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Is there a solution where a single chip can handle Li-ion battery pack charging and cell balancing as well.

I was looking into TI's range of battery management products and their battery charger chips don't feature cell balancing. They do have a seperate range of products that do fuel guage and cell balancing.

So for this application I would probably need to use 1 battery charger chip and 1 fuel guage/cell balancer chip however there are no application notes on their site of how to use both of these together and whether if this is recommended or no.

I want to charge 3 Li-ion batteries (18650) which are in series.

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  • \$\begingroup\$ With RC planes, that use very large LiPo batteries, you usually charge the battery as is, and balance it once in a while. Would having two separate circuits be acceptable for you? \$\endgroup\$ – Vladimir Cravero May 27 '17 at 10:20
  • \$\begingroup\$ the batteries here will be used in a backup system and in charging mode most of the time and will power the system when the mains power fails. I would have prefered to have it @VladimirCravero charged and balanced at the same time. but if its not possible then there is no harm in having 2 circuits 1 for charging and other for balancing ... my ultimate aim to to increase battery life.. \$\endgroup\$ – Miguel Sanchez May 27 '17 at 10:36
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    \$\begingroup\$ Ok then, my guess is that the balancer can be disabled with some logic pin, so that you can use an MCU to periodically check cell balace status, and if needed, balance them disabling the charger and enabling the balancer. Bear in mind that possibly the balancer expects the cell to be under no load, so this algorithm should also check that mains is present. \$\endgroup\$ – Vladimir Cravero May 27 '17 at 11:02
  • \$\begingroup\$ @VladimirCravero if I get you correctly you are referring to TI battery charger and TI battery monitor (Cell balancer) and how to use them together. The batteries will have to be balanced at end of charge right? So we have to check if its in mains mode and if it has stopped charging only then start the balancing cycle. Would this be correct? \$\endgroup\$ – Miguel Sanchez May 27 '17 at 11:56
  • \$\begingroup\$ It can work, yes. \$\endgroup\$ – Vladimir Cravero May 27 '17 at 13:07

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