Battery management and charging. Multiple battery packs.

jdolecki

If a robot has multiple battery packs. Mounted in multiple spots on a humanoid robot to distribute the weight
Ignoring the battery chemistry for now.
Would it be better to.
Wire them all together and charge them all at once
Break them into separate groups. And charge each group separately.

Any body have any experience with battery management chips and charging (SOC) system on a chip.

kwinn

Depends on several things but generally better to charge them separately unless each battery pack has built in charging control circuitry.

LoopyByteloose

Centralizing always seems to offer convenience, but it may be at the expense of other agendas.

How, when, and how long are you going to recharge? Frequent small charges might be an alternative to infrequent big ones. It seems most of us just accept diurnal charging schedules because that is our own. But if you ponder capacities, optimal charge rates, and availability... all sorts of problems arise.

Ideally, it would be best for a robot to seek a parking station and have charging naps between uses. Once a day feeding for 8 hours may be actually bad for batteries which desire charge rates at no more than 1/10th times their discharge rate that is rated in amps per hour. What does one do when the the battery wants a 12 hour charge and you want it to charge for 8 hours after 16 hours of use? If you provide bigger batteries and more capacity, you add more weight.

Most batteries survive longer when they avoid deep discharges and are maintained closer to full-charge.

A lot of the battery management chips that became available were pulled out of production. It seems the concept just couldn't deliver real results.

The electric car makers may have some really good solutions, but they are NOT sharing their designs with the public.