Fuel Tank (LiPo) BoosterPack

[spirilis 1,265]

FYI- I went ahead and posted up my thoughts & pics of the Fuel Tank on my own blog for now: http://hwtourist.blogspot.com/2013/12/element14s-fuel-tank-boosterpack.html

@@bluehash if you'd like me to write a similar format for the 43oh blog let me know, or you can just link there if you want

[spirilis 1,265]

Fancy feature of the boost converters (supplying the 3.3V and 5V output rails) I just noticed from the schematic & datasheets...

R10 and R20 are 10K resistors pulling the PS/SYNC pins up to LiPo Pack+ ... with R17 & R19 being pulldowns not populated.  Probably desolder R10/R20 and solder those onto R17/R19 (or just add something like a 1K resistor to R17/R19) and you enable Power Save mode, which allows the output voltage to fluctuate quite a bit more but allows the inductor current to shut off, rather than trying to maintain a low duty-cycle inductor current all the time.

[amstan 18]

Is there a schematic out there for this? I would like to know how the 3.3V and 5V are generated and what kind of topologies they have.

I want to see if i could make a booster pack with some ws2812 leds(ala my binary clock) powered by this.

[spirilis 1,265]

Yes the user manual has a schematic in the back. It uses TI TPS63001/63002 switching boost converters (1.2A max) to generate the rails.

 

Sent from my Galaxy Note II with Tapatalk 4

 

 

[bluehash 1,581]

Yes the user manual has a schematic in the back. It uses TI TPS63001/63002 switching boost converters (1.2A max) to generate the rails.

 

Sent from my Galaxy Note II with Tapatalk 4

The user manual on the Fuel Tank tool folder has the sensor hub as the datasheet:

http://www.ti.com/tool/BOOSTXL-BATTPACK?DCMP=tivac-battery&HQS=tivac-battery-b

 

Get the usermanual from E-14:

http://www.element14.com/community/docs/DOC-65076?ICID=knode-TIlaunchpad-space

[pabigot 355]

FYI- I went ahead and posted up my thoughts & pics of the Fuel Tank on my own blog for now: http://hwtourist.blogspot.com/2013/12/element14s-fuel-tank-boosterpack.html

@@bluehash if you'd like me to write a similar format for the 43oh blog let me know, or you can just link there if you want

 

I was just about to post a question about why my new BOOSTXL-BATTPACK drained energy at 1000x the rate the launchpad it was connected to consumed it, when I decided to try due diligence and see if the question had been answered before.  Lo, there it is, in the PS #2 to your blog.

 

Conclusion: This boosterpack is useless in unmodified form (and if I wanted to solder 0603 resistors I'd be building my own hardware instead of buying it off the rack).

 

Oh well: there'll still be an example for it in the next BSP430 release.

[spirilis 1,265]

I was just about to post a question about why my new BOOSTXL-BATTPACK drained energy at 1000x the rate the launchpad it was connected to consumed it, when I decided to try due diligence and see if the question had been answered before. Lo, there it is, in the PS #2 to your blog.

 

Conclusion: This boosterpack is useless in unmodified form (and if I wanted to solder 0603 resistors I'd be building my own hardware instead of buying it off the rack).

 

Oh well: there'll still be an example for it in the next BSP430 release.

Yeah the default config for that pin was a mystery to me. I don't think people care about tight ripple on a battery-powered project nearly as much as they care about battery life.

 

Sent from my Galaxy Note II with Tapatalk 4

 

 

[Deepak01 0]

Hi @@spirilis,

 

I am using boostxl-battpack for making my msp430f5529 a stand-alone device and so that i can power it with the help of battery only..

In  may code I have made led toggle on pressing the button....it is happening when msp430 is connected with the laptop but when i connected the board with the battery,led is constantly on...Can you suggest to how make process stop when device is powered with battery?

[cubeberg 540]

@@Deepak01 - I think there might be an outstanding issue with the 5529 LP that it doesn't work when it's not connected to USB.  Could you provide your code and I'll test this weekend?  I've got both.

[spirilis 1,265]

Battery pack shouldn't matter, but maybe try removing almost all the FET jumpers (including 5V and 3.3V, but you don't need to remove GND) before you plug in your board to the PC, then reinstall them again. You might only need to install the RST, TEST, UART_RXD and UART_TXD pins to reprogram it (keep GND connected too of course). This is how I attach and remove my Wolverine FRAM LaunchPad to pull info over the serial backchannel link from a running firmware while it's being perpetually powered by the Boostxl-battpack.

 

Sent from my Galaxy Note II with Tapatalk 4

[Deepak01 0]

@cubeberg-This is following code

 

#include <stdio.h>

#include <msp430.h> 

 

 

int main(void) {

    WDTCTL = WDTPW | WDTHOLD; // Stop watchdog timer

int i;

P1DIR |=BIT0;

   P4DIR |=BIT7;

printf("Hello World2!\n");

while(1)

   {

printf("%d\n",P1IN);

    if((P1IN & BIT1) == 0)

                 {

    P1OUT^=(BIT0);

    printf("Helloworldvb!\n");

    printf("%d",P1DIR);// toggle the led's

                  }

   for(i=0;i<9999;i++);    // delay between the toggle.

   }

return 0;

}

 

in which i toggle the led 's on pressing the button...but it couldn't happen with the help of battery...

[tomjennings 1]

hmm well all in all, i have to say that the Element14 Fuel Tank Boosterpack is fairly awful. the list of gotcha's is unreasonably long. maybe because it was introduced early in the cycle compatibility issues were less well known, but it ought to be revised. jumpers, even cuttable PC traces, would allow backwards compatibility and flexibiity for the rest of us. i do appreciate the 0-ohm resistors though, that really does help, but all of the I/O pins need that (as well as copper to the other J1/J2 aka JP1/JP2 unused pins).

 

* the pin conflicts make the Battery Gauge useless. translating the Fuel Tank's oddball pin numbering into Boosterpack pin numbers:

 

J1-1       +3.3V                          OK

J1-2       /CHARGE_LP (r11)    OK      PB_5

J1-5       /EN_LP (r12)              OK      RX(5)

J1-7       /PG_LP (R13)             BAD   SCK(2)   Energia SPI library

J2-1       GND                           OK

J2-6       SDA                            BAD   MOSI(2)  Energia SPI library

J2-7       SCL                            BAD   MISO(2)   Energia library

J3-1       +5V                             BAD? VBUS      t.b.d.

 

they got 4 out of 7 pins wrong. not good. given the apparent variation between all the Launchpad controller boards, these should all be jumperable from the start.

 

* why are the jumpers for 3.3V and 5V on the *output*? they should be on the *input* -- the output diode de facto disconnects powered-down regulators. then there wouldn't be this nonsense with unused regulator EN inputs.

 

* thanks spirilis for the low-power fixes!

 

for my application -- i'm running a TM4C123GXL Launchpad controller with a 3-axis acellerometer (I2C) and some analog junk, that sends to a server via an nRF24L01+ radio chip (SPI), powered by the Fuel Tank boosterpack -- i'll simply chop all the traces -- and see how the low-power fix applies to me -- and run the fuel tank "blind" -- no controller access to the Battery Gauge, which is a shame, but hey, the thing will run til the battery dies, and that's what matters most.

 

seriously, thanks to everyone who contributed to this thread. i know it was a year ago, but hey.

[svcguy 4]

hmm well all in all, i have to say that the Element14 Fuel Tank Boosterpack is fairly awful.

 

 

I kind of agree.  I just posted the first revision of a design that (hopefully) address most of the issues.  Take a look and tell me what you think...