax board to handle the input from the Arduino Voltage sensors "IN8" "IN15".
Right now the code looks like this
' {$STAMP BS2}
' {$PBASIC 2.5}
'Autonomous generator control module '
'Detects voltage levels activates programmed relays to start electric start generator'
These are the connections from the Basic Stamp module to both of the INA219 boards.
(+5)Vdd from the stamp to Vcc on the INA219
(-)Vss from the stamp to Gnd on the INA219
SCL pin from the stamp to Scl on the INA219
SDA pin from the stamp to Sda on the INA219
I would recommend putting both INA boards and the relay or relays on a separate prototyping board and run 4 wires from the BS2 to it.
Comments
This BS2 unit will have the 219's connected to the same batteries that the high output alternators are connected to.
a commercial grade truck battery. They are connected with 00 gauge tinned marine grade 600volt "welding" wire. I don't know how many "amp hours" they can produce in the first battery bank.
These batteries are linked together with the manufacturer of the DC to AC inverter's recommendations "the shortest distance" from terminal post to terminal post.
I don't want to over complicate this project by connecting every accessory powered by the batteries. This Mouser box with a BS2 is only being built to monitor the over all floating voltage from the battery bank and then make a decision to turn on the generator or not.
The generator has a: Progressive Dynamics converter charger 9260{60 amp 4 stage battery charger, Radio shack 15amp a/c load ac/dc converter that powers 10inch 12volt fan above generator, Power Max 100 amp four stage converter battery charger.
Only those three things are plugged into the 30amp output Champion Electric Start generator.
The most a/c amps pulled at deepest battery cycle is 29amps
The "charger circuit" plugged into the generator only consists of these three items.
Please keep in mind that I cannot connect this box to every accessory that the battery bank is connected to. I just need to monitor voltage not so much consumtion.
Are you sure I should use the 219's because maybe it would be better to use the Arduino 0to25v sensors and a Texas instrument ADC.?????????
Now that you know everything that is in the entire system????
There will be alot of amps from those batteries its not monitoring the 12 volts from a small motor. It will monitor from 12volts to 15 volts with alot of amps.
I am glad I haven't powered this smoke box yet because I don't think I have the 219's wired right.
"sense resistor .01 ohms" I don't understand. Please explain. Is this PDF a schematic of the inside of the 219?
"12.5v at 30amps Battery pack" does this represent my eight 12 volt batteries?
The Vin+ and Vin - at the blue phillips head screw terminal? or the Vin + and Vin - at 6 pin header??
Will I need a different resistor because of all the amperage that my 8 batteries have???
I will show a picture of the updated wires an solder jumpers.
I need to find schematic drawing software.
That actually makes it simpler. You just need to run a pair of small gauge wires from each of the battery packs to the INA219's
Oh yes, the INA219 is definitely the better choice. Since we are not monitoring the current it does not matter how many amps are involved. Automotive systems are notoriously noisy though so you may need to add some filtering to the inputs.
I get the feeling that all of this could be done by the BS2 alone, although I am not 100% certain of that since I do not have a good overall idea of your setup. I will be looking over the information you posted in the previous four or five posts before proceeding.
INA219 #1 monitors the voltage of battery pack #1
INA219 #2 monitors the voltage of battery pack #2
The Basic Stamp reads the voltage from both of the INA219’s, and if either voltage is less than 12.3 Volts it will turn on the “SONG CHUAN 896-1CH-D1 Coil:12VDC 40A/30A 14VDC C1012 ” relay. That will start the alternator to charge the battery packs.
Is that correct? How long should the relay stay on?
What is the function of the “GERI FRM01” and the “EAZY VLC _V20 DUEL PROGRAMMABLE TIMER” in all of this?
Ok the SONG relay was replaced by two micro pc board radio shack 12 volt 1amp relays. black box in center of photo.
No "The 9,000" will start a generator
so I should just wire it the way I had it with the back of the female center positive M jack just negative from batteries BLACK to Vin- blue header
positive from battery bank RED to Vin + ???????
no .01 ohm resistor???
now I will fix drawing an repost it
Yes, the "12.5v at 30amps Battery pack" does represent your eight 12 volt batteries!
The wiring from the battery packs is very simple.
For battery pack 1 the positive terminal is wired to the Vin+ terminal of INA219 #1. The negative terminal of battery pack 1 is connected to the Gnd pin of INA219 #1.
For battery pack 2 the positive terminal is wired to the Vin+ terminal of INA219 #2. The negative terminal of battery pack 2 is connected to the Gnd pin of INA219 #2.
That is all that is connected from the batteries. Nothing is connected to either of the Vin- terminals.
(+5)Vdd from the stamp to Vcc on the INA219
(-)Vss from the stamp to Gnd on the INA219
SCL pin from the stamp to Scl on the INA219
SDA pin from the stamp to Sda on the INA219
I would recommend putting both INA boards and the relay or relays on a separate prototyping board and run 4 wires from the BS2 to it.
OK its wired right.
1st 219 is: SDA IN7 green wire, SCL IN8 yellow wire
2nd 219 is SDA IN9 orange wire, SCL IN10 yellow wire
P1 output relay
P0 output relay
P4 bi colored LED
P3 ' '
P14 green LED
I think its ready for code