Charging a battery 50 times to test the Daly balancing function

I'm re-visiting the Daly BMS. As we know from previous test, the Daly BMs only balances while charging, Furthermore, it only balances while the app is showing a charging current. That is a total flaw in design!
I cycled a 4s battery 50 times with a Daly BMS connected to measure the success in balancing.
Here is what I found....
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[@teardowndan5364]

In principle, if you run batteries as a pack, the entire pack is seeing the exact same charge-discharge cycle and the only balancing that should ever be required is to offset differences in the batteries' self-discharge current. LiFe batteries should have a self-discharge rate under 2.5%/month, 2.5% of 300Ah is 7.5Ah/month of balancing, so you shouldn't need to balance more than about 0.22Ah/day. You just need to take a break from your unhealthy obsession with balancing voltages to 0.0000000000001V at all times, let cells settle at whatever voltages they want to as long as they remain within comfortable limits.

[@OffGridGarageAustralia]

It would take 7.3h to balance 0.22Ah with the Daly 🤦‍♂️ Unusable.

[@egnegn123]

@@OffGridGarageAustralia Are this 0.22 Ah inbalance really relevant in real operation? Normally you should start with already balanced cells, by connecting them in parallel first and charging them to 3.60 V at least. When you then connect them in series they are perfectly balanced. If an inbalance arise over time then the Daly BMS will fix that starting with the configured difference, and keep the inbalance at this level until some cell is starting to die. Regarding doing balancing only while charging, this limits the amount of energy that can be burned away from high cells, but IMHO this is no show stopper. Especially with PV where most of the time charge current is low, the time going from 3.50 to 3.60 V will be good enough. And if it isn't long enough you can start balancing at 3.40 V, and balancing will kick in when the difference is high enough. Starting at lower voltage gives more time for balancing. Anyway, there is no reason for me to set balance start at 3.50 V, when there is a configured difference low enough. Is the Daly balancing the best on the market? No, but it is good enough for most common use with well balanced cells from start. For me there is no real reason to keep the balance at that high voltage to a very low difference, because there is practically not much useful energy in this tiny difference at this high voltage. In real operation you would stay within 10 - 90 % SOC anyway, where you have a flat curve. And with this kind of operation it is not relevant if the cells are balanced at lower than 10 mV or 100 mV at 3,60 V. I am not using Daly BMS for my battery blocks, just tested them. For some of my batteries I use ANT bms, and they work fine. But for most of my batteries I use simple single board bms in combination with active bms, and this works fine since more than 6 years now. I avoided Smart BMS for a long time, because more complexity brings more errors. Yes, Smart BMS allow easy monitoring and flexible configuration. But if an BMS and Balancer works fine, there is no real reason to constantly control everything.

[@tenoirab]

Hi Andy! With the PC-Software (search for "Sinowealth BMS Tool V0.1) connected via USB Uart (Serial) to the BMS, you can set the threshold of the charge and discharge current to be shown. Factory setting is 1000mA (they call it "DiftterCur" in the Software under the "System" Tag) So as long as the Charge- or Discharge Current is below 1A, the App shows 0A. And while charging with less then 1A -> no balancing, as you figured out! I reduced it to 100mA, so the balancer keeps balancing if the charge current is bigger than 100mA. But perhaps you have to calibrate the bms amp-meter (can be done in the "calibrate" Tab). My BMS showed constantly +300mA when there was absolutly no current flowing into the battery. So the SOC (State of Charge) rised, even when no charger was connected to the battery :-o I guess if you don't give a sh... on the SOC Gauge, you could "miscalibrate" the BMS-Amp meter so it shows constantly +300mA when it should show 0mA. Set the threshold to 100mA so it keeps balancing with it's ridiculous 30mA at least when you are above your selected 3.5V start balance voltage. Aber ich geb dir recht, verglichen mit den anderen BMS'sen die du getestet hast, ist das Daly was das Balancen an geht, ich sags direkt auf Deutsch: Kacke! :-) Grüsse nach Australien!

