The Hotchek: Expanded Scale Voltmeter and Battery Tester
The Hotchek: Expanded Scale Voltmeter and Battery Tester
The Hotchek: Expanded Scale Voltmeter and Battery Tester
we call our batteries into action for periods of 10- related to the remaining useful charge in the
30min at a time with a recovery period in pack. The rested open circuit (no load) voltage
between. In an effort to more closely simulate is reduced by about 0.1V after each discharge
this mode of operation, the discharge cycle was cycle. In theory, this voltage could be used to
repeated with a freshly charged pack. This time predict the remaining energy that can be
the 330mA constant current load was engaged extracted from the batteries. However, this is
for 20 minutes periods spaced by 40 minute rest only possible if one is very familiar with the
intervals. The data points were collected every discharge characteristics of their specific battery
5 seconds by a computer and the results are pack, also recognizing that these characteristics
shown in Fig. 3. Notice that after each of the may change as the batteries age. For this
first four discharge periods, the battery pack reason, my recommendation is that voltage
voltage recovers after a few minutes to over 5V. measurements not generally be used to try to
However, the fifth twenty minute discharge cycle predict the exact state of charge of the pack.
takes the pack right up to the edge of However, as was just seen, voltage
exhaustion, with a loaded voltage down to measurements can be used to make sure that
almost 4V. After this last discharge cycle, the the pack is not dangerously near the end of its
unloaded battery voltage recovers to only 4.9V. available charge and that it can support another
When the 330mA load is engaged one more R/C mission. In my experience, the unloaded
time, the voltage drops off the bottom of the voltage of a 4-cell pack should recover to
scale and the pack is down for the count! greater than 5V (6.25V for a 5-cell pack, 10V for
8 cells) when allowed to rest for 5-10 minutes
Some care should be taken not to over interpret after a period of use. If it passes this test, then
the results in Fig. 3, recognizing that R/C radio when a current load is placed on the pack, the
gear doesn't place a well-defined, constant voltage should only drop a few tenths of a volt
electrical load on the battery pack. The actual and then stabilize within about 10 seconds. If
current draw depends on the number of servos, the voltage continues to drop, the batteries
the size of the mechanical loads on the servos, should be recharged before further use.
and the battery drain from other accessories.
Also, exact battery voltage and current
characteristics vary from pack to pack due to
variations in cell ratings, design, and methods of
manufacture. However, there are a couple of
important pieces of information from Fig. 3 that I
believe can be applied generally. First, it can be
clearly seen that for a 4-cell NiCd pack to have
useful charge remaining to power your
equipment, the unloaded voltage should, after a
short period of rest, exceed 5V. If it doesn't, it
should not be used before being recharged.
The second important battery pack test shown in
Fig. 3 is illustrated by the rapid voltage drop-off
when the current load is reapplied to the
exhausted cells at the beginning of the sixth
discharge cycle at the 300 minute mark. Notice
that at the beginning of all the previous Fig. 4 Photograph of HOTCHEK battery meter
discharge cycles, the voltage drops only a few connected to the 600mAh 4-cell NiCd battery
tenths of volts (0.1-0.2V) in the first 10 seconds pack used for the measurements in this article.
(two data points) and then stabilizes to a very
slow decline. However, when the current load is The HOTCHEK ESV
applied to the exhausted pack, the voltage drops
and does not stabilize, continuing to quickly fall. The HOTCHEK is an expanded scale voltmeter
(ESV). That means that, rather than reading
Fig. 3 also shows that the voltage to which the voltages between a maximum voltage and zero,
battery pack recovers between uses is directly
it expands a specific voltage range of interest The push button SW1 is used to engage the
over the full display scale. Based on the current load. In order to keep the HOTCHEK
discussion and the discharge tests in the design very compact, the small push button that
previous section (Fig's 2 and 3), I have chosen a is used is rated for a current of only 20mA, much
display range of 4.7 to 5.2V for a 4-cell NiCd less that the 300mA test current needed. For
battery pack. Other voltage ranges can be this reason, a NPN transistor Q1 is used to
selected by the proper choice of three resistor amplify the current through SW1 and resistor
components. The expanded range is displayed R1. The main current is then drawn through the
on a series of 10 light emitting diodes (LED's). 10 resistor R2. This brings us to another
These can be configured to light one at a time aspect of the HOTCHEK's design. A current of
making it a moving dot display or they can be 300mA through a 10 resistor results in a power
configured to light in a continuous left to right bar of almost 1 watt. The small resistor used in the
graph display. The dot display mode should be HOTCHEK is only rated for a continuous power
used for onboard applications where it is useful of 1/4W, four times less than the power
to minimize the current draw (~10mA per LED). dissipated in the 10 resistor! Big problem?
