Battery charge controller in Power Electronics - Mini Project: Build & Apply

Battery Charge Controller

📖 Scenario: You are designing a simple battery charge controller for a small solar power system. The controller must monitor the battery voltage and decide when to start or stop charging to protect the battery from overcharging or deep discharge.

🎯 Goal: Build a step-by-step conceptual model of a battery charge controller that tracks battery voltage, sets voltage thresholds, applies control logic to decide charging state, and completes the controller setup.

📋 What You'll Learn

Create a variable to represent the current battery voltage with a specific value.

Define two voltage threshold variables: one for the minimum voltage to start charging and one for the maximum voltage to stop charging.

Implement the core logic that decides whether to charge the battery based on the current voltage and thresholds.

Complete the controller setup by defining the charging state variable based on the logic.

💡 Why This Matters

🌍 Real World

Battery charge controllers are essential in solar power systems, electric vehicles, and portable electronics to maintain battery health and safety.

💼 Career

Understanding battery charge control logic is important for roles in renewable energy, electronics design, and embedded systems engineering.

1

Set the current battery voltage

Create a variable called battery_voltage and set it to 11.5 volts to represent the current battery voltage.

Power Electronics

# Create a variable called battery_voltage and set it to 11.5
# Your code here

Need a hint?

The battery voltage is a number representing volts. Use a simple assignment.

2

Define voltage thresholds

Create two variables: min_voltage set to 11.0 volts and max_voltage set to 14.4 volts. These represent the minimum voltage to start charging and the maximum voltage to stop charging.

Power Electronics

battery_voltage = 11.5
# Define min_voltage as 11.0 and max_voltage as 14.4
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Use simple assignments for both threshold variables.

3

Apply charging control logic

Create a variable called should_charge and set it to True if battery_voltage is less than min_voltage. Otherwise, set should_charge to False if battery_voltage is greater than or equal to max_voltage. If the voltage is between the thresholds, keep should_charge as False.

Power Electronics

battery_voltage = 11.5
min_voltage = 11.0
max_voltage = 14.4
# Set should_charge based on battery_voltage compared to min_voltage and max_voltage
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Use an if-elif-else structure to compare battery_voltage with thresholds and assign should_charge accordingly.

4

Complete the battery charge controller setup

Create a variable called charging_state and set it to the string "Charging" if should_charge is True. Otherwise, set charging_state to "Not Charging".

Power Electronics

battery_voltage = 11.5
min_voltage = 11.0
max_voltage = 14.4
if battery_voltage = max_voltage:
    should_charge = False
else:
    should_charge = False
# Set charging_state to "Charging" if should_charge is True, else "Not Charging"
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Use a conditional expression to assign charging_state based on should_charge.