[@lukasmauerhoff9330]

I've done it almost the same way. Set the current threshold via the PC-Software to 0mA. Then the App will always show a charging current, even if you are not charging. Because of that, the BMS will turn on balancing continuesly. You can forget about the SoC calculation anyways because the BMS will go into sleep after some time if no current is flowing. After wake up the SoC is just calculated by voltage.

[@OffGridGarageAustralia]

Yes, thank you. I mentioned the software in the first Daly video I made. I've never tested it myself though but bus-bar Paul has send me screenshots and he's using it to set all the hidden parameters. Setting it to 0A is not recommended though as it also picks up all the noise now and uses this to calculate SOC. So this will be off over time from what people said on the forums...

[@stuartsmith945]

@@lukasmauerhoff9330 you can stop the BMS from going to sleep by setting the sleep. Waiting time to 15300 seconds. Mine has been active for months since I set it.

[@sjdtmv]

Andy, I gave you a dislike, my first for you, in earlier videos you promote a lower per cell voltage then the set 3.5v start of balancing voltage, this 3.5v is far too high to start balancing, the balancing should start at the start of the quick rise in voltage not at 80% point of this steep curve, this test is starting to get like reality TV, you wanted a result too quick and then blame the BMS for the problems

[@OffGridGarageAustralia]

So when do you want me to start balancing, Ross? What is your preferred voltage to make you happy again? Also, give me an explanation why I should start earlier? Is balancing not all about cutting off the spikes of cells which are running off? The Daly does not work with LiFePO4 chemistry due to the flat voltage curve.

[@aatdekwaast3968]

in the settings you have put 20mV diff Volt instead of the 2 mV you thought That's why balance didn't kicked in at time stamp 17:25 minutes

[@wayne8113]

@aat dekwaast. Went back, yeah (0.02) not enough decimal points maybe 10mv is the minimum you can go ?

[@darrenorange2982]

@@wayne8113 .02V is the lowest you can go.

[@wayne8113]

@@darrenorange2982 Thanks for sharing that Darren 👍

[@OffGridGarageAustralia]

I also thought I have set 0.002V but it must have jumped back to 0.02V as the minimum voltage which can be set. Another limitation...

[@darrenorange2982]

@@OffGridGarageAustralia Yes it won't set lower. You can type it in but it won't go there.

[@henrikjanum7799]

Your configured balance turn-on voltage difference is 0.02 volts, not 2 milli-volts (0.002 volts) as you say in the video. This explains what you call the 'late turn on' of the balance function. See your video at 3:38 to see the configured value.

[@stuartsmith945]

It's not possible to set it below 0.01V. Also setting the turn onvoltage at 3.5V doesn't give much time to balance. Set it lower. My 560Ah 12V pack is rarely more than 0.004V out of balance.

[@TheGalifrey]

@@stuartsmith945 Yeah when you have such a small window and current for balancing 0.02v is too great really

[@LorneVaasjo]

You can set it below 0.01V. It seems to me that it is only the display that is limited to 10mV.\

[@OffGridGarageAustralia]

Apparently the lowest you can set is 0.02V as others said here. So must have jumped back to that when I set it to 0.002V.

[@stuartsmith945]

@@OffGridGarageAustralia I find this app quite strange. Previously, this lowest I could set was 0.02V. When I played with it at the weekend, if I set to 0.002V it set to 0.00V. I have since set it to 0.01V quite successfully.

[@MachielIedema]

charging and discharging with 1 amp is nothing for a daly bms. Try this with lifepo4 cells with 50 amp. i have that setup, (2 packs parallel) 8S 280Ah, and it is redicules. Diff over 300mV. all was perfectly top balanced 10months ago. but overtime it is all messed up. I ordered two JK bms this week for proper 2A balancing.

[@drewsuf77]

Do you have a link, would they suit my 4s 280ah

[@simonak2724]

I have same batteries (4S)and unfortunately got a 200A Daly bms which seems to have several issues including the app, Im looking into other ways of balancing and for another BMS

[@guysgt5003]

All you did was prove in your test that 3.5 V is too high of a setting to start your balancing! Those are not 280 amp hour cells! 3.5 would be fine on such a large cell. A puny little cell like that you should start it it way earlier. Just my opinion!

