I am not sure if a regular li-ion charger can be used to charge smart (i.e. laptop) batteries or not. I know both TI and Linear Tech. have smart charger chips with ev kits available and I have the Linear Tech one so that’s what I am going to use. Both kits are $150 though so when you consider you also need an external 15-20V 2-3A power supply it’s a $200 deal to get a smart charger. Might be able to make something cheaper with BatchPCB if it turns out to be worth the effort… maybe implement both the power supply and smart charger on the same pcb.
As for what the nano-itx board needs for power, I can’t say as the price tag of them pretty much ruled that out as an option for me and I never researched it much further. You would pretty much need to research this for the particular nano-ITX you decide to use. I do know mini-ITX boards some in several flavors though… some with straight ATX power input suitable for a picoPSU type converter, some implement the ATX power conversion on board and just need 12+ VDC in, others have propietary power supply modules and supply requirements.
I’m not sure what you are refering to on the external HDD but it doesn’t sound like anything that would power a motherboard. A typically laptop sized HDD requires only +5V at 1/2A nominal with a 1A peak during spin-up.
I guess it would depend on whether or not you had a laptop that used the particular battery… which if you did I can’t imagine why it would be a problem. However I don’t think restricting our choice of batteries to whatever happens to be in our laptop is necessarily a limitation we need to have if there is another way to charge the batteries. It is possible that any standard Li-ion capable charger will charge them just fine. I can’t think of any specific reason why it would not work. I have charged Li-ion battery packs from a DV camera (cannon bp930 7.2v 4000mah clone) with a non-smart type charger just fine. It is just that without testing first I don’t want to just jump right out and assume that a laptop battery will respond the same way.
I did some research. A Nano-ITX uses like about 20-30w depending on what you are doing. It will work off of the picoPSU which requires a minimum of 12v @ 2A.
My brain farted while typing. I meant external LAPTOP battery >_< I was looking at the pictures of your rover with the hard drive and I typed the wrong thing.
It’s an external battery that you can plug into the DC-Jack on the back of your laptop and have it power your laptop. And then you can plug it into the wall to recharge it. Although a li-ion battery pack with fancy custom PCB board sounds cooler
Wow, the board takes A LOT of power… never mind the motors and sevos… and wireless (802.11g) will add A LOT more!
Have you figured out how long your batteries will last??
yeah 20-30W is a pretty good estimate in my experience, then you add HDD and any PCI card and then any USB devices or other peripherals powered through the motherboard power system (i.e. camera). So figure a 60WHr battery should run maybe an hour anyway. That power supply is entirely seperate from the power for motors and servos typically, mostly because of noise issues, regulation challenges, and you certainly would not want your motherboard to brown-out if a stalled motor pulled large amounts of current from the battery and drove its output voltage into the dirt. I’m not saying using a single battery can’t be done, just that it’s almost easier to use seperate packs if you have the room to do it. In my case there will be 3 batteries; the motherboard, the servos, and the motors. I might pull together a requlator board at some point to allow the motor and servos to runn from the same battery if weight or space gets too tight.
Unfortunately it is in the dead zone known as I’m bombed enough at work such that coming home to play with more electronics and programming just isn’t a real high priority. I do have the PC software to read the gamepad and send SSC-32 commands up and running, and I had started hacking my X-10 for it’s TX/RX, but there it sits and will likely continue to do so for another month or so.
I am still occasionally picking at some other projects to amuse the nieces and nephews, but for the most part I drone out in front of DDO most week nights after the missuses TV programs come on.
Well on a positive note: at least the project will last a little longer. If you had lots of free time it would have been built, programmed, and then the fun wear out just as fast as it started. I’m not saying the fun will end at this point, because there is always something you will likely want to add or try afterwards, but the fun of the actual building of it will be limited, and therefore, stretching the time will make it last just a little longer.
Your rover is a nice piece of work and very capable of high-end robotics. It will be worth the wait to see this gem in action.
My brain farted while typing. I meant external LAPTOP battery >_< I was looking at the pictures of your rover with the hard drive and I typed the wrong thing.
