Variants of TP4056

Ok, I've looked around, and I've noticed there are several of the TP4056 models out there. Some use the thermal pin, other don't, some use another chip with the TP.

We're all familiar with



However, there are these 2 as well:







First off, has anyone used either of the latter 2?
Secondly, how would you use the 6 connections on the left one? I'm going to guess that this module is used in an application that charges and discharges through the same module. However, the discharging goes through a different circuit; assuming it cuts off the power if the cell drops to low?
Thirdly,how would you go about using the temperature probe on the right one?

Korisha said:

First off, has anyone used either of the latter 2?
Secondly, how would you use the 6 connections on the left one? I'm going to guess that this module is used in an application that charges and discharges through the same module. However, the discharging goes through a different circuit; assuming it cuts off the power if the cell drops to low?
Thirdly,how would you go about using the temperature probe on the right one?

Click to expand...

I have 20 of the one on the left. The OUT and BAT terminals are electrically the same.
The OUT is provided so you can draw from the battery to power the device if you were to embed the chip in a device.
There is no discharge function on this board.

For the other board, you need to hook up a thermistor to the temp pin, and it will stop charging if temp threshold is exceeded. It is explained in the datasheet.

Hrmm, interesting. I say so because it looked like the Out- and B- were not on the same trace. Or looked like that on another picture I saw.

So there isn't really any added advantages of using the left one over a standard board as the top one, then. The only bonus is that you have a solid connection for powering your device instead of running longer wires or trying to double up on the board making a mess. Hrmm....

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Ok, so the one on the right, there's In- Temp In+ How would that be wired up?

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Ok, I found a better picture of the one on the left.







You can see that it appears that the traces are definitely separated. Of course, I can't see under the chips to see how they run and that might be where they connect. But, this is kinda where I got the assumption they were separated.

Korishan said:

Hrmm, interesting. I say so because it looked like the Out- and B- were not on the same trace. Or looked like that on another picture I saw.

So there isn't really any added advantages of using the left one over a standard board as the top one, then. The only bonus is that you have a solid connection for powering your device instead of running longer wires or trying to double up on the board making a mess. Hrmm....

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Ok, so the one on the right, there's In- Temp In+ How would that be wired up?

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Ok, I found a better picture of the one on the left.







You can see that it appears that the traces are definitely separated. Of course, I can't see under the chips to see how they run and that might be where they connect. But, this is kinda where I got the assumption they were separated.

Click to expand...

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They are connected trust me.
One advantage is you could hook up one of those discharge boards I recommended to you, and make yourself a charger-discharger for about $3.
Another advantage is an easy location to probe with your VOM.
there is no real cost difference, so there is no disadvantage, only added benefit. Now if you were ordering 10,000 of them, there might be some cost savings.

You hook up an NTC theremistor to the + and - ....read the datasheet.

Still trying to decipher those datasheets. A lot of it greek to me Starting to get a handle on how some of the circuit printouts are read. Baby steps....

In my case the closest schematics found is this:





It's easy to see that B- terminal is not the same as OUT-.
These modules are meant for making small devices with 1 Li ion inside: You get USB charging, terminals for battery and terminals for load. The 4056 is taking care for charging and the other ICs are disconnecting the load (- terminals) in case battery is going too low.
Measurements must be done on B terminals.
For chargers only, as we use them, there is no advantage in using the boards with 3 ICs.

I agree. I watched Julians review of this charger () I had to re-watch it to get a better understanding of the boards since I now know more about the circuits.

As stand alone chargers, no added benefit. However, I was thinking of using these in my powerwall as well. I just haven't figured out how I would do it yet. I suppose I'd use 1 unit for each set of parallel, which would mean for each primary bank, I'd have an equal number of chargers. I would think I'd add in a few mosfets or something so that when a parallel section is cut off, the circuit isn't cut off and power can continue on it's marry way while that one set is recharging.

Of course, I could be really over thinking all of this, but it's another idea for balance charging and keeping the packs in line. Also could be scalable, too. All of this is to work with adding in communications with an arduino to monitor everything.

