Week 4

The finished project will enable a user to charge a battery and monitor the charging process from a pc. To do this I will need the following

• User interface
• Analogue to digital converter:  
• Temperature sensor:  
• Charging circuit:                              
• Current regulator:  

These may be subject to change as the project moves along

The user interface will have to be able to control the charging circuit and receive information from it and the temperature sensor. I will use Visual Basic. The parallel port on the lab pc will be used to interface between Visual Basic and the circuit. 

Visual Basic will have to receive charging and temperature information from the circuit. This is analogue data and will have to be converted to digital for VB. An ADC 0804 will be used to convert the data.

The temperature sensor be used to check the temperature next to the battery and the VB program should stop charging when it gets to a certain temperature. A thermistor can be used for this. 

The battery needs a steady level of current to charge it so a current regulator will be needed to control it.