[@mysterytechknowledge3664]

I agree! Because the cell is so small, there isn't much time between 3.5v and 3.6v. If you were to set it to start balancing at 3.2v(and set ti\he dif to 0.002 as stated in other posts), and set the charge to 1.1A there should be more time in the "Balancing Range."

[@LorneVaasjo]

My findings as well. Once the cells reach 3.5 they are effectively fully charged (something this channel has demonstrated in previous videos) so there's effectively zero charging time for the balancing to occur.

[@OffGridGarageAustralia]

What is the difference between a smaller cell (5Ah) and a 280Ah cell with LiFePO4 chemistry? the balancer would have more time to balance with the 280Ah cells but would also need to discharge far more energy. The Daly will work even less effective with larger cells. If you start balancing early like 3.3V, all cells would have the resistor turned on and balance. In this case, balancing would not have any effect as the voltage delta across all cells is the same. Also, the voltage difference can be set to 20mV as the smallest others said? I haven't checked that myself.

[@stuartsmith945]

@@OffGridGarageAustralia if you set the balanced voltage lower, it doesn't just switch the resistors across all the cells. If that happened, it couldn't balance at any voltage. Mine is set to 3.2V and I have an active balancer. My cell voltage spread is rarely more than 4mV. I have 8 280Ah cells in a 4S2P configuration. Maybe mine works because I rarely see discharges above 10%. It still didn't see more that 10mV when I discharged them 260Ah over a period of 16 hours when we had no power for 4 days and we ran the house off the caravan. Charging the batteries during the day off generator and running on batteries at night.

[@OffGridGarageAustralia]

@@stuartsmith945 Is this not how a balancer work? You set a certain voltage and it starts discharging the cells above that voltage?

[@stefanknospe181]

Lieber Andy, mit Deinem Video zum DALY hast Du mich nun verunsichert :-( Ich habe bereits 3 DALY im Einsatz und bisher (bis gestern) war ich der Meinung, dass diese ganz gut funktionieren. Aber es leuchtet mir ein, das die geschilderten Nachteilen (Balancing nur beim Laden, und nur mit geringem Strom) nicht sehr vorteilhaft sind. Ich werde diese aber zunächst weiter betreiben und Erfahrungen sammeln. In diesem Zusammenhang hätte ich wieder mal einen Test für Dich, der vielleicht auch andere interessieren könnte: Wie verhält es sich, wenn man 2 unterschiedliche Batteriespeicher zusammenschließt? Ich habe 1x16S mit 280Ah und 1x16S mit 200Ah. Die 200Ah habe ich auf Grund eines "unschlagbaren" Angebotes gekauft und frage mich nun, ob ich beide (parallel mit je einem BMS) betreiben kann und ob es hierbei zu Problemen kommen kann. Im Internet findet man hierzu unterschiedliche Aussagen. Was meinst Du? Liebe Grüße von deinem treuen Abonnenten aus Deutschland....Stefan.K. :-)

[@OffGridGarageAustralia]

Hallo Stefan, bitte lass Dich nicht von Leuten verunsichern die Videos auf KZbin veroeffentlichen 🤪Wenn deine Daly funktionieren und die die Zellen in Balance halten, ist doch alles gut. Die beiden Batterien parallel schalten kannst du ganze getrost machen. Es sollte zu keinen Problemen kommen. Dazu werde ich demnaechst einen Test machen, der dich interessieren duerfte 😉 Viele Gruesse nach D

[@PowerPaulAu]

LOL... this was fun to watch, and I'll be amused to read the buildup of comments. As we know, people have a love/hate relationship with Daly, just like Aussies are (or at least used to be) Holden or Ford people. I agree with just about everything you found. The balance current is terribly low, and for large batteries it seems impossibly low. But the results I've had have been positive. I do of course top balance properly, and that's the first step to a good battery. I also agree that the balancing is annoying to only happen during charging, however that does ensure that a faulty cell won't bring down an entire pack while just sitting there doing nothing. In practice the start voltage does prevent that from happening in most of the balancers/BMS's though. I have mine balance from a much lower voltage too, mine start at about 3.0v, so it does a little bit for a long time. It's a different way of doing a similar job, and that's where just transferring settings from different balancers sometimes doesn't work well. Tenoirab makes a good point about the current sensing. It's one of my biggest gripes with the Daly BMS. That 1000mA threshold is to get rid of noise or spurious readings from the current sensor. It can be tweaked to be more accurate, but there's still a threshold. Thanks for providing an awesome unbiased technical review of this feature, it's always good to see someone do this without just trying to prove their own point. Some of the newer models of Daly BMS actually do 200mA balance current, I think it's the ones with a fan, but I haven't looked into them yet.

