3 – 2
Circuitry
3.1
Circuit Description
The SIM928 isolated voltage source contains five distinct circuit
blocks:
1. a microcontroller,
2. a battery charger circuit,
3. the battery pack,
4. an isolated voltage regulator circuit and
5. a front panel display.
3.1.1
Microcontroller
The single chip microcontroller U103 controls the battery charger, the
isolated voltage regulator, the display, and responds to remote serial
commands.
3.1.2
Battery charger
The SIM928 battery pack contains two identical 25.2 V NiMH batter-
ies. During normal operation at least one battery is connected at any
time to the isolated voltage regulator circuit. The other battery is
either idle (disconnected) or connected to the charger circuit. Once
the microcontroller detects that the battery in use is running low on
charge (via opto U502A), it swaps the two batteries and connects the
now depleted battery to the charger circuit.
Constant charge and discharge currents are used to maximize battery
life and minimize electronics noise on the isolated voltage output.
First the charger algorithm discharges a depleted battery to a fixed
voltage endpoint (23.0 V) to ensure a well defined discharge state.
It then charges the battery with a constant current until the charge
termination endpoint is reached. Charging terminates on either total
charge time or a zero of the NiMH d
V
/
d
t
curve. The charger algo-
rithm is designed to maximize battery life and ensure several years
of uninterrupted operation with a single battery pack.
A complex state machine driven by a timer and battery monitoring
signals implements the discharge-charge-idle cycle for each battery
in such a way that the module is always available after an initial
charge cycle. NiMH batteries su
ff
er from self-discharge on the order
of 1% per day. If the module has been powered down for several
months, insu
ffi
cient charge might remain in either battery to assure
continuous operation, especially if the output is loaded with close to
10 mA current. The initialization algorithm tries to ensure the best
possible availability by comparing the battery voltages to a minimum
SIM928
Isolated Voltage Source