nPM1300 Fuel Gauge Battery Profile for LiFePo4

[cepetr]

Hello everyone,

I am currently evaluating the nPM1300 Fuel Gauge with a LiFePo4 battery.

I would like to use nPM PowerUP to prepare the battery profile, but it appears that setting the termination voltage (Vterm) below 4V is not possible through the battery profiling dialog. My LiFePo4 battery requires a Vterm of 3.6V.

Is it possible to use the latest version of nPM PowerUP to profile a LiFePo4 battery? If so, could someone please advise on the correct settings for Vterm in this tool?

Here are the details of my setup:

• nPM1300-EK 1.0.0
• nPM Fuel Gauge Board 0.7.0
• 500mA LiFePo4 battery
• nPM PowerUP v1.2.2 (for Linux)

Thanks,

Petr

[Charlie]

Hi Petr,

Please be aware that with nPM1300 , we can only discharge down to 2.7V before getting POF event. Typically LFP (LiFePo4) batteries can go down to 2.2V

This should not be a big problem since after 2.7V not much juice is left in battery. These LFP batteries have inherently a flat OCV curve and it can be quite challenging to fuel gauging compared to Lithium polymer based batteries. But still its doable. 

OCV curve for a LFP battery

I have reported the issue you report to our nPM PowerUp developer, and it will be updated for the next release to support 3.60V Vterm on battery profiling.

Best regards,

Charlie

[cepetr]

Hi Charlie,

Thank you for the information and for reporting the issue to the nPM PowerUp developer. I appreciate your prompt response and assistance.

Could you please let me know when the next release of nPM PowerUp is expected to be available?

Best regards,

Petr

[Charlie]

Hi Petr,

Hopefully in the next couple of weeks, as we plan to roll it into the next release, which includes some other important changes.

The exact date will depend on the development process. 

Best regards,

Charlie