Not at all, but this is the source of the battery
By pressing the HOTCHEK's button, a current checking circuit's name: HOTCHEK. The 10
load of about 300mA is placed across the load resistor becomes quite hot at the 1W power
battery pack in order to read the loaded battery level. However, it is only necessary to apply the
voltage. When the bar display mode is used to load for about 10-20 seconds. The resistor gets
display the voltage of a fully charged battery hot but easily survives this momentary abuse.
pack, the 100mA used to light the 10 LED's adds The advantage of this design is that a resistor
to the 300mA load, increasing the current to sized to sustain the continuous required power
about 400mA. would be almost the size of the entire
HOTCHEK circuit! It is important to note that the
The HOTCHEK is based on the LM3914 long discharge cycles presented in Figs 2 and 3
integrated circuit (IC). This IC is specifically were not collected using the HOTCHEK since its
designed as a voltage display driver. A current load should not be engaged continuously
complete description of the LM3914 can be for more than 20 seconds at a time.
found at National Semiconductor's internet web
site.1 The use of the LM3914 for expanded The maximum supply voltage that can be used
scale voltage measurement in R/C is not a new with the LM3914 IC is 20V and the maximum
idea. The IC has been used in a number of voltage that can be measured and displayed is
hobby designs as well as several commercial 1.5V less than the supply voltage. Since it is
products for R/C. However, the thing that necessary to power the HOTCHEK circuit with
distinguishes the HOTCHEK design is the built- the same voltage source that is to be measured,
in transistor-based load circuitry that allows the resistors R3 and R4 form a voltage divider that
battery voltage with and without a current load to halves the supply voltage delivered to the
be quickly and easily compared. Also, a measurement pin #5. The upper and lower
noteworthy feature of the HOTCHEK is the voltage limits of the expanded scale are also
ability to easily tailor its voltage measurement divided by 2, making the entire scaling process
range to a wide variety of battery applications. undetectable by the user. The lower limit of the
voltage display scale is applied to pin #4 and the
Theory of operation upper voltage to pin #6 of the IC. The IC has a
built in voltage reference that is used to set the
Fig. 6 shows an electrical schematic of the range of the expanded voltage scale. The
HOTCHEK design. Diodes D11 and D12 are output of the reference voltage pin #7 is
used to provide reverse polarity protection; that automatically controlled so that the adjust pin #8
is, to prevent damage to the IC if the HOTCHEK is 1.25V less than the reference voltage. The
is accidentally hooked up with input leads HOTCHEK uses a voltage dividing ladder made
reversed. The only effect of the diodes in up of R6, R7, and R8 to set the upper and lower
normal operation is to cause a 0.7V drop in the voltage display limits based on this reference.
voltage reaching the circuit. Recognizing that there is about a 0.1mA leakage
current from the voltage adjust pin #8 and taking
into account the 0.7V drop across D12, a set of resistor. Now, plugging in 301 for R6, 0.5 for V,
simple formulas can be used to set the values and 5.2 for V H into equation (2), a value of 1075
for these three resistors. Defining VH to be the is calculated for R8. The closest available
upper display voltage, VL to be the lower display resistor to 1075 is 1.07k. As shown in Table 1,
voltage, and V=VHVL the total display range, the resistances for components R6, R7, and R8
then are therefore 301, 1.21k, and 1.07k,
respectively.
R6 = 600 x V (1)
The 4.7 to 5.2V display range chosen for a 4-cell
R7 = R6 x (2.5 V 1) (2) NiCd pack can be scaled up by 25% to 5.9 to
6.5V for a 5-cell pack. Using equations (1) - (3),
R8 = (V H 3.2) (V R6 + 0.0002) (3) values of 357, 1.13k, and 1.74k are then
determined for R6, R7, and R8, respectively.
The sum of these three resistances also Values of 604, 909, and 3.92k set the range to
determines the brightness of the LED's. The 9.4 to 10.4V for an 8-cell NiCd receiver pack.
current through each LED is approximately 10 These alternate values are also shown in the
times the current drawn out of the reference pin parts list of Table 1.
