I am looking for the best/lowest current draw way to create a low battery cutoff for a 12v battery powered circuit. The battery will power a micro-controller and also a number of solenoids that may draw up to 10 amps. Because of the high amperage draw lithium ion batteries may be out of the question. I could be wrong but when dealing with a high amperage draw, a NiMh may be the better solution. The amperage will draw be of a short duration, probably 1 second. I know it is common for lithium ion batteries to have built in low battery cutoff circuits but when dealing with a standalone NIMh battery or any other generic 12v battery what would be the best way to set up a low battery(10.6v) cutoff? There are low battery cutoff modules, but I find these to be defective half the time and they draw too much current. There are low battery cutoff IC's I see but they only deal with low voltage supplies like 5v or less. Does anyone know of a low voltage cutoff ic that works with 12v batteries? I may or may not be using a 555 timer and/or an attiny85 microcontroller in the circuit. Can these devices be used to create a low voltage cutoff? I programmed an arduino to cutoff the voltage at 10.5 volts using the serial monitor but I could only get this to work when the Arduino was plugged in to computer via usb. Does serial monitor work with a microcontroller when powered by battery alone or does it need to be plugged into a computer via usb?
