Active Battery Balancer first time user! And I was...

[@MarkusIngalsuo]

This kind of balancer most likely connects to each cell in a round robin fashion in order to be able to work. So, it will not pull from the highest to the lowest. And the missing amps, the clamp meter will not be able to visualize the flow because of switching frequency.

[@Josh-b3c]

Okay Andy I have the same balancer that little solder joint next to the connector on the balancer next to the b- if you desolder that you have the two pads there you can connect a relay and turn that on and off with a switch or a relay I have mine programmed to the victron inverter to turn on at any voltage I want it to I said it to 13.8 for my 12 volt battery so it comes on just as the batteries are starting to come up in the curve and then I have it set to turn off when I start discharging the battery Yeah that is it you found it in the video

[@jakeandrules7724]

You saw the soldered connection point too. I sam that and said the same thing, use a relay to control when you want them on or off. Nice work!

[@Do_the_Dishes]

I think those balancers can only charge and discharge between adjacent cells. In other words, it is not able to take a charge from cell #1 and give it to cell #4 directly. It has to work through all the cells in between. So in your case, It looked like cell #3 was charging #4 heavily, #3 was getting rebalanced from #2, then #2 getting rebalanced from #1 the highest charge.

[@OffGridGarageAustralia]

Thank you. That's even more confusing to measure then but makes sense.

[@philbrooke-little7082]

Remember current is flowing both in and out through some of the cables. It will ‘suck’ from one for a bit then ‘Blow’ into the other. The clamp meter will average this out. You may find for instance a difference between the current in the main negative lead on the lowest cell and the positive lead. You might think the current should be the same but the positive lead is common to the cell above as well. An oscilloscope between the two ends of one of the interconnecting balance leads, using it as a shunt, might be interesting.

[@StansE250]

Entertaining, if for nothing else than your Personality ! Great energy Andy ! ☺️

[@Sirslayer_X]

I use only a balancer on my 12 volts lithium setup. My solar charger and Inverter between the both have the low power , temperature and max volt cutoff and no bms is needed . This setup would have the most power you’ll get out of your solar panels

[@kenwing6196]

Don't forget the balancer is a power converter, not a current converter. Consider the voltage of each cell also. If the balancer were not extremely efficient, it would be extremely hot, which you confirmed it is not. Impressive little device!

[@OffGridGarageAustralia]

Thank you.

[@teardowndan5364]

These active balancers likely operate on a principle similar to charge pump where capacitor banks are switched in parallel with their respective cell for one part of the cycle to equalize voltage between capacitor and cell, then put all capacitors in parallel with each other for the other part to equalize charge. Rinse and repeat until all cells are equal. The heat comes from I2R losses in the capacitors and FETs. As someone else mentioned, measurements not adding up is likely because the clamp-meter cannot capture high frequency components from capacitor switching.

[@TBL_stevennelson]

I was just watching your old videos and you reminded me to remind you to be more careful.

[@offgridamps]

I use two of these balancers on a 260ah 4s pack, barely ever go out of balance, really good for cells that dont match that well 👍🏻👍🏻

[@offgridwithmarcusroenz]

THANK YOU for checking that!!! Put a Voltage Relais to turn on the BMS at high Voltage =). Kost 5 Dollars or so on Aliexpress. Dont balance it on discharge.

[@OffGridGarageAustralia]

I've got one!

[@SkypowerwithKarl]

Andy! You listened! You really, really listened to me! Lol 😝. But dang, what a torture test (or a torch test?), wow! I would be curious to see what the delta it would have ended at and whole battery voltage before and after balancing to see how much energy was expended for the process.

[@hommerdalor6301]

@ karl jensen I think Andy is listening to all of us. Cheers

[@OffGridGarageAustralia]

Yes, I'm always listen to all of you, just not acting on most comments 😁 The battery is still connected after 4 days now and... still balancing. I can measure ~0.5A going in an out of various cells. I will do another test, once the smaller test cells are coming in. The 280Ah cells are ridiculous, taking forever.

[@SkypowerwithKarl]

@@OffGridGarageAustralia Lol. You know how long it takes with a 10amp power supply to top balance from the factory charge. This is more than a tad more. A 200 mv difference would have been a lot quicker but I know what you were trying to. Make it go snap, crackle bang!? 😈 Both the 4S and the 16S look exactly like mine except for the company logo. I wonder which one is the copy/clone, Heltec or yours? The only thing I don’t like is the leads are too short on the 16S so you have to splice to extend some for a big long bank.

