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Im doing a DIY battery and after that I want to measure the results and displaying the results in Raspberry Pi. I wanted to know if the measurement could be better done using INA219 or voltage/current sensors connected wirh ADCs? Thank you!

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  • please define better
    – jsotola
    Dec 21, 2021 at 20:43
  • Sorry,what should I define better? Dec 21, 2021 at 20:56
  • define what you mean by the word "better" ... it means different things to different people
    – jsotola
    Dec 21, 2021 at 21:09
  • Try posting the technical details such as volts and amps. These values have a big impact on sensor choice. You could be controlling .01uA or maybe 1000A more or less, we do not know. What accuracy do you need. How many digits do you want to display, response time, etc.
    – Gil
    Dec 21, 2021 at 22:59
  • I understand,but my battery isnt finished.I think that would be a normal battery and the values also same,mabye smaller. Dec 22, 2021 at 8:07

2 Answers 2

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Use the 1NA219, or any other IC that offers 'high-side' measurement.

To explain: current is measured by putting a small resistor in the battery line; say you have a 12V battery and it is feeding 1 amp, then if you use a 0.1 ohm resistor, one side of the resistor will be 12V, the other 11.9V. To measure these voltages with an ADC you have to use potential dividers on both voltages, maybe 5:1 so the voltages become 2.4 and 2.38 volts.

Note that you have reduced the difference between the two voltages, so will have lost a lot of accuracy in your measurement; also you've connected a potential divider across your battery which will waste some of its power.

High-side measurement gets round this problem by giving you the difference between the two resistor voltages, so is a lot easier to work with.

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  • I don't follow your explanation of the high side measurement advantage, and wondered if you could cite a reference to support that? A technical article or app note - something like that...
    – Seamus
    Dec 23, 2021 at 6:15
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This is similar to the other question you asked. I'm not sure if you read the answer that I suggested in a comment to that question, but I do feel it also answers this question. By that, I mean if you define "better" as high accuracy and ease of integration, the INA260 is an excellent choice.

And FWIW: The primary difference between the INA219 and the INA260 is that the INA260 has the current-sensing resistor built into the chip. Unless you have some fairly unusual or extreme requirements, that makes the INA260 the clear choice for "better".

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