[@mvhassallfree1031]

About time you started doing some videos with your batteries Paul, you seem to be the only one who really knows what your on about

[@PowerPaulAu]

@@mvhassallfree1031 naa I'll leave that to others. Every time I see a new product test/review (most likely on here) I see 5 more doing exactly the same tins just days later. It's a lot to keep up with and others do videos better than I would ;)

[@OffGridGarageAustralia]

I really don't understand how balancing in your battery works, Paul. Usually you balance only the cell with the higher voltage to bring it down again, inline with the other cells, right? If you balance all cells from 3V though, that would take off 30mA for each cell, so the voltage difference won't change at all. The only thing you do is charging all cells with 30mA less. That's not balancing though if you do it for all cells at the same time...

[@PowerPaulAu]

@@OffGridGarageAustralia it only puts a balance current on the highest cell.

[@OffGridGarageAustralia]

@@PowerPaulAu Even if all are over 3.0V?

[@vaneay]

it is just that dally BMS are very conservative BMS they try not to discharge the battery when there is no charge current to conserve maximum state of charge of the pack when it is iddle or discharging. Maybe you should start balancing at 3.45v or 3.4v with the dally bms

[@OffGridGarageAustralia]

Yes, that's a good point and it makes sense if you use them for e-bike batteries. For solar applications with LiFePO4 cells they don't work well.

[@Ojames600]

What BMS do you recommend that keeps the cell balance even when there is no power ?

[@OffGridGarageAustralia]

I think all other BMS will do that. I could teste the QUCC and the JK BMS so far and they both work as pure balancers even without charging. Ideal for top balancing your battery over night.

[@JeremyAkersInAustin]

Not sure what you mean by "when there is no power ?" You only do passive balancing when the cells are at or near full charge. Since the cells are near full charge you by definition "have power" because the pack is nearly fully charged. The only time the BMS would not have power would be if the cells reached the under-voltage condition, but you would never do passive balancing in that condition. Every other BMS I've looked at continues to balance the cells for as long as any one cell is above the balancing threshold. This is a very common scenario when charging LFP: Say you have 4 cells, and while charging one cell hits the 3.65v cut off which causes the BMS to shut off charging, but your other cells are still at 3.3v and could still accept a charge. Well since you hit 3.65 on one cell and the Daly BMS shut off the charger this *also* shut off the balancing. This leads to a catch-22: 1.) You can't continue to charge the battery pack because one cell has reached the max voltage and cannot accept any more charge current. 2.) You can't bring down the one cell with the high voltage because the balancer has been turned off. 3.) Go back to #1 above and repeat. It's critical that balancing be able to operate with the charger off in situations like this or you can end up with a battery that's effectively permanently out of balance with almost no way to correct the imbalance.

[@blitzhop]

I don't understand, the Daly balances the same way as the overkill BMS, right? The overkill ist the same as jk, liontron and so on, all with the xiaoxiang App.

[@JeremyAkersInAustin]

@@blitzhop No it does not. The Daly only balances while charging. As soon as any one cell hits 3.65v it shuts off the charger *and* stops balancing. The other BMS models stop the charger but allow balancing to continue so that the high cell comes down and then charging can resume.

[@whatwhatdidtheysay...lyric2373]

Dude I don't get the DALY love fest either, my experience has been HORRIBLE. ABSOLUTELY BAD with THREE different BMS. I just don't get the fanaticism. The Daly stuff just sucks!

[@OffGridGarageAustralia]

They are red. Looking good...

[@denmek]

Hey Andy , nice video, thanks. I did recognized your cycle counter is also stays at 0 like mine. DId you figured out how to setup the cycle counter on Daly BMS. Its crazy that this is not working for me too :-(. Thanks for any feedback. Daniel

[@OffGridGarageAustralia]

Sorry, no idea. I use the Daly only really for testing.