[@martehoudesheldt5885]

the key to them is the fact that they work 24/7 and you don't have to worry about it anymore. the one thing you will notice is that when you stop charging the volts will drop a little bit over time till all the cells equal out that is were low current float really works great in concert with the balancer. i have 4 big batteries 13 balancers per battery. i have found that bring it up fast then hold it there (wherever you want it) then hold it there for works the best. at least for me. good for you.

[@stevenlane729]

Hi Andy, thank you so much for your videos. Just a note on the cellmeter 8, I've found that you can't trust the voltage as shown for each of the cells. Mine had an error of 60mV on 2 adjacent cells (1 +ve, 1 -ve, so 120mV difference) and around 30mV on 2 others. It didn't matter what configuration that the cells were in, it was always the same reading (6 and 7) which was in error.

[@snmurangira]

Andy, why are you looking for “missing amps”? Your assuming that charging and discharging through a capacitor is a linear affair! Which is not. Remember the “missing amps” are maintaining the charge of the capacitor. If you disconnected the discharging cell, the charging cell would keep charging for a shot time until the capacitor has discharged as as well. I know you can graph this relationship (transient) on your whiteboard!

[@OffGridGarageAustralia]

I didn't measure the black wire, that's all. 🤦‍♂️

[@danielardelian2]

@@OffGridGarageAustralia Put the clamp meter around ALL 5 wires AT THE SAME TIME, then the meter will display the instantaneous NET CURRENT. But still not sure what that would tell you, because the balancer works by connecting a capacitor in parallel to one cell to draw energy from it, then moving the capacitor in parallel to a lower cell to push energy into it, so it's a time-dependent process. I mentioned in a previous comment, there's also JK-BMS, a bit more expensive, but also comes with a mobile phone app where you can monitor the cell voltages and delta.

[@ai4px]

I really like the switch idea. You see, I think it would be great to use an active balancer when you have 15 cells high and one low. And use the BMS resistors when you have 1 high and 15 lower. Of course I set the BMS balance to .01V higher than my expected average pack voltage so only the ones which rise above the average get pulled back down. Now to figure out a way to automate turning on the balancer... hmmm.... I have had to watch in frustration as 15 cells were at 3.5v and one was at 3.4.... either wait 3-1/2 years (lol) for the BMS to pull down the other 15 cells or hook up a bench power supply to the low cell and boost it up.... this balancer will be nice.

[@infinitygreenpower]

Regarding the strange reading of current values or missing current between input and output in the batteries it is because two reasons: 1. This DC clampmeter it reads with a relatively large error rate. 2. I think the balancing done in time division scanning therefore if you can use oscilloscope you can see the pulsing scanning. Therefore the reading by clampmeter will give wrong values.

[@onthelake9554]

This particular clamp meter is very accurate . I compared mine to multiple very expensive ones at work and it was dead on .

[@OffGridGarageAustralia]

The simple answer is: I didn't measure the black cable!

[@infinitygreenpower]

@@OffGridGarageAustralia yes I know , but reading current by clampmeter It gives inaccurate readings. Try reading it by multimeter in series. If the balancer's output can be read by the oscilloscope then we can know how the balancer works.

[@christophS2468]

The balancer currents are at different voltages and therefore don't need to cancel out. Replace the bus bars with wires so that you can get the clamp-meter around them and you'll see that current also flows between the cells. Kirchhoff's law still applies.

[@OffGridGarageAustralia]

I forgot about the black wire. That's where the rest goes.

[@philippk.5242]

Missing Amps? Black Cable! After watching this video my neighbors asked why I screamed "MEASURE THE F***ING BLACK CABLE" several times 😂. Sum has to be the 0. Otherwise old Kirchhoff would rotate in his grave!

[@OffGridGarageAustralia]

I shouldn't have that 🍺 before filming... You're absolutely right.

[@philippk.5242]

@@OffGridGarageAustralia Na na na, beer is always a right decision. I just bought you one. 🍺

[@OffGridGarageAustralia]

@@philippk.5242 thank you very much!

[@Miketz]

His methodology was correct for determining the efficiency of the balancer. There was 1.75A taken from two of the bateries, with 1.27A of that being put into the other two batteries and around 500mA being turned into heat giving an efficiency of 73%.

[@philippk.5242]

@@Miketz Nope. Current coming from or going into the first cell (#26) has to go through the black wire because its the only connection to this cells negative. And this current was not measured and is missing in the equation.

[@cjjuszczak]

13:38 i like the pegboard on the wall using hard drive magnets to hold-up the tools :)

[@OffGridGarageAustralia]

It's so convenient...

[@danfitzpatrick4112]

Cool stuff! What I really like about my Heltek (JK) active balancer is what I use it for most.... It not only balances if needed, but also shows the specs of all 16 of my batteries. This is very handy! It shows the delta as well and you can set the parameters for the deviation to start balancing. Mine is only the 2a version but works well. Thanks

[@michaeldoherty2289]

How does it show you the specs? Does Heltek have an app so you can get the specs your phone or tablet?

