Objective:
The Power Monitoring Board is a testing and debugging tool that can be attached freely throughout the solar car and monitor the power consumption of a component or system. The power being monitored will be displayed to an LCD screen and recorded to an on-board SD chip. [Kaden and Bosa feel free to think of other cool ideas to integrate into this project. I personally thought it would be kind of cool if this wasn’t just a Power Monitoring board. In the future, we can make breakout boards that we can attach to the main board to monitor temp, etc. Also, since you guys have taken ECE 411, we can also measure cooler stuff like reactive power].
Description:
The Power Monitoring Board will have three different inputs (banana clips, screw terminals, test points for alligator clips) to measure the voltage/current/power with a power calculating chip. This information is sent to the STM32 microcontroller and displayed on the LCD. To power the electronics, two coin batteries will be used (two since we need higher current draw) instead of a laptop connection because of the potential risk of current feeding back into a laptop connection from what we’re measuring. Power cannot be drawn from what is measured in the event that what we’re measuring is <3.3V and won’t be able to power the board. An LDO will be used to step down the voltage of the batteries to the 3.3v needed to power the chip/lcd/stm32.
Requirements:
Multiple Channel Monitoring: Should be able to measure multiple electrical circuits.
Accurate Measurements: Should be able to accurately display voltage, current, and power to a very high degree.
Real-time Data: Should display data instantaneously. Data latency must be reduced such that the displayed data is relevant and specific to the time period.
Optimized Energy Efficiency: Given that the board will not require external power supplies, the power consumption of the board itself must be regulated and accounted for.
Parts Selection:
INA260 36V 15A 4.5mΩ power calculating chip -- Datasheet
STM32 Microcontroller – Datasheet
3.7v LiOn Coin Battery Lir2032 + Holder – Datasheet