I am working on a PIC/PC based smart battery charger ( and discharger and tester ) that will have a graphical record of the charging. The PIC part can be the BitWacker, the charger circuit will be an add on. Anyone want to help? You could work on any one segment of the project or alternative implementations. I have a page about the project posted at: http://www.opencircuits.com/Smart_Batte ... ata_Logger

Why not just build this

http://www.seven-segments.com/index.php ... cats&id=13

Or use it as a starting point.

Cool site, interesting charger.
I guess I want to do my own thing, but also:

*Want more intellegence on the PC side -- most of my software is PC not firmware.

*Want single ended power supply

*Want less expense and complexity of the LCD display

Allowing for the above my circuit is very close to that in the project ( probably because it is the logical way to do it ).

Thanks for the tip, while it is not for me, it may be for others on the forum.

That's asking for trouble, a burnt down house would not be fun...

I'm not trying to discourage you from this project, i'm actually quite interested, just don't use a PC to control the charger in real-time.

Been thinking about what you think would cause the trouble? Do you think windoze is unreliable? Perhaps I will add a temp sensor and add a wireless connection to my sprinkler system. That should do it.

I just wouldn't want a hanging computer to cause a nasty fire...

Actually a good point, I think I may add a "alive" signal from the PC to the PIC as a safety feature.