Make a battery bar for your portable!

[mymixed]

I found a circuit that would make a nice battery bar for our portables:



It uses the LM3914 IC and seems to work really well! Adding voltage to the signal pin changes the level from Dot (One LED) to Bar (One LED with all the lower voltage LED's on too). Of course, you could use the batteryspace fuel gauge, but this gives many more options and is fun to make! I'm probably going to use this for my Ion64.

- mymixed

EDIT: This setup will operate the battery bar from 0v-6v so, for 7.4v its fine, however if you want to be more precise, you could just change the resistor values or use some pots.

 

[samjc3]

batteryspace fuel gauge is so much better. if for no other reason than size. its very easy to change the LED colours, and, realistically, how precise does the gauge have to be? its just general info.

 

[bentomo]

Is there way to change the voltage setting to use larger batteries?

 

[mymixed]

It seemed like we needed a low battery indicator for the Voltage section, So I made one.

EDIT: @Bentomo: Yes you can, changing the values of R1 and R2 will change the voltage. Just experiment until you find the voltage you want. When I make the circuit I'll post the resistors values for 7.4v.

- mymixed

 

[Hugo_Peters]

I'm kinda interested in this.
Does anyone has pics/vids of it in use?

 

[mymixed]

Actually, I'll be making a vid soon. I have it on my shelf... waiting .

- mymixed