After talking to some other teams, we found a battery protection and charger board that is compatible with our project (TP4056):

TP4056.jpg

This board physically can fit in our housing and has a USB-C connector that we were planning to have anyway. There are some more questions to fully explore:

  1. Will this be in the final device or be an external charging tool?
  2. Can this USB-C also support data transfer for programming the MCU?
  3. If this is to be in the final device, how exactly will it be wired up to the voltage regulator?
  4. We want to actually do a timed charged and see how Peltier powering performance is

To note, we also came across another team using a Peltier module that found minimal issues with using PWM to control a MOSFET that switches the Peltier module on and off. Theoretically (seen on forums online) this would lead to great inefficiency, but their lived experience tells us that maybe we should reconsider out decision to omit PWM control (however, they have a different power system…).

Overall, this inspires hope in our battery debacle!

Going forward, the FW team will continue to characterize the sensors in preparation for the next meeting with the teaching team. Our electrical member also learned about biopotential amplifiers in class that may be applied to our GSR sensor subsystem.