[@StultusRex]

19:55 been searching for a long time to confirm which youtuber gave me the idea to add switch on this active balancer, and it was you all along. hehe

[@rendark419]

Hab hier auch einen 17S aktive Balancer verbaut und gute Erfahrung damit gemacht! Danke für das tolle Video!

[@OffGridGarageAustralia]

Danke Dir!

[@lj516]

These work by boosting the voltage of a high cell to charge the lower. The highest cell must discharge through all other cells between it and the lowest cell. Think waterfall cascade system

[@dan2304]

Andy, as you can see; the active balancer is not expensive and is quite effective. Yes it will use some power as all circuits do. The benefit is reliability of automatic operation. No BMS cut-off due to only one cell being too high or too low in voltage. Some argue that the continual transfer of current degrades the cells faster but the current is so low that I think differences in voltage would be worse for the cells and the reliability of unsupervised operation is worth the financial, power and cell degradation cost of unsupervised reliability.

[@gd2329j]

The active balancer works 24/7 not just at the end of charge . The 24 - 100 amp per day is usable . But if it's getting up to the 100 amp mark you have big problems !

[@ganeshmahajan1985]

Please explain more 🙏🏻

[@tecnology-today]

Andy, you need an osciloscope to measure the energy transfer between cells. Can't be done with a dc clamp because it can not measure correctly the pulses of the charge-discharge cycles

[@jerrylindsey4356]

Yes. I got a bad batch of batteries from china... Very mismatched...But I put one of those active cell balances on them and have been using the 24 volt pack with 4 good and 4 bad cells and the active balancer has been working great at keeping the voltages perfectly matched...

[@bentleyjarrard885]

I believe the difference between discharge and charge current (misisng 2A as you called it) is due to the capacitor charge & discharge cycles not being 100% synchronized with the current flow to each cell. In other words, It is for example to have 6A of total discharge but only 2A going into a battery cell while 4A may be charging some of the Caps on the PCB at that moment.

[@krisblair9799]

Andy I love your electrical safety test! We need more data from the balancer. I think you should install amp hour/watt hour meters on each lead going to the cells so we can see exactly how much energy is moved from each cell over time in the balancing sequence 😜

[@rogerjohnson2562]

Yes, when amps are measured, volts are needed also to determine power; it can't be expected that amp out will equal amps in.

[@audiophilephile]

@@rogerjohnson2562 Agree. And, since the current pattern during cap charging and discharging is not DC and not sinusoidal, getting a handle on the voltage (differential) or current is not going to be easy. A "true rms" AC clamp-on might be helpful but even there the frequency of the charging and discharging might not be within the meter's range.

[@robserver7531]

Hi Andy good info in that video well done I liked that you found the run section of the balancer . So I thought I will get one for my 8s system that I am currently building, just as a backup for balancing. I used your link and tried to use the code but it did not work. Just thought you should know. Cheers keep up the good work. Update to this comment the code you have is only good for orders above $100

[@rcinfla9017]

The capacitor transfer active balancers have to charge then discharge the caps so the charging or discharging current is not continuous. Your clip on ampmeter will not read these pulsing currents correctly. There is also a no current time gap where cell voltage is compared without any tranfer current voltage drop on wiring that would screw up the cell voltage comparison. Each connecting wire is a shared path between two adjacent cells so current on any given wire could be switching direction between adjacent cells. It likely does not fully read the cell voltage as in a BMS full ADC circuit. It only needs a comparitor to determine if one cell is greater or less then another cell. It only rates the cells from highest voltage to lowest voltage (without knowing precise value) via a two cells at a time comparison. Capacitors cannot instantly change voltage so there is some series resistance purposely put in the circuit which hurts transfer efficiency. The square plastic surface mount devices are power MOSFET's that do the switching between cells and capacitors. I am always concerned about the long term reliability of the electrolytic transfer caps especially with high ripple current during charging and discharging. I prefer the inductor switching active balancers. Just don't waste your money on the small ones using the ETA3000 I.C.'s. These small active balancers have a problem with their voltage comparison due to wiring current induced voltage drop screwing up the voltage sense comparisons. They often balance push current in the wrong direction. The other active balancer I have heard good things about is the one with a inductor based switcher that has its input and output moved around the cells to do charge transfer. This unit has good transfer power efficiency. It does up to 10 amps transfer but the average is usually much lower because it can only transfer between two cells at any point in time. It selects the highest voltage cell to draw from and lowest voltage cell to deliver to. It periodically stops transfer and reevaluates the cell voltage differences then works between revised highest and lowest cells for next cycle. This balancer is more expensive and physically bigger. It has BT monitoring.