Ultimately, I'd like to monitor "every" cell and get a running data log over time. We'll see if that happens

I see. I was thinking the same some months ago, but dropped the idea.
Reasons:
- 4056 max current is 1 A, so it's way to slow for a bank of reasonable size,
- commutation looks a bit tricky: any old-school relay could stick or any up-to-day MOSFET needs a perfect timing and could break down, too. Any of these faults could lead to major disaster,
- and the life span of ebay's modules could be short, taking into account the the heating of 4056 (or I'm the unlucky one?).
I will start with conventional charger and monitor/balancer based on Arduino. Hope for the small (4S5P) prototype to be ready till summer

Yeah, those are all valid reasons.

I haven't had any issue one heating TP's. To max current charge is 1A, yes. But for in place charging, you're only going to charge a cell at few hundred milliamps anyways.

If the modules are, well, modular, you can replace worn out or defective or broken parts. the TP could be screwed down, possibly instead of soldered (an idea worth visiting to check results). If all the wires connecting the smart parts to the cells are basically the same length, then timing won't be too big of an issue.

But, that's what this big think tank here on DIYPoweralls is for

OUT- and BAT- are connected whenever there is a battery connected, and if there is no battery connected, the circuit is useless. So they are effectively always connected (except in the case of internal battery fault).
If you probe the two pads with a continuity tester and a battery connected it will sound.
If you remove the battery it will continue to sound for several seconds as the capacitor slowly drains down. Then it will stop sounding.

The two have to be connected or the circuit would not work. It is designed to be embedded, and you can be charging and drawing from the battery simultaneously.

The information APD has posted is incorrect. The 8-pin chip next to the B- terminal is a SSF8205A dual MOSFET controlled by the other nearby chip, a DW01A battery protection IC. I desoldered the two chips and I'm figuring out how they're connected...

Datasheets:
SSF8205A: http://www.silikron.com/upload01//SSF8205A V2.0.pdf
DW01A: http://escooter.org.ua/_fr/1/DW01A-DS-10_EN.pdf

SFF8205A connections:
1(drain1): Not connected
2-3 (source1): B-
4 (gate1): Pin 1 on DW01A
5 (gate2): Pin 3 on DW01A (inner via on back of board)
6-7 (source2): OUT-
8(drain2): Not connected

DW01A connections:
1: Pin 4 on SFF8205A
2: R6 (1k? resistor leading to OUT-)(outer via on back of board)
3: Pin 5 on SFF8205A (inner via on back of board)
4: Not connected
5: R5 (100? resistor leading to OUT+), C2 (capacitor leading to to B- and Pin 6)
6: C2 and B-

Okay, it seems weird that they don't have either drain on the dual-MOSFET connected. The two are connected internally, so maybe they just thought 1A was too much for a single pin and decided to route it out the other source since they weren't using it?

Okay, reading the pin info on the DW01A datasheet, it looks like it uses each side of the MOSFET to be able to control both charging and discharging, which seems obvious in hindsight.

So yeah, they're not always connected. The battery gets disconnected if charging past 4.3v, discharging below 2.4v, or if discharge current exceeds some threshold probably determined by the value of R6.

Edit: While I'm at it, here's a picture of the traces under the chips. Quality's a bit meh, since this is my $10 smartphone looking through two magnifying glasses, but I guess it'll do.

Phoenix said:

The information APD has posted is incorrect.

Click to expand...

Please be more specific.

With the boards I have, The following is true, as in my last post:

OUT- and BAT- are connected whenever there is a battery connected (except faulty battery).
If you probe the two pads with a continuity tester and a battery connected it will sound.
If you remove the battery it will continue to sound for several seconds as the capacitor slowly drains down. Then it will stop sounding.
It is designed to be embedded, and you can be charging and drawing from the battery simultaneously.


Also, I have experimented and attached my battery holder to the OUT+ and OUT- pads, with nothing connected to BAT+ and BAT-. The device charges a battery and stops charging just the same as when connected to BAT+ and BAT-.

If they are not connected, how could you be charging and drawing from the battery simultaneously?

APD said:

Phoenix said:

The information APD has posted is incorrect.

Click to expand...

Please be more specific.

Click to expand...

Sorry, it's late and I was staring at datasheets for about half an hour trying to force my brain to get how the three chips work together, and I didn't pay as much attention to the quality of my post as I should have.

APD said:

Korisha said:

First off, has anyone used either of the latter 2?
Secondly, how would you use the 6 connections on the left one? I'm going to guess that this module is used in an application that charges and discharges through the same module. However, the discharging goes through a different circuit; assuming it cuts off the power if the cell drops to low?
Thirdly,how would you go about using the temperature probe on the right one?

