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ROADTEST POLL: Would You Be Interested in Roadtesting a Battery Emulator and Profiler

rscasny

imageI plan on roadtesting this board in June.

Here are some details about the product:

E36731A battery emulator and profiler is an integrated electronic load and power supply developed to use with Keysight PathWave BenchVue battery emulation software. An emulated battery gives you a known good reference for testing at any charge level. Quickly assess the effect of design or software changes on battery life by emulating any battery charge state. Leverage emulation and precise current drain analysis to achieve longer battery life or to reduce the size of your device.

Here are some Features:

  • Instantly emulate any battery charge state and display real-time current drain data
  • Generate accurate battery profiles using the simulated current drain of a device
  • Instantly emulate any battery charge state and display real-time current drain data
  • Achieve accurate battery run-down tests by emulating your device’s current drain
  • Estimate battery aging effects to predict device performance throughout its lifetime
  • Streamline your workflow with an integrated power supply and an electronic load

Here is the documentation:

Datasheet
Web Page
Technical Resources

For More Information

Prospective Roadtester Poll

  • I always overdo the battery size by 10. What a cool instrument to investigate what is really needed.

  • Oh my! YES!

    This is one instrument I do not have on my bench and it is difficult to replicate its capabilities with other test instruments.

    Plus, I just bought (as in still in the plastic shipping wrapper)  a 100 Ah LiFePO4 battery that I would love to characterize against the AGM Lead batteries I have been using in a solar PV installation.

    LiFePO4 battery

    2023 is turning out to be the Year of the Awesome Road Tests!

    Mark

  • I'd have to say a definite yes to this too. In fact, that's what I often use my 2Q and 4Q SMUs for, although their current capabilities are much more limited. To get around that, I've rigged up PSUs and dedicated DC Electronic Loads, but they're not exactly as accurate nor easy to use. Would be keen to know what this one has in terms of profiling ... whether it only profiles loads or if it also profiles batteries as building an emulation profile for a battery can involve a bit of work otherwise.

    - Gough

  • in reply to Gough Lui

    I believe it can emulate a number of known batteries to help you validate what type you'd need to meet your devices expected battery life.

    It also supports testing the battery / charging design and strategy: how should you control charge cycles to keep the battery healthy across many charge cycles.

  • I voted other.

    The hardware is quite nice, but expensive as you would expect from Keysight. Usually their gear is pretty good and can justify the price.

    There is a big caveat, for me, with this product. To achieve its potential it needs additional software (a special version of BenchVue) which (as far as I can tell) is Windows only and subscription license only.

    This means that the £5k box you bought goes on working for just as long as Keysight support it and you go on forking out £750 per year.

    My experience of Benchvue (a few years out of date) is that it doesn't play that well with other software.

     I just pulled a couple of instruments off a shelf in my lab where they had been resting for over 10 years. Both just work. Both have IEEE standards defined interfaces with full documentation - so I can talk to them. It doesn't look like the E36731A  would do this. It does have remote control via LAN and optionally GPIB but this doesn't replicate the BenchVue software or support battery models (based on my reading of documentation).

    The other concern I have with fancy battery emulators is trust in the models - very hard to be sure that the emulator accurately models a particular battery, and that the battery that gets plugged into your device is actually the one that was modelled.

    So while I would very much like to see a Road Test of this box I wouldn't fancy investing a big chunk of time into it myself.

    Maybe the Road Tests will change my mind.

    Good luck Roadtesters !

    MK

  • I would be very interested in testing this device.

    I picked up a bunch of batteries at a garage sale and this device would let me experiment with them.

  • I would love to have a go on this, moreso to compare to the more advanced cyclers and setups we use at work

  • This looks like something we could use at work. I have to say I am not a fan of batteries and testing them is not my idea of fun, but batteries have their uses so anything that can help deal with them is a great  thing.

  • in reply to dougw
    dougw said:
    not a fan of batteries and testing them is not my idea of fun

    Oh how different we both are ... I love batteries and testing them is fun ... until the lab burns down that is. Oh lithium ion, why so volatile?

    But I guess it's just my curiosity that leads me to wonder just how long certain batteries would last on cycling and how their capacity changes over time/temperature.

    - Gough