What exactly does the OBC do?

Nowadays, electric vehicles are becoming more and more common and have become a beautiful scenery on the road. OBC vehicle charger is the core component to realize energy conversion in electric vehicles

According to Baidu Baike's explanation: on-board charger; OBC) refers to the charger fixed on the electric vehicle, which has the ability to fully charge the power battery safely, quickly and conveniently. According to the data provided by the battery management system BMS, it dynamically adjusts the charging current and voltage parameters, performs the corresponding charging action, and completes the charging process.

Seeing this explanation, many friends are still confused about how the OBC vehicle charger can fully charge an electric car. Let's take a look.

The OBC vehicle charger is mainly divided into two parts, the power supply part and the control board of the charger.

The main function of the power supply part is to convert the single-phase 220V or three-phase 380V AC from the power grid into the direct current required by the power battery, which involves an important function of AC to DC.

The main function of the charger control board is to control, monitor, measure, correct, protect the power supply and communicate with the outside network. It is the "central brain" of the vehicle charger.

The network communication with the outside world mentioned here is mainly through the high-speed CAN network to communicate with the battery management system BMS, judge whether the battery connection status is correct, and obtain the battery system parameters and real-time data of the battery before and during charging.

In addition, it should communicate with the vehicle monitoring system, upload the working status, working parameters and fault alarm information, and accept the command to start or stop charging.

It can be said that OBC vehicle charger is a key component to complete the conversion of AC power input into DC power and determine the charging power and efficiency. The development of its technology has promoted the popularization and practicability of electric vehicles.

At present, the output power of OBC on-board chargers equipped with mainstream electric vehicle passenger vehicles on the market is generally 3.3kW and 6.6kW, while the output power of chargers equipped with commercial vehicles and construction machinery vehicles is high, reaching 10KW, 20KW and 40KW.

The output power of OBC determines the length of charging time. Limited by the space size of the vehicle and the voltage of the grid, the power is generally small and the charging speed is slow, which is commonly known as slow charging. However, its existence greatly facilitates the charging demand of electric vehicles and improves the range of electric vehicles.