Rotoye Batmon

Rotoye Batmon is a kit for adding smart battery functionality to off-the-shelf Lithium-Ion and LiPo batteries. It can be purchased as a standalone unit or as part of a factory-assembled smart-battery.

::: info At time of writing you can only use Batmon by building a custom branch of PX4. Support in the codeline is pending PR approval. :::

Where to Buy

Rotoye Store: Batmon kits, custom smart-batteries, and accessories

Wiring/Connections

The Rotoye Batmon system uses an XT-90 battery connector with I2C pins, and an opti-isolator board to transmit data.

More details can be found here

Software Setup

Build PX4 Firmware

1. Clone or download Rotoye's fork of PX4: sh git clone https://github.com/rotoye/PX4-Autopilot.git cd PX4-Autopilot
2. Checkout the batmon_4.03 branch sh git fetch origin batmon_4.03 git checkout batmon_4.03
3. Build and upload the firmware for your target board

Configure Parameters

In QGroundControl: 1. Set the following parameters: - BATx_SOURCE to External, - SENS_EN_BAT to true, - BAT_SMBUS_MODEL to 3:Rotoye 1. Open the MAVLink Console 1. Start the batt_smbus driver in the console. For example, to run two BatMons on the same bus: sh batt_smbus start -X -b 1 -a 11 # External bus 1, address 0x0b batt_smbus start -X -b 1 -a 12 # External bus 1, address 0x0c

Further Information

Quick Start Guide (Rotoye)