#7. For an LED current of 10mA, the current
from reference pin should be about 1mA and An easy to use Excel spreadsheet can be
this consideration is built into the three downloaded from the internet.2 The user is
equations. required only to enter the desired voltage display
range and R6, R 7, and R8 as well as the voltage
An important consideration for adjusting the load resistor R2 are automatically calculated.
voltage measurement range is that, because of Keep in mind that you may also want to
the specific way that I have designed the voltage customize the color arrangement of the display
divider ladder, the maximum voltage range that LEDs to fit your chosen display range.
can be displayed is 2.5V. An attempt to set V
to greater than 2.5 will result in a negative
resistance for R7 which of course cannot be
achieved.
To illustrate the process of setting the resistance Fig. 5 The 12V version of the HOTCHEK
values, let's walk through the setup of the 4.7 to circuit is a great companion to a field box lead-
5.2V expanded scale range for a 4-cell NiCd acid battery. Note that the components for the
battery pack. First, using a value of 0.5 (5.2 test load have been omitted (see text).
minus 4.7) for V in equation (1) yields a value
for R6 of 300. The closest value for a 1% 12V lead-acid batteries
resistor to 300 is 301. Using 301 for R6 and
0.5 for V in equation (2), a value of 1204 is The voltage measurement range of the
calculated for R7. R 7 is therefore set to HOTCHEK can also be set up for 12V lead-acid
1.21k, the closest available value for a 1%
batteries such as those used in field boxes to Shack 276-1535) for 30-60 minutes or until all of
power portable battery chargers and electric the unwanted copper is gone. Note that the
engine starters. It can be used for both standard blank board is two-sided so the copper will be
lead-acid batteries with liquid electrolyte as well completely removed from the back side. This
as sealed gel-cell batteries. According to Red board is large enough to simultaneously make
Scholefield's Battery Clinic,3 the charge capacity up to 12 HOTCHEK printed circuit boards. After
of a lead-acid battery can be determined by the etching, the mounting holes should be drilled
measured voltage without a current load. A fully with a #65 drill bit. This is easily accomplished
charged battery has a voltage of 13V or more since the copper surrounding each hole location
and a fully discharged battery has a voltage of accurately guides the drilling. Those modelers
around 12V. Based on this, a suggested set up interested in building a circuit but who do not
for the HOTCHEK is a measurement range from want to manufacture a PC board may contact
12 to 13V. Resistor values of 604, 909, and the author. Alternatively, a complete
5.23k for R6, R7, and R8, respectively, provide unassembled kit can be obtained.6
this voltage range. Unlike for NiCd batteries, the
number of LEDs that are lit can be directly
interpreted as the fraction of charge left in the
12V battery. A 300mA load is not meaningful for
testing high capacity lead-acid batteries which
will show little output voltage reduction for this
current. I suggest that you leave out the
components used for the current load: R1, R2,
Q1, D11, and SW1. If you choose not to do this,
then the load resistor R2 should be increased
from 1/4 watt 10 to 1/2 watt 39 in order to
keep a 300mA test current at the increased 12-
13V test voltage.
Construction
Table 1 is a complete parts list with the Digi-Key Fig. 9 Photograph of the assembled
Electronics4 catalog numbers. Fig. 7 is a 2X HOTCHEK from the trace side of the printed
enlarged pattern for the printed circuit board. circuit board.
The best way, I believe, of making this board is
with a product called "Press-n-Peel."5 It is a Fig. 8 shows a diagram of the installation of the
blue plastic film that can be run through a components onto the board. They should be
conventional photocopy machine or printed onto inserted from the side opposite from the copper
directly with a laser writer computer printer. circuit pattern. Table 1 is a list of the
Following the instructions supplied with the film, components with their required values. Special
the image in Fig. 7 should be copied onto the attention should be given to IC1, Q1, and D1-
dull side with 50% reduction. It is then ironed D12 since the direction they are installed is very
onto a copper clad board (Radio Shack 276- important. The LEDs often have a small flat on
1499) using a household or your airplane film one side that should be oriented as shown in
sealing iron. When experimenting with the best Fig. 8. If the LED's don't have the flat, then the
temperature, I find it useful to securely tape the positive lead (upper lead in the figure) can be
film to the board along one edge. I can then identified by the fact that it is longer than the
carefully peel back a small portion to test the negative lead. Diodes D11 and D12 have a
adhesion of the pattern to the board. If the stripe identifying one of the leads. I have found
transfer is incomplete, the film is let back down that LEDs with clear lenses are most visible in
and additional pressure at a higher temperature sunlight conditions. However, note that it is not
used. possible to distinguish between the three colors
until they are installed in the circuit and
After successful image transfer, the board is operating. For this reason, take care not to lose
etched in a solution of ferric chloride (Radio track of which color LED is which. The 1%
metal film resistors are blue with five color Using the HOTCHEK
bands. The last band is always brown,
indicating 1%, and is spaced a bit farther from The HOTCHEK can be used either as a very
the other four bands to identify it. I find that the compact handheld ESV meter or as a voltage
color of the bands is sometimes difficult to make monitor mounted in the R/C vehicle. Remove
out against the blue background so good lighting jumper J1 to minimize current draw for onboard
and patience is suggested here. I often resort to installations. It is often very useful to watch the
confirming the resistances with a digital onboard voltage display while the servos and
multimeter when faced with trying to distinguish other onboard equipment is exercised before a
between red, brown, and orange bands. flight. For the "pocket ESV" approach, I like to
Optional jumper J1 can be made from a short insert the HOTCHEK into a short length of 1"
piece of trimmed resistor lead. If J1 is left out, clear heat shrinkable tubing in order to protect
then the display will be a single moving dot the circuit. Care should be exercised not to
display. If J1 is installed, then the bar mode is overheat the components when shrinking. After
activated. shrinking, a small hole can be cut through the
covering over the test button using the
Carefully solder the installed components to the sharpened end of a 3/16 diameter brass tube.