[@janmessek1826]

When switching capacitors between high and low cells there are spikes of current flowing into and out of the caps and the fets have to carry that surge current through their slight resistance wasting some energy ... more for larger voltage differences.

[@onthelake9554]

I would like to see what it does if you would leave it alone and see how close it gets the cells before it quits balancing and when it starts working again . And the idle consumption when it quits balancing . Cheers !

[@OffGridGarageAustralia]

It's hard to say with these large cells and the very flat curve. The balancer is voltage driven. Once the cells all hit close to say 3.25V they could be at 30% or 70%SOC. The balancer will not fix that.

[@onthelake9554]

@@OffGridGarageAustralia I wasn't referring to SOC , Just at any state of charge. If you leave it alone at what cell delta voltage will it quit trying to balance . And at what CDV will it start balancing again > and Idle consumption when not balancing . Cheers

[@OffGridGarageAustralia]

@@onthelake9554 ah right. I'll treat this out when I have the smaller battery cells. It takes too long with theses ones.

[@onthelake9554]

@@OffGridGarageAustralia Ok , Thanks !

[@fredio54]

4s one burns about 12mA working and in-balance, but only about 1mA with that solder bridge open circuit. If you have very small capacity cells like me it's worth doing or fully isolating with a 4pst switch (what I do for a static non-solar long term storage situation).

[@jacobhn2]

Good balance for the batteries found out how it worked, it works by a capacitor being charged from each battery next all the capacitors are connected in pairs so they are equalized next they are charged / discharged again over the cells and so on the lowest cell will get charge and some cells will not get charge. Nice to be able to turn it off now and then.

[@pritambissonauth2181]

Always a pleasure learning from your videos and others comments.

[@solarautark4144]

He finally bought a balancer. 🍻 Most of the balancing current flows immediately during charging and discharging to compensate the drift. When the battery is at rest, the balancing is marginal. If the battery pack is always balanced, little or no equalising current flows. Then you will not miss the 6 watts. The heat has to come from somewhere. At least not everything is adjusted to the lowest cell and burned up.

[@OffGridGarageAustralia]

It's just for testing! nothing else 😁

[@solarautark4144]

@@OffGridGarageAustralia jaja sagen sie alle 🤣

[@jforthewin8029]

Total wattage. Voltage * current = power There's loss but you need to calculate the power on the charge side and discharge site. Then you can figure out the efficiency.

[@dan2304]

Andy, a tong tester only measures the net magnetic field around the wires and the amps are calculated from that. With intermittent current from the capacitors a tong tester will not give accurate readings. You would probably need a smart shunt on the black or common negative wire to get an accurate reading. With the switch capacity of the balancer it should be possible to have a relay automatically switch the balancer on late in the charge cycle and switch off again during discharge based on voltage. However I do not have the expertise to say how.

[@OffGridGarageAustralia]

I simply forgot to measure the black wire which showed the missing amps in a later test 🤦‍♂️

[@glenn5580]

Hi Andy. Greetings from San Diego California. I keep wondering why you are concerned about mppt not charging your battery in daylight hours?? Isnt the idea of a battery to hold energy for use when it is needed?? My thought is a car battery. It only charges when it needs it. Otherwise the battery will be destroyed i must be missing something???? Thank you for sharing your experiences with off grid solar. In private life are you in the entertainment business?? Commercials for instance?? Me?? Auto repair. Great show you have. Drama and humor. A great combo for sure...

[@OffGridGarageAustralia]

Thank you very much Glenn! The charger should keep charging until the battery is full and the set parameters are met. A car battery is a bit different and you may destroy it when constantly charging (unless you float at a lower voltage). Li batteries will just stop charging once the set voltage is reached. I'm not in the entertainment industry... wait! maybe I am now! 🤡

[@nemoexpress3426]

I use heltec balancers on my 120p x 7s power wall, my tesla modules, and my 48p x 4s 12v. They do a great job in my opinion.

[@OffGridGarageAustralia]

Permanently connected?

