Linear Technology DC2100A Demo Manual page 8

DEMO MANUAL DC2100A
Quick start proceDure
for all of the boards in the stacked system. The balance
times will then begin to count down as the balancing is
performed, and the LTC3300-1 Register Display will be
continuously updated. The NEXT STOP TIME field will
display the earliest time that one of the cells will complete
balancing, and the board on which that cell resides. When
the NEXT STOP TIME arrives, the balance mode for that
cell will change to NONE and a new cell will display for the
NEXT STOP TIME. The TIME REMAINING will display the
total time remaining in the timed balancing, after which
all of the cells will have NONE for their balancing mode.
Figure 10. Timed Balancing
While balancing is active, the Start button (see Figure 10)
will change to Stop, in case the user wishes to pause the
balancing operation. Selecting the Reset button will reset
all of the balance timers to 0 and all of the cell balance
modes to NONE.
The user can load and store several timed balance profiles
in the Board Configuration control (see Figure 11). The
Demo button in this control will load a pattern of charging
and discharging cells. The user can also recall any bal-
ance configuration and reload it later. The configuration
will also save the over and undervoltage settings, as well
as the disabled cell configuration.
8
Figure 11. Board Configuration Control
In addition to the Graph View of the data, the DC2100A
system can be monitored over a long period of time with
the results written to a CSV file. The logging interval and
length can be configured, but note that the size of the
data files can grow quite large for stacked systems with
many boards. The projected memory size will be displayed
before the user begins logging by pressing the Start Data
Log button. Once the button is pressed, the user will be
prompted to enter a data file name and location, and the
logging will begin.
Figure 12. Data Log Control
Although each DC2100A will balance with currents simi-
lar to those listed in Table 1, each board was tested upon
manufacture and its actual balancing currents are stored
within the DC2100A. These currents can be accessed by
pressing the Calibration Data button on the Control Panel,
which will then launch the Calibration Data window (see
Figure 28). In this window the user has the ability to enter
new calibration current values, or reset the currents to the
dc2100afa