Department Of -

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Guided By - Prepared By -

Mrs. Palasri Dhar. Ayusha Biswas - 19

Barnali Guha - 20

Bibrata Sarkar - 21

Bikash Shaw - 22

Bisakha Halder- 23

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 Acknowledgement

This is to remind our respected departmental teachers, a great thanks for

selecting such a wonderful project on the topic “Battery Level Indicator” and giving us
an opportunity to work with it. During the development of this project in the Guru
Nanak Institute of Technology several persons collaborate directly or indirectly with
this project.
We would like to express our special Thanks of gratitude to our subjective
teacher Mrs. Palasri Dhar as well as our H.OD. Ma’am Dr. Sunipa Roy for giving this
project, which helped us to know so many new things about the topic. We would
express our sincere acknowledgement to our respected Palasri Ma’am for guiding us
time to time and giving different ideas in making this project unique.
Secondarily, we would like to thank our fellow classmates who also worked hard
for this project and helped a lot in gathering different information and collecting data.
Also great thanks to all teaching staffs of Electronics and Communication Department
for their great support.
Once again we thank all of them who helped to make this project a success
especially our advisor Mrs. Palasri Dhar.

Teacher’s Signature

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Table of Contents Page no.

 Abstract 05

 Introduction 06

 Importance of The Project 06

 Working Principle of Battery Level Indicator 06

 Components Required 07

 Circuit Diagram 07

 Circuit Designing 07

 How to Operate 08

 Result 08

 IC features 09

 Advantages 10

 Disadvantages 10

 Applications 11

 Limitations 11

 Bibliography 12

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 Abstract
This project aims to design a simple and cheap Battery level indicator.

The background information of circuit, operations and uses of the indicator. Basic
elements required to construct Battery-Level Indicator as well as the design criteria for
the constructed indicator.

This project will present a circuit that lets us know the battery level of a device from the
number of LED glowing and display on LCD.

The Battery-Level Indicator circuit is successfully Constructed. This indicator is capable

to indicate the status of battery. The performance and limitations of this indicator are
discussed in the project report.

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 Battery Level Indicator

Introduction :
Battery level indicator will let us know the states of battery of a device just by
glowing the number of LED’s. For example four LED’s are glowing means battery
capacity is 40%. You can use this circuit with your inverter or with your car battery; it
will give you indication about your battery status. So before your battery dies you can
recharge it. Advantage of this circuit is it does not require power supply; it will take
power supply from the battery of the device itself. This simple circuit is based on single
IC LM3914 with few more discrete components. LM3914 is a monolithic integrated
circuit which senses the analog voltage and derives 10 LED’s providing a linear analog
display.

Importance of The Project :

 In this project, we will show how to design a simple Battery Level Indicator
Circuit using easily available components. Battery level indicator indicates the
status of the battery just by glowing LED’s. For example six LED’s are glowing
means battery capacity 60% remains.

 This article will explain how to design battery level indicator. We can use this
circuit to check car battery or inverter. So by using this circuit, we can increase
the lifetime of battery.

Working Principle :

With a little modification we can use this circuit to measure other voltage ranges
also. For this remove the resistor R2 and connect upper voltage level to the input. Now
vary the resistance of Pot RV1 till the D10 LED glows. Now remove upper voltage level
at the input and connect lower voltage level. Connect a high value variable resistor in
the place of resistor R2 and vary it till the D1 LED glows. Now disconnect the pot,
measure the resistance across it and connect resistor of same value in place of R2. Now
the circuit is ready to monitor other voltage ranges.

The circuit is most suitable for indicating 12V battery level. In this circuit each led
indicates 10 percent battery level. We can extend this circuit to 100 steps by cascading
lm3914 IC’s.

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Components Required :

 LM3914 IC
 LEDs -10 (Red – 3, Yellow – 4, Green – 3)
 SPST Switch
 Resistors – 18KΩ, 4.7KΩ, 56KΩ
 Potentiometer – 10KΩ
 12V Battery (to test)
 Connecting wires
 Bread board

Circuit Diagram :

Fig 1: Battery Level Indicator Circuit Diagram

Circuit Designing :
In this circuit LEDs (D1-D10) displays the capacity of the battery in either dot
mode or display mode. This mode is selected by the external switch sw1 which is
connected to 9th pin of IC. 6th and 7th pins of IC are connected to the ground through a
resistor. This resistor controls the brightness of LEDs. Here resistor R3 and POT RV1
forms potential divider circuit. Here pot RV1 is used for calibration. There is no need of
any external power supply to this circuit. The circuit is designed to monitor 10V- 5V DC.

