Safety is vitally important when using electronic devices in hazardous areas. Intrinsic safety (IS) ensures harmless operation in areas where an electric spark could ignite flammable gas or dust. Hazardous areas include oil refineries, chemical plants, grain elevators and textile mills. All electronic devices entering a hazardous. Zone 0 Gas/vapors exist continuously or for long periods under normal use. Zone 1 Gas/vapors likely to exist under normal use. Zone 2 Gas/vapors unlikely to exist under normal use. Zone 20 Dust exists continuously or for long periods under normal use. Zone 21 Dust.
Further layers of safeguards can include solid-state switches in a circuit that is attached to the battery pack to measure current and voltage and disconnect the circuit if the values are too high. Protection circuits for Li-ion packs are mandatory. (See BU-304b: Making Lithium-ion Safe)
This testing can be a bottleneck in the manufacturing process, so test solutions that reduce time or increase test density are highly desirable. One of the most useful measurements for a battery cell or pack is the open circuit voltage (OCV), but the considerations that must be made at the module or pack level differ from the cell level.
Not all cells have built-in protections and the responsibility for safety in its absence falls to the Battery Management System (BMS). Further layers of safeguards can include solid-state switches in a circuit that is attached to the battery pack to measure current and voltage and disconnect the circuit if the values are too high.
dividual cells connected in series.Battery Open Circuit VoltageThe open circuit voltage on any device is he voltage when no load is connected to the rest of the circuit. In the case of a battery, the OCV measurem
The selected protection device must trip in case of a fault in less than 100 ms. In case the fault current provided by the battery does not allow for the finding of protection devices, such as a Circuit Breaker or fuse, that meets the derating criteria stated in point B, it is hence possible to increase the multiplier up to 0.7.
Why do I need to measure the open circuit voltage?
It may also be necessary to measure the open circuit voltage of the individual cells in addition to the voltage of the pack as a whole. This is especially useful for judging the cell balancing routines during charging and discharging that prevent cell stress and validating monitoring in the battery management systems.