battery charging circuit for arduino

[dmehling]

I am thinking about getting an Arduino microcontroller (not sure which one yet).  For my project, I would like to be able to leave the battery connected to the microcontroller and still be able to charge it.  I saw a post on this forum http://www.arduino.cc/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl?num=1200471261/all about using the max1555 to do just that.  However, I am quite a novice when it comes to electronics and so I have no idea how to set this thing up with that particular IC.

[Soeren]

Hi,

I would like to be able to leave the battery connected to the microcontroller and still be able to charge it.

Easy enough, just implement the charge controller in the Arduino (with a few discrete components to handle the current), rather than adding a charge controller.