DC regenerative drive use for battery charge/discharge cycling

High-performance, re-chargeable batteries require carefully controlled charge/discharge cycling for cell formation and for acceptance testing. Standard battery charging circuits and resistive load banks have long been used for this application. This paper describes the use of a dc regenerative motor drive to efficiently provide the charge/discharge capability. An internal transformer reduces the supply line voltage to the maximum battery voltage, and a software interface controls the current and voltage levels. Photographs of the equipment and its voltage and current waveforms, under load, are provided. This equipment has been placed in service to control battery currents up to 400 A and voltages up to 200 V.