off the shelf circuit for battery charging?

[engineheat]

Hi,
I want to commercialize a small gadget and it uses a battery that I want to charge via USB. I'm not an expert on electronics design so I wonder if there are established, off the shelf circuitry I can purchase for the battery recharging. It can be Li-ion or NiMH.

The thing that held me back is hearing stories of batteries exploding. Obviously, being an entrepreneur I want to minimize my risk as much as possible.  How does the established players minimize the liability risk?

It's been a dream of mine to commercialize this idea of mine and if I can get a prototype design then I kind of want to try it out on a crowdfunding site. Any advice would be appreciated.

Thanks

[sandalcandal]

For the BMS/Charger, using an IC and associated reference design would be more common than using a CoTS module for a mass produced gadget. However, for prototyping and proof-of-concept of the product (I assume you haven't built/tested the idea yet) you'll probably want to start with a module. There are many, many BMS-Charger ICs and modules available but I'm not sure which one is best for your requirements.

For liability, there are plenty of standards and external independent testing/certification that will be required whether you want it or not to ensure your product is safe and allowed on transport and on the market. You can have a check on UL for some US specific standards for free otherwise most of them are paywalled.

I do recommend doing some research and learning on "hardware product development" in general so you have an idea of likely challenges and typical successful roadmaps.

[engineheat]

For liability, is it standard to get liability insurance for something like this too?
Thanks