[@JeremyAkersInAustin]

Hi Andy, can you repeat this test but cycle the battery 10,000 times instead of just 50. 50 is nowhere near enough cycles for the Daly BMS. 🤣

[@OffGridGarageAustralia]

Running right now.... we're getting there. I may wear out the cells before the test finishes though 😂

[@mcg6762]

A set of well matched cells will not need a lot of balancing to work fine for years. I think people put too much relevance to the balancing functionality of a BMS.

[@OffGridGarageAustralia]

I think this is only partly true if your current and C rate is not as high. The drift occurs mainly because of internal resistance differences in these cells. Very small currents will not cause much heat loss and therefore not much drift. Higher currents will make your cells drift after only 1 cycle. I regularly discharge mine with constant ~40A (~0.15C) and can see them drifting through that quite a lot.

[@rogerkerkmann]

Seems like if you have balance cells my BMS is the greatest you have unbalanced cells my BMS is a piece of shit* my two cents 🤔😱🤪😂

[@OffGridGarageAustralia]

Hahaha, yes, that's great. All BMS' work like this 😂

[@mdunbar04]

Great Video and comments. I always go to the after show in the comment section to see what people think. Man Andy your taking a beating in here 😆 🤣 😂 🤜🤜🤜 . It must have been a good topic and video to get such opinions. Keep up the good work

[@OffGridGarageAustralia]

Hahaha, yeah, look at all the thumbs down. Some are personally offended when I say negative stuff about Daly. 😂🥳

[@DIYwithBatteries]

Nice video Sir 😊👍

[@OffGridGarageAustralia]

Thank you.

[@ykchowaa]

ha mate, just bought you some beer

[@OffGridGarageAustralia]

Thank you very much for that. So that was you!!!! 🤘

[@longdistancerider691]

Ha Ha Ha mine has stopped working after 3 days, and 1 cell is missing now ?

[@OffGridGarageAustralia]

Oh, wow, that's annoying!

[@petereaton6740]

Andy there is a saying "horses for coures" and you have a BMS suited to higher capacity batteries on batteries with far lower capacity than the rated design for said BMS, would you be better to do these test on 100Ah cells to be more accurate? Although I agree that everything about the balancing side of the Daly BMS seems to be not upto the job by current technology and for this reason I went with another brand. Engineers design things with knowledge they have been taught, while they layman builds without this knowledge. If we have a BMS that balances passively at what we consider a reasonable current, then we should not need any additional balancing equipment. Im not having a go at you or anyone else I'm just pointing out that Engineers are not trades people, and don't think like trades people nor do trades people think like Engineers 😉 love your work 👍

[@OffGridGarageAustralia]

Thanks Peter. I thought about the BMS being a bit too large for these cells but on the other hand they can deliver 30A easily and you want some overhead in sizing your BMS, so. I think Daly is not for me...

[@petereaton6740]

@@OffGridGarageAustralia unfortunately some businesses seem to think their old technology is still fine or don't want to spend the money to upgrade it, so just use their reputation to continue sales, and this is what you might be finding with daly 🤨 for some reason they only recently added temperature probes and these are a must for cell protection.

[@74hoppy]

Have you tried a 3S battery pack on this bms? Have read conflicting information. The voltages can set in the app but the wiring may need changed. Some show connecting the extra balance lead to B+. I have 2 battery packs in different config and wish to swap the same BMS between them sometimes. Will purchase if this works.

[@OffGridGarageAustralia]

Not sure if this will work. Have a look on AliExpress to see if you can find a diagram for a Daly BMS which can do both 3s and 4s. As far as I can see they either come as 3s or 4s.

[@74hoppy]

@@OffGridGarageAustralia I looked for ages last night. It is like you did on the JK bms video but only one cell difference. Seems plenty of people with scored scores scooters and bikes use different bms. Frequently the manufacturer does not test things under conditions they are not designed for but they work perfectly fine. My battery options are 7s and 8s. I think I will order an 8s and see how it goes.

