Story
Portable testers for electric vehicles face much higher complexity due to the high amount of electronics and large batteries used in these cars. This requests additional functionality to be added. As this tester is portable, size is important, and space should be allocated to additional electronics and not the power supply.
Due to the different areas of application, the tester can be supplied from car batteries, internal batteries, or an external power supply. The supply voltage therefore can vary and also depends on the charging stage of the batteries. During the measurement cycle the conditions must remain stable and therefore a converter was needed to create a precisely regulated voltage of 14.4V, simulating a fully charged car battery.
Ground loops between the car, the tester and especially the external supply working from AC mains can distort measurement signals, therefore galvanic isolation of the measurement equipment from the power source was needed.
A tiny 60W RECOM converter, smaller than a typical match box, did solve all these challenges. It took significantly less space than the previous solution, can handle all the different supply voltages, provides isolation and the output voltage can be adjusted to 14.4V.
Due to the different areas of application, the tester can be supplied from car batteries, internal batteries, or an external power supply. The supply voltage therefore can vary and also depends on the charging stage of the batteries. During the measurement cycle the conditions must remain stable and therefore a converter was needed to create a precisely regulated voltage of 14.4V, simulating a fully charged car battery.
Ground loops between the car, the tester and especially the external supply working from AC mains can distort measurement signals, therefore galvanic isolation of the measurement equipment from the power source was needed.
A tiny 60W RECOM converter, smaller than a typical match box, did solve all these challenges. It took significantly less space than the previous solution, can handle all the different supply voltages, provides isolation and the output voltage can be adjusted to 14.4V.