[@nemoexpress3426]

@@OffGridGarageAustralia yes

[@rcinfla9017]

The weak link in the design of many low cost active balancers is what happens when variable inverter load current causes some cell voltage slump with inverter load current. If the active balancer cell voltage sensing does not take all cell voltage reading at same point in time there can have been a change in load, or charge current by inverter or charge controller which effects the cells' voltage sensing resulting in corruption of the relative cell voltage reading comparisons. This can cause active balancer to select the wrong charge transfer direction. Second issue is the common single sense wire between two cells. The extra voltage drop for the interconnecting bus bar between cells and its battery terminal connections can effect the individual cell reading, under higher load or charge current, which has the bus bar within the serial path of a given cell. Best that can be done to reduce this is ensure the sense wires are connected so every cell has one bus bar connection in series with a single cell so the bus bar voltage drop is equal from all cell readings. This wil not fix the issue that some bus connections might have a bit more or less resistance then others. It is very important the interconnect bus bar connections are clean and secure to get the best matching of their added series resistance. Also, if the higher balancing current is active when balancer makes voltage reading the balance current through the common, small gauge, sense wire will have additional voltage drop that effects cell reading. Any reasonable balancer design will temporarily shut down balancing currents before making the cells' voltage sensing to avoid the sense wire voltage drop.

[@OffGridGarageAustralia]

Thank you, great details.

[@kgsalvage6306]

Have you tried using these active balancer with a BMS? Like the JBD? I'm not sure if it would conflict with the BMS. The BMSs do not keep up when charging at high rates. Love your videos! Solar is great!

[@OffGridGarageAustralia]

Yes, I have many time. It's not a problem at all. You can have as many balancers installed as you want. Even with different settings, no problem.

[@jamesbsa6450]

Thank you for researching and testing. FYI, Andy, the Hankzor code only gives me $2 discount on minimum of $130 order, oh well.

[@OffGridGarageAustralia]

Thanks for the feedback, James. Oh wow, that's not much and does not even buy you a beer 😒

[@Dan-LS]

Good episode, I like the mystery of the missing amps 😁 It makes it all more interesting!

[@orfescuhoratiu]

You are so lucky , i ordered some stuff from aliexpress going from china to belge airport in 5 days , coming in europe in 75 days ( estimated ) !!!

[@OffGridGarageAustralia]

The ETA was like 3 weeks for the balancer so it was a surprice! Usually, it takes around 3-4 weeks until stuff shows up here, sometimes 6-8 weeks. You need to keep ordering so there is a constant flow of incoming goods 😂

[@dama054]

Hi I think you will find that that type of balancer only starts working when there is a difference of over 100mili volts

[@magicmanspaz]

Reading the specs it says 5mv accuracy so i would think it would have to turn on at 5mv to achieve that.

[@matthewknight5641]

Andy I was thinking about how there was missing amps in this test. Do you think that its changing the voltage in order to shove the current back into the cells. So the higher voltage going in than coming out would account for missing amps... I'm not sure if I'm right but it seems the balancer would up voltage to put power back into cells and by raising the voltage the amps would lower. So that's why it appears to have missing power. The power isn't actually missing only changed. It probably does loose a small amount but not much since there is no real sign of heat build up

[@Sylvan_dB]

The active balancers are effectively a bunch of buck and boost converters that are enabled/disabled by comparators. You could do the same thing manually... but the automatic approach from either hard wired logic or software in a microcontroller has definite appeal.

[@OffGridGarageAustralia]

Not this one, this one has no buck converter, no inductors, so it cannot boost...

[@costap1580]

Hi Andy, with regards to comparing the incoming vs outgoing currents and observing the “missing” current; Have you tried calculating the incoming vs outgoing power? The missing power should be the power consumed by the active balancer + any heat losses (inefficiency)

[@OffGridGarageAustralia]

I simply missed to measure the black wire 🤦‍♂️

[@ValRigoli]

@@OffGridGarageAustralia I think you may be incorrect with that line of thinking, shouldn't the black (earth) cable simply be a combination of all the energy being consumed and transferred? The missing current is the heat being burnt off in the capacitors?

[@hosr888]

Electrical Safety Check gave me a good laugh, thanks.

[@OffGridGarageAustralia]

Thanks. Stay safe 😉

[@brandenwalrath3012]

Just installed one of these! It works awesome!

[@OffGridGarageAustralia]

Yes, they do work. Just make sure to not leave it running all the time but only while top balancing...

[@ruediamrein6847]

Sorry dass ich störe! Danke für dein Videos, sehr interessant! Kannst du mir sagen wo ich das 9 Pin Kabel zum Cellmeter 8 bekommen kann? Habe keinen Lieferanten gefunden. Danke und Gruss aus der kalten Schweiz

[@OffGridGarageAustralia]

Du stoerst doch nicht! Guck mal hier auf meiner Homepage beim CellMeter8: off-grid-garage.com/measurement-tools-and-analisers/

[@westking7746]

Educate me please. What is the difference between a balancer and a BMS? Also, I did not see accommodations for high temp/low temp cut offs

[@OffGridGarageAustralia]

A balancer only compares the voltages of single cells and discharges higher voltage cells to charge lower voltage cells. It balances the voltage. A BMS is a full management system for batteries which does a lot more: over under voltage cut-off, overcurrent protection, temperature protection (as you said). It does this on battery and cell level and disconnects the battery if something goes whack.