copper circuit pattern, taking care to avoid solder The two prongs from the HOTCHEK's 90o
bridges across gaps between the traces. It is header can be easily inserted into the external
extremely important to use a good quality resin charging jack on the R/C vehicle to check the
core electronics-grade solder and to brighten the battery voltage as shown in Fig. 10.
copper traces with fine steel wool or a scotch-
brite pad before starting. Advice and/or
instruction from a fellow modeler with circuit
assembly experience could be useful here. Fig.
9 shows the completed soldering job on the
trace side of the board. The excess resin left
from soldering can be easily removed with a
solvent such as lacquer thinner and an epoxy
brush with the bristles cut back to 1/4". A 90 o 2-
pin header can be used for the input voltage as
shown in Fig. 1. Alternatively for onboard
applications, a servo wiring harness can be
soldered into the board so that the HOTCHEK
can be plugged directly into the receiver. Table
2 summarizes the wire color codes typically Fig. 10 Battery check on the authors Pica
used for some common radio systems. Using Cessna 182 using the external charge jack.
Fig. 8, carefully attach the leads according to Note the protective clear heat shrinking around
this chart. Users of older Airtronics equipment the HOTCHEK (see text).
should be cautioned that the V+ and V- wires
are reversed in the servo harness from those for As is shown in Fig. 3, the open circuit voltage
Futaba, JR, and RCD radio systems. Since the (no load) of a 4-cell NiCd receiver pack should
Airtronics harness has two wires of the same be at least 5V (6.25 for 5-cell). In other words,
color (black), carefully note which one is one of the four green LEDs or at least the
denoted as the center wire in Table 2. For rightmost yellow LED should be lit. When the
onboard installations, you may want to omit the 300mA load is engaged, the voltage should drop
current loading circuitry (R1, R2, Q1, D11, and by 1 to 2 LEDs and then stabilize within about
SW1) to prevent possible binding against the 10 seconds. It is important to note that there is
test button and accidental engagement of the the possibility of voltage losses through the
test load during operation of the R/C vehicle. As receiver battery wiring harness and connectors
previously discussed, the loading section of the onboard the R/C vehicle. These losses could
circuit also has little utility for 12V lead-acid cause another 0.1V or more drop when the load
batteries and can be omitted. is engaged. If the voltage drop due to the
Table 1
_______________
* The load resistor R2 as well as R1, Q1, D11, and SW1 should generally be left off for 12V lead-acid
batteries since the charge state is well determined by the open circuit voltage (see discussion in text).
Table 2
5.5
HOTCHEK
Battery pack voltage (V)
display range
5.0
4.5
Discharge time to 4.4V = 120min
4.0
3.5
0 20 40 60 80 100 120 140
Discharge time (minutes)
5.5
HOTCHEK
Battery pack voltage (V)
display range
5.0
4.5
Discharge 1
Discharge 2
Discharge 3
Discharge 4
Discharge 5
Discharge 6
4.0
3.5
0 40 80 120 160 200 240 280 320 360
Elapsed time (minutes)
18 17 16 15 14 13 12 11 10
R1
REF
ADJ
INP
D12
LO
HI
Q1 1 2 3 9
R6
D11 R3
R7
R4 R8 J1
Figure 7 2X enlarged printed circuit board pattern for the HOTCHEK circuit.
Figure 8 Component installation for the HOTCHEK circuit.