I've been working with @Seb335i to set up a programming environment at my place. As we've proceeded we got the point of using ISTA+ to program, and of course my battery charger doesn't cut the mustard. ISTA+ wants to see 13V maintained. Some programming activities can take a long time, and maintaining charge is an issue. BMW recommends a variety of pieces of equipment - a good reference point is the Duetronics DBL 1200 and 1600. These are 80-90A units. Schumacher, another good company, makes the flash reprogrammer/charger INC100. We are talking solutions that are in the $1,000+ range for the BMW approved Deutronics (not too common in the USA, btw) and the Schumacher can be found for about $700 shipped.
Not wanting to plunk this kind of cash down, I started to consider other solutions with Sebastian. We found people making chargers with server power supply units (PSU), but information for the BMW application was thin. The RC crowd has used such PSU's for years to charge LiPo batteries for various RC vehicles and planes. (here's an 11-year-old active thread, 300 pages deep on the RC forums!)
Thankfully Jim (@NoQuarter) was intrigued enough and willing to undertake this project with me. In fact, he's taken the lead on it with my helping out. So I'm considering this more his baby with my instigating and then trying to pitch in from the back seat. Unlike most of the solutions we saw, Jim and I set out to put together a DIYable solution that is elegant, compact, reliable, and cost effective. We've gotten far enough along that we want to start sharing information. When we are done there will be all the DIY things one desires - parts list, explanations where needed, etc. Our target cost is $200. One can cut corners and spend less than this to get a functioning solution - once we publish the parts list and such it will be pretty evident where one can reduce cost if that's a factor.
Please note this is not done at this point and is a work in progress. We expect to have working examples in a few weeks, and will post here as we go along. Here's the build sheet:
Filippo
Not wanting to plunk this kind of cash down, I started to consider other solutions with Sebastian. We found people making chargers with server power supply units (PSU), but information for the BMW application was thin. The RC crowd has used such PSU's for years to charge LiPo batteries for various RC vehicles and planes. (here's an 11-year-old active thread, 300 pages deep on the RC forums!)
Thankfully Jim (@NoQuarter) was intrigued enough and willing to undertake this project with me. In fact, he's taken the lead on it with my helping out. So I'm considering this more his baby with my instigating and then trying to pitch in from the back seat. Unlike most of the solutions we saw, Jim and I set out to put together a DIYable solution that is elegant, compact, reliable, and cost effective. We've gotten far enough along that we want to start sharing information. When we are done there will be all the DIY things one desires - parts list, explanations where needed, etc. Our target cost is $200. One can cut corners and spend less than this to get a functioning solution - once we publish the parts list and such it will be pretty evident where one can reduce cost if that's a factor.
Please note this is not done at this point and is a work in progress. We expect to have working examples in a few weeks, and will post here as we go along. Here's the build sheet:
Filippo
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