[@CollinBaillie]

Andy, what is the tested voltage across the 'Run' pads? Is it possible you could take a voltage and current measurement (when the circuit is complete)? Or anyone else who has one of these...

[@amerdawoud5842]

Thevenin's current law says the summation of the incoming currents to a node has to equal to the summation of the outgoing currents. So, the only explanation is that the clamp meter is not reading currently. I have the same clamp meter and I noticed that you need to reset the calibration button every time you take a new reading.

[@daskasspatzle2396]

This was the live invention of the rotary switch ;-)

[@fredio54]

HOORAY!!!! :-D he has seen the light. Will he go back? I doubt it.

[@douglasmarquis3446]

I use these on both of my batteries and they are always within .001or .002 ma. diff. Also Andy why do you want to put a switch on the balancer? Why not leave it on all the time? I know some people say that if you use it all the time then you can not see a weak cell but a bad weak cell will show up even with this balancer. Most of us have at least one weak cell in our pack but this will keep it it balanced. Give it a try and I think you will see the advantages.

[@StansE250]

The exposed (unused) leads from your cell meter, the blue one, should those be touching the 4S Balancer ? Everytime they ‘connected’ in camera view, I tensed …. 🤓

[@fredio54]

Missing current: 2 things: 1. Power is being transferred, and thus the current will be different as the voltage is different. But that's not enough to account for the "gain", so: 2. Don't trust your uni-t meter and learn to use it properly. IE, it's probably asymmetric so reverse the clamp on the ones flowing the opposite way. Try both ways, chances are you get like 0.9 for all 4 and 1.4 for all four the other way around. ;-)

[@ai4px]

By the way Andy, thanks for the previous video about top vs bottom balancing . You really got me thinking. Wunderbar video, vielen dank professor Andy. :-)

[@SigmaOfMyParts]

Active balancing looks nice since it is fast but when using it all the time you may overheat a bad cell with the added charging/discharging current. From my understanding I would be carefull with this and only use a normal bms instead.

[@OffGridGarageAustralia]

As you have seen, the current is so low that there will be absolutely no heat been created in these large cells.

[@richt2633]

I purchased an 8S balancer for the 24V battery. If there’s a 10mV difference between cells, what would be an estimated time to balance all cells? And will all cells have the ‘exact’ same voltage or be within 1-2 mV? Great video, Thanks!

[@OffGridGarageAustralia]

If they are charged up and within 12mV, I would not bother balancing at all. Yeah, these active balancers go down to 1-2mV if you wait long enough.

[@richt2633]

Great, Thanks so much for the quick response and info! …missed the video on the contents of that large parcel you received : ) When the battery discharges, the mV range is more than 1-2mV between cells. Is that to be expected and the balancer balances voltage when the battery is at rest?

[@dskaz8926]

Voltages at which the amps go in/out are different so to keep same power also currents would be different me thinks :\

[@ebenwaterman5858]

Yeah, Watts don't translate directly into amps.

[@peterking1134]

Why does there have to be a BMS & Active Balancer? Can’t a BMS do both by allowing higher current?

[@OffGridGarageAustralia]

Most BMSs only have a very small balancing current, so you need to charge to a higher voltage to make that work.

[@kritzc2809]

Hello, many thanks your effort for testing, enlightening and teaching in these videos. By the way, only the light at the rear of the active balance will light up? Thanks again

[@JR-kk6ce]

I am still not clear on which would be better, one 12v, 300AH LifePo4 battery with one BMS, or three, connected in parallel, 12 v 100AH LiP04 batteries each with their own BMS. Which would be better for balancing and longevity?

[@OffGridGarageAustralia]

I like that you can simply add battery banks when you haven them in strings with their separate BMS. I also like the fact that I can monitor every single cell individually with separate banks. It comes to a higher cost though and more cabling effort. I guess, it comes down on your usage of that battery...

[@JR-kk6ce]

@@OffGridGarageAustralia 👌

[@bigbeef2654]

the amps comming out is at a different voltage so power is conserved

[@johnjansen1002]

Hello Andi, Iam currently trying to find where you could solder a switch on to the circuit board on the active balancers. I am not sure if it was for these active balancers or not. Please comment

[@foeke8740]

Not sure if someone is reading the comments on a three year old video, but I have this stupid situation where the balancer still comes up, even when I have the leads from the solderpads in my hand. I must have made an error, but I can‘t see where. So as soon as I connect the balancer to the battery leads. It starts like I didn‘t unsolder the run pads. I tried three balancers, so I am pretty sure it is my fault.