The circuit will work even if the battery voltage is 3V. The operating voltage of
this IC is 3v - 25v DC. Lm3914 drives LEDs, and vacuum fluorescents. The IC contains
adjustable reference and accurate 10-steps divider. This IC can also acts as sequencer.

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 Fig 2: Circuit using LM3914 IC

How to Operate :

 Connect battery to be tested to the input of the circuit.

 Now adjust the pot RV1 so that LED D1 just starts glowing.
 Now increase the input Dc voltage slowly and observe the LEDs.
 First led will glow for 1.2V and second LED is for 2.4 V and so on.

Result :
Below table shows the status of LED’s with input voltage level-

Battery level Percentage Status of LEDs

1.2V 10 D1 - ON

2.4V 20 D1, D2 - ON

3.6V 30 D1, D2, D3 - ON

4.8V 40 D1, D2, D3, D4 - ON

6.0V 50 D1, D2, D3, D4, D5 - ON

7.2V 60 D1, D2, D3, D4, D5, D6 - ON

8.4V 70 D1, D2, D3, D4, D5, D6, D7 - ON

9.6V 80 D1, D2, D3, D4, D5, D6, D7, D8 - ON

10.8V 90 D1, D2, D3, D4, D5, D6, D7, D8, D9 - ON

12V 100 ALL LEDs - ON

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 Fig 3: Designed Circuit

LM3914 IC Features :

 Internal voltage reference from 1.2 to 12v DC.

 Programmable output current 2mA to 30mA.
 LED driver outputs are current regulated.
 No multiplexing interaction between outputs.
 It supports wide range of temperature from 0 to 70 degree Celsius.
 For bar graph display – connect 9th pin of IC to the supply
 For dot display – leave the 9th pin of IC

We can also connect different colour LED’s to indicate the status. Connect D1 to D3
red LED’s which indicates shut down stage of your battery and use D8-D10 green
colour LED’s which indicates 80 to 100 percentage of the battery and use yellow colour
for remaining

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Advantages :
 Some cordless tools have a battery-level indicator which lets us know how much
battery power the tool has left. And this feature is like having fuel gauge on a car.
 The location of the battery- level indicator will vary depending on the model.
 Knowing when the battery is about to run out means we can prepare for it, rather
than being cut off-guard when a device stops in the middle of a task.
 Using battery-level indicator, gives an idea of how much battery power is being
used when working with a certain materials.

Fig: 4

Disadvantages :
Determining the charge remaining in many battery types not connected to a
system that monitors battery use is not reliably possible with a voltmeter. In battery
types where EMF remains approximately constant during discharge, but resistance
increases, voltage across battery terminals is not a good indicator of capacity. A meter
such as an equivalent series resistance meter (ESR meter) normally used for measuring
the ESR of electrolytic capacitors can be used to evaluate internal resistance.
And there are some disadvantages of using the ESR meters
 ESR meters fitted with protective diodes cannot be used, a battery will simply
destroy the diodes and damage itself.
 An ESR meter known not to have diode protection will give a reading of internal
resistance for a rechargeable or non-rechargeable battery of any size down to the
smallest button cells which gives an indication of the state of charge.
 To use it, measurements on fully charged and fully discharged batteries of the
same type can be used to determine resistances associated with those states.
 The cost of an ESR meter makes it uneconomic for measuring battery voltages as
its only function, but a meter used for cheeking capacitors can take on the
additional duty.

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Applications :
Fig: 5
 Automobiles
We can use this circuit to measure car
battery level. Some automobiles are fitted
with a battery condition meter to monitor
the starter battery. This meter is,
essentially, a voltmeter but it may also be
marked with coloured zones for easy
visualization. Alternatively,
an ammeter may be fitted. This indicates
whether the battery is being charged or
discharged. Both ammeters and voltmeters
individually or together can be used to
assess the operating state of an automobile
battery and charging system.
Fig: 6

 Electronic Devices

It can be used in mobile phones usually in

forms of a bar graph – the more bars that are
showing the better the battery state of charge.

 Computers
Computers may give a signal to users that an
internal standby battery needs replacement.
Portable computers using rechargeable batteries
generally give the user some indication of the remaining operating time left on the
battery. A Smart Battery System uses a controller integrated with an interchangeable
battery pack to provide a more accurate indication of the state of battery charge.

 This circuit is also used to calibrate inverter status.

Limitations :
 This battery level indicator works only for small voltages.
 This circuit is theoretical and may require some changes to work in practical.
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Bibliography :

 https://www.electronicshub.org/
 Library books
 WIKIPEDIA

The End

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