Hi,
I'm currently working on a personal electronics project for which I'll need to build a battery pack from scratch. I already have a few new-ish 18650s lying around, so I'd like to use those.
I'm pretty much dead set on a ~12V pack in a 3S3P configuration. However, I'm having trouble choosing the appropriate external hardware here, as this is my first battery pack (previous projects used wall power).
I'm aware that there are quite a few cheap BMSs on sites like ebay which support the basic cell configuration I want, however I'd also want to avoid a fire and can't tell if they necessarily support the features i want (seeing as they're often poorly documented).
On top of the basic over-current, overcharge protection and temperature protection, I'd ideally want cell balancing and a state-of-charge indicator (though this can be built separately as far as I'm aware). I'd also want a way to use the battery as it's charging, though I don't think that's specifically a feature of the BMS itself (most of them seem to have a single charge-discharge connector). Typical power consumption should be around 30W, so about 3A continuous for margin's sake.
Again, I am fairly inexperienced here, so feel free to point out if anything I've mentioned isn't possible or is relegated to separate circuitry.
What type of hardware should i be getting here? Any recommendations?
I'm currently working on a personal electronics project for which I'll need to build a battery pack from scratch. I already have a few new-ish 18650s lying around, so I'd like to use those.
I'm pretty much dead set on a ~12V pack in a 3S3P configuration. However, I'm having trouble choosing the appropriate external hardware here, as this is my first battery pack (previous projects used wall power).
I'm aware that there are quite a few cheap BMSs on sites like ebay which support the basic cell configuration I want, however I'd also want to avoid a fire and can't tell if they necessarily support the features i want (seeing as they're often poorly documented).
On top of the basic over-current, overcharge protection and temperature protection, I'd ideally want cell balancing and a state-of-charge indicator (though this can be built separately as far as I'm aware). I'd also want a way to use the battery as it's charging, though I don't think that's specifically a feature of the BMS itself (most of them seem to have a single charge-discharge connector). Typical power consumption should be around 30W, so about 3A continuous for margin's sake.
Again, I am fairly inexperienced here, so feel free to point out if anything I've mentioned isn't possible or is relegated to separate circuitry.
What type of hardware should i be getting here? Any recommendations?