Power & Source of Big Ideas

Adding re-chargable battery to the Android build

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As we have no way to connect an external battery to the PMIC on the NanoPC T3 Plus, I was considering adding a suitable battery that would supply 5V at up to 3A to the 5V input on the GPIO connector and adding an I2C based charging IC that I could read the battery state from.

Has anyone looked at this or where to read this in the source code? Is it done at the Kernel level or within the Android source itself? I'd like to have the Android status show the real battery state.
It should work fine. If I was adding a battery I'd use a Battery Power monitor IC... build up a board. Dallas Semiconductor makes a few that would work. Connect the low voltage threshold signal out to one of the free gpio pins and write a user space daemon to run shutdown if the voltage drops too low... or you can use a usb battery monitor and use apcd to run shutdown.
Thanks Jerryn

I updated the kernel recently and it included a new fake battery driver for the NanoPC so I am thinking I could use this as a base to control the system. Using a battery monitor IC with I2C I could read the real value and feed that back into the Android OS.

I am still trying to upload the source to the Internet.
Where did you connect the external battery to?
v8dave wrote:
Thanks Jerryn

I updated the kernel recently and it included a new fake battery driver for the NanoPC so I am thinking I could use this as a base to control the system. Using a battery monitor IC with I2C I could read the real value and feed that back into the Android OS.

I am still trying to upload the source to the IntiTunes Mobdro TutuAppernet.

As we have no way to connect an external battery to the PMIC on the NanoPC T3 Plus, I was considering adding a suitable battery that would supply 5V at up to 3A to the 5V input on the GPIO connector and adding an I2C based charging IC that I could read the battery state from.
JAGITA wrote:
As we have no way to connect an external battery to the PMIC on the NanoPC T3 Plus, I was considering adding a suitable battery that would supply 5V at up to 3A to the 5V input on the GPIO connector and adding an I2C based charging IC that I could read the battery state from.


That is pretty much what I was considering doing and you could actually monitor the battery state via I2C, as you said and have it appear in the status bar as per normal Android devices. There is a fake battery code from FriendlyArm that could be modified to provide the real data to the Android core.

The issue I have is finding a suitable power path battery charging circuit that can supply 3A. Have you done any work in this area yet?
v8dave wrote:
I updated the kernel recently and it included a new fake battery driver for the NanoPC so I am thinking I could use this as a base to control the system. Using a battery monitor IC with I2C I could read the real value and feed that back into the Android OS. That is pretty much what I was considering doing and you could actually monitor the battery state via IC
2 hours essay, as you said and have it appear in the status bar as per normal Android devices. There is a fake battery code from FriendlyArm that could be modified to provide the real data to the Android core.

The issue I have is finding a suitable power path battery charging circuit that can supply 3A. Have you done any work in this area yet?


Hi,

Have you also used the GPIO connector? Did you manage to fins a power path battery charging circuit which can actually supply 3A? I'm doing pretty much the same, but I'm stuck with this.
Thanks.
DrPsyche wrote:
Have you also used the GPIO connector? Did you manage to fins a power path battery charging circuit which can actually supply 3A? I'm doing pretty much the same, but I'm stuck with this.
Thanks.


I power the T3 Plus via the smaller of the GPIO headers.

Still not completed the power path design yet. The LTC4162 is on my list of devices to use for the battery charger and power path. I then need to add a BUCK/BOOST IC to step up the voltage to 5V. The LM3478 can generate 5V art 2A so still looking for a 3A+ device to use.
In case you have completed this, would you mind sharing a small how-to?

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