[@chrislant4829]

Great episode and very interesting. Only 1 criticism; please go back to your old theme music as I'll always associate it with the off grid garage.

[@learningpower9437]

This is very interesting....if all cells were at the same voltage...3.2 V but one cell is at a higher stage of charge will this active battery balancer resolve the problem and drive all the cells to the same level of charge ??? If this active balancer work as expected...then I don't have to put my cells in parallel...and all cells should be driven to the same stage of charge... Any thought on that? Thanks.

[@OffGridGarageAustralia]

No, the balancer will only balance voltage but not equalize the cells. There is a separate video I made with 4 smaller cells and I showed that the balancer balanced the voltage but cells were still 30% apart in terms of SOC.

[@learningpower9437]

@@OffGridGarageAustralia ... So this is the real harsh reality .... batteries will not balance at the same SOC ... too bad !!! ... Therefore, the only thing left to do is to put the 16 batteries in parallel ... and leave them for around 24 hrs ... THanks!!

[@tomasthomas7407]

As Always, another “mind stretcher” … YOU doing what we only think about doing !🤣! 👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻

[@dig1035]

Is this better than hooking up the positives to each other and negatives to each other overnight?

[@bendelongis2945]

Thanks Andy, I might get one for my 12V pack I'm building. Just a thought on the lost amps, could the balancer be doing voltage amplification to transfer the energy between cells? If so this might account for the perceived consumption because 500mA for the amount of electronics on the board even with heat loss certainly seems high.

[@OffGridGarageAustralia]

Thank Ben. This balancer does not do any buck converting. It has no inductors. It simply shuffles energy from one cell to another. The missing amps were in the black cable, I did not measure 🤦‍♂️

[@carlocormio5333]

Dear Friend pls I not understand if the balancer works if the lamp is on or off?

[@learningpower9437]

Off-Grid Garage : I have a 16 S Li-Fe-PO4 105 AH battery bank and when this battery bank is charged, the BMS (DALY 100 AMPS 16 S) will cut of at 55.5 volts (factory setting..I don't have any control in how to set this BMS)...but the bad part is that there are differences in voltage to about 250 mvolts between cells. However, during the discharging process in few hrs all battery cells are at the same voltage with differences of no more than 1 mv. The issue is during charging!!! Maybe this active battery balancer will make a better work than the BMS.The BMS is a DALY J25AGD21. Will this issue have anything to do with the stage of charge ? Thanks

[@OffGridGarageAustralia]

That is the same effect I'm seeing as well. LiFePO4 cells have a very flat charge curve but at the end it rises steep. That is when you see your cells drift. The active balancer will help with that.

[@learningpower9437]

@@OffGridGarageAustralia So..it will be good idea to have the active balancer and the BMS working in parallel....will there be any competition? ...Remember ....Too many cooks spoil the broth!!

[@OffGridGarageAustralia]

@@learningpower9437 They will not fight each others. I have turned off the balancing of the BMS and just use it for high and low voltage disconnect, temperature control and other safety measures. The active balancer is far more effective. But in general, you can have as many balancers in parallel as you like. They will all work together.

[@learningpower9437]

​@@OffGridGarageAustralia My BMS is a 100 amp Daly ... where I have no control over what it does.

[@OffGridGarageAustralia]

@@learningpower9437 It will have fixed parameters for all settings. Look them up so you know what is going to happen. You can add an active balancer to the Daly BMS and they will work together to keep the cells in balance. No problem.

[@TheGalifrey]

You can't just measure Amps Andy, you have to calculate the watts being moved (VxA)

[@blackblack9276]

I have a cellmeter-7 for my 32ah headway 38120hp bank but where can i get the wire harness?

[@stevenmooij5774]

I think in North America top and down under bottom balancing works best.

[@beilkos]

Andy you blow me away. Keep up to your good work

[@OffGridGarageAustralia]

Wow, thanks!

[@mendohomepower7492]

If you set it up with a timer that would balance on a weekly basis or a monthly basis it seems like it would be a pretty much no brainer system.

[@DarkZoneV]

Another great video... I just finished to watch all of you videos... Keep up making this great videos, i am just as excited as you are when i watch them tests 😅

[@OffGridGarageAustralia]

Awesome! Thank you!

[@parkhopper3627]

Asking the great minds in this forum: LiFePO4 should not be charged below freezing. Cell balancing is a form of discharging and charging. Do you see a concern of having the balancer running 24/7 and into the freezing temperatures occasionally?

[@BradCagle]

Good point. These balancers have the ability to to be switched, so would be smart to have a monitor switch it off under freezing temps.

[@MrSummitville]

@Park Hopper - Active Cell Balancers do charge the low cell(s). While Passive Balancers only discharge the high cell(s)...

