/BattMeter

Battery voltage meter for FIRST Tech Challenge

BattMeter

PCB preview
BattMeter is a simple voltage meter for FTC batteries. The voltage ranges can be adjusted by changing the values of r1, r2, r3, r4, and r5 (see v1.2_voltages.txt for default resistor values).
The board has an XT30 plug to connect REV batteries directly. If you have a different type of connector on your batteries, you can:

  • Use an adapter plug
  • Use a short length of wire and solder your connector onto that (recommended for crimped connectors like Tamiya and Anderson Powerpoles)
  • Modify the board to fit your connector

Usage

To edit these files, you need Autodesk Eagle. If you just want to fabricate a board, you should be able to find Gerber files under the Releases page. You can find a list of the components you need under bom.txt.
The PCB design and schematic are licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License.

How it works

This meter uses four op-amp comparators to turn on the LEDs at specific input voltages.
Input and regulation
A voltage divider reduces the battery voltage to somewhere around 5V, and the regulator provides a (reasonably) fixed 5V reference.
A single comparator
The chain of resistors (r1, r2, r3, r4, and r5) drop the regulated voltage at specific steps, and the op-amps compare the scaled battery voltage with this voltage. The logic is inverted--the input voltage is connected to the inverting input--because the LED turns on when the op-amp's output is pulled to GND.