Click to expand...

[...] The OUT and BAT terminals are electrically the same.
[...]

Click to expand...

APD said:

Phoenix said:

The information APD has posted is incorrect.

Click to expand...

[...]
OUT- and BAT- are connected whenever there is a battery connected (except faulty battery).
[...]

Click to expand...

This is what I was referring to. They are not the same. They may both be usable for charging cells, but by connecting a cell to the OUT terminals, you're bypassing the protection IC. None of my 4056s have given me any trouble, but if one failed out and shorted, and you didn't have the cell connected through the protection IC, it could be overcharged, and maybe do unexpectedly exciting things.

Is that likely? No. But they're definitely not the same, and telling someone they are could be bad.

It's not the same.

Ok, so we agree that Out/B - are not "directly" connected. I can agree with Phoenix that there is a protection circuit in place. Yes, when a cell is in place powering the unit from the inside, it may appear that the two are direct. However, as Fercsa points out in the diagram, they are in fact separated. Pull the protection chip out of the circuit and power the unit, and no connection what so ever from any way.

I was just wanting information on various variations of the TP4056 based boards. So far I've only seen 3 variants. Are there others? Has anyone though of making their own variant? I, for one, would like to make one that is more intelligent. But my limited knowledge on circuit design kind of hinders me. I'd like to add in the temp sensor with the protection circuit (which currently I have not see any that combine the two in one board) and also add in a data return line, or sensor line back to a central location (ie. arduino or something similar). Maybe put an i2c onboard, or some other fashion.

Korishan, I'm not sure i2c communication would be possible; not directly, anyway. The TP4056 only 'communicates' via the two status LEDs and a pin you can use to read the charge current. So a microcontroller could probably monitor charge status with 1 analog and 1 digital input for each TP4056 (assuming you can get away with a digital input for reading the charging LED pin). If your microcontroller is short on pins, i2c would enable you to connect to many dozens of voltage sensors like the LTC2990, which could also give you a direct temperature reading. It's a bit pricey though, ~$5 each from Digikey. There are probably cheaper options.

As I've recently learned, circuit design is pretty hard. It took me about 3 hours in CircuitMaker to design a rudimentary charger board, and it's definitely not ready for production. There are two major flaws I'm sure would make production impractical, one which might make the charger useless, and god knows how many other issues I've never even considered. So yeah, pretty complicated.

Phoenix, two LM317t voltage regulator chips and handful of resistors can make a CC - CV charger, the LM317t is cheap and available. The biggest negative is the completed circuit has a large voltage drop, 6 or 7V if I recall correctly. The first 317t is set up in constant current mode and it then feeds the second 317t which limits the voltage to what you need.

I drew a schematic and posted it here...

Korishan said:

Ok, I've looked around, and I've noticed there are several of the TP4056 models out there. Some use the thermal pin, other don't, some use another chip with the TP.


However, there are these 2 as well:





First off, has anyone used either of the latter 2?
Secondly, how would you use the 6 connections on the left one? I'm going to guess that this module is used in an application that charges and discharges through the same module. However, the discharging goes through a different circuit; assuming it cuts off the power if the cell drops to low?
Thirdly,how would you go about using the temperature probe on the right one?

Click to expand...

The board with the R3 on it is supposed to be a5V Micro USB 1A 18650 Lithium Battery Charging Board Module+Protection. From what I understand it protects the board if the battery is inserted backward.I just ordered 20 of them from ebay and can't wait from them to get here.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/10pcs-5V-Mi...e=STRK:MEBIDX:IT&_trksid=p2060353.m2749.l2649

The "reverse protection" is only brief. If you leave the cell in backwards for a few seconds, you'll still damage the TP.
Also, if you plug in a fully charged (4.1 or higher) cell, it will still blow the TP. So, just because it says it's protected, be careful. And yes, this has been tested as another user has plugged it in backwards and blew the TP.

Korishan said:

The "reverse protection" is only brief. If you leave the cell in backwards for a few seconds, you'll still damage the TP.
Also, if you plug in a fully charged (4.1 or higher) cell, it will still blow the TP. So, just because it says it's protected, be careful. And yes, this has been tested as another user has plugged it in backwards and blew the TP.

Click to expand...

Good to know, thank you for the information. I'll be careful.