[@ticso24]

The unprotected balancer PCB on top of the loose cableends from the cellmeter triggers me.

[@WillProwse]

Good point

[@OffGridGarageAustralia]

Nothing to see here ☺️ The PCB is coated and isolated.

[@cru3ts948]

Will Prowse in da house!

[@easylooker]

I want to see how it does and works when drawing a big load off a battery bank or a lot of amps going into the bank charging. Could this be a way to get rid of the normal type of BMS and just use these balancers? When I first got lithium this is what I thought a BMS did to balance cells

[@OffGridGarageAustralia]

No, you always need a BMS! The balancer will not protect your battery in case a single cell goes under or over voltage. They are not quick enough to compensate for large current goinq in and out of the bank.

[@piotrwalewski8650]

Ok . While using DALY BMS should I use one of those active balancers?

[@reneroman1421]

How long does it take to charge a 48V, 360ah lifepo4 battery?...Thanks

[@robertbirlingmair6513]

You never measured the current on the black lead, did you?

[@peterking1134]

The four leds should light when each channel is balancing. Do they need to be enabled?

[@OffGridGarageAustralia]

Balancer worked just fine, how do you enable it?

[@peterking1134]

@@OffGridGarageAustralia i watched another video of a similar Balancer. It had leds in the same location as yours but the four leds turned on and off during balancing.

[@OffGridGarageAustralia]

@@peterking1134 Yeah, saw this in videos too. This one seems to have only one LED.

[@rocketentertainment7403]

its putting in less amps at higher volts output, its taking out more amps at lower volts. the watt loss is less than the amperage difference suggests when assuming the same voltages for charge and draw

[@OffGridGarageAustralia]

How would that work, higher amps at lower voltage? This balancer does not use buck conversion. It does not have any inductors...

[@rocketentertainment7403]

@@OffGridGarageAustralia appologies, I should have used question marks because these were assumptions, not knowledge. I know very little about these things beyond tinkering with assembling and using them myself. I dont have the same ballancer, im waiting for my larger ballancer to arrive, and meanwhile have hobbled together a couple of smaller ones, but when I cascade them, reading the graphs on the overlapping cells, it appears to have recorded a higher voltage on ballancer A cell4 which has a cumulative lower cell voltage, and a lower voltage on ballancer B cell1 which has a cumulative higher voltage. This led me to assume that its because its increasing the voltage output on A4 while its getting power transferred to it, and that I was seeing some voltage sag on B1 while its being drawn from. ofcourse, that could be a measuring error, or some other anommoly as I haven't been checking the measurements with another ammeter to compare. just assuming its acurate.

[@enjoytodaylife]

Hi where did you get the wires that you connected to the digital balancer , as I bought one and my bms balancer wires don’t fit the digital balancer meter ?

[@uweknofel9149]

Hello, first of all : this is not a complaint !!! I bought that exact balancer after watching the video, looked very promising, soldered a switch to not have it running permanently. Today I had to remove my JBD BMS ( smoked when discharing and load port off :-( ) for pictures for support team and I found that the balancer circuit board was very warm close to hot - even if the balancer was not working ( LED off ) The heated area was on the same side as the connector next to the black cable. Have you experienced that as well or is your board cold when not switch on ? Viele Grüße aus Schleswig-Holstein, tolle Videos machst Du !

[@OffGridGarageAustralia]

Hallo Uwe, danke Dir fuer deinen netten Kommentar! I have never seen the light of the balancer turning off . It is orange all the time after connecting it to the battery. I have a 4s, 8s and two 16s balancers of them and the light is always on. Maybe that's already the fault and not just the BMS went up to smokes...

[@uweknofel9149]

Hi, at minute 21:46 you explained the idea of unsoldering the bridge and to connect a switch. I followed that idea and in your Video the orange led went on & off. My point is not the led, but the area of the switch connection being warm / hot, even if the switch is off ( led off ). It seem the balancer is doing something even if turned off by the switch ( led off )

[@OffGridGarageAustralia]

@@uweknofel9149 ah right, got it... That's strange indeed. I had the bridge off only for testing. I can try again and see if it happens to mine a well.

[@BradCagle]

Yeah buddy, I did a quick review of the heltec brand (which is probably the same as yours) on my channel

[@coreybabcock2023]

You was using the clamp meter wrong you need to flip it to get the - sign on the meter screen

[@JM-yx1lm]

How do you know which one to order on the AliExpress link for the active balancer? I don't know what the difference between them are. I have a 16s bank.

[@pmacgowan]

I cant wait for the BIG BOX!!!!

[@DormantIdeasNIQ]

are not the 2 amps missing eaten by the balancer itself?