[@daskasspatzle2396]

The why is easy. It is the most simple and cost effective you can do. For 30mA you can use every standard Resistor. And if it is enough to sell the product, why should they do better / more expensive?

[@ascii892]

30 mA across a single cell is close to the 1/8 Watt standard for resistors, so I understand the limitation. However, these kinds of resistors are like 1000 per dollar. Why can't they parallel a few to dissipate more power? it would be a low cost way to improve their marketing over competition.

[@mikeleopold7028]

@@ascii892 because the "ohmsches gesetz"

[@daskasspatzle2396]

Would it really? If they used 4, it would be 120 mA. Not worth to mention. If they used 8, it would be 240 mA. Still not much. But for a 16S System already 128 Parts to fit on the PCB... And already the need to dissipate several Watts of extra heat off the PCB... I do not think, this is a solution.

[@wolfman887]

I might be missing the point but if it is advertised as to have active balancing then shouldn't it balance? Nice job on the video, I always enjoy your videos. Just ignore the thumbs down, haters gonna hate.

[@OffGridGarageAustralia]

Thanks for your feedback. So the Daly BMS' don't have active balancing, they just use an internal resistor to discharge the cell when too high. That's called passive balancing. Active balancing is if the BMS or balancer actively transfers energy from a higher voltage cell to a lower voltage cell. Far less waste of energy as you can imagine.

[@wolfman887]

O so it is passively balancing the cells. I rely don't know much about the Daly. I just assumed that with such a large footprint it would have active balancing my mistake.

[@felaxchow207]

I think the Daly BMS is really good for cells that are well matched and top balanced before they're put in service. Charge and discharge at a 0.2•C rate is perfectly fine for that type of BMS, however what gets us in trouble over time is the relatively flat charge curve of LiFePO4 compared to the traditional NMC variant where the curve is fairly linear. The "smart" bms is really a NMC variant BMS with top balancing and LiFePO4 is just an afterthought. Once it hits the 3.5 volt mark, the current rapidly drops and the voltage sharply spikes up to the upper limit of 3.65 volts. At 30 ma bleed off resistors don't really have a chance to bleed off the extra charge until the others play catchup. The charge curve datasheets on NMC cells I've looked at are quite linear so it can play catchup with each other without too much difficulty. I guess you can use a basic bms to protect the cells and have an external active balancer monthly maintenance balancing if they drift too far apart.

[@OffGridGarageAustralia]

That's some great points there, Felax. The Daly and an active balancer is certainly a good combo.

[@jackoneil3933]

Thanks for the test Andy, tough duty but someone has to do it right? I concur with your assessment Andy, and that it makes more sense to get a BMS with active balancing for solar power applications. My use case is a little different and wanted to test the Daly BMS units for a possible production run of EV power packs because they are compact, durable, weather resistant, cheap and available. I recently bought a pair of cheap 16S, 20amp Daly BMS units (non-UART) to test on a pair of 4S, 6ah LFE cell packs, and after doing some high-current discharge tests and charging at 6amps, saw up to 120mv imbalances, After dropping the charge current to 2amps, brought the imbalance down to about 40mv as slow charging gave it more time to balance. I spoke with an engineer at the large volume Daly supplier, and for large packs and fast charging he recommended adding an active balancer (they sell a lot of Daly BMSs and Active balancers. As as I plan to use these packs on low-power inverters that have a low voltage cut-off above the minimum safe discharge pack voltage, I may bypass the BMS for output, use a fuse for short-circuit protection, and use the Daly BMS for over-charging protection, add passive balancing If needed, and use the charger's 'Full Charge' LED to activate the active balancer.

[@mikeleopold7028]

thats are the reason for daly on my boat-packs.

[@OffGridGarageAustralia]

Thanks Jack, that's a fantastic comment and great information here. It makes perfectly sense what the Daly man said. I also think the Daly and an active balancer will work a lot better.

[@jackoneil3933]

@@OffGridGarageAustralia Thanks Andy, I was thinking a bit more about active balancers, and If I had a reliable charge controller with over-charge protection, and an inverter with under-voltage protection, I would consider skipping the BMS and just use an active balancer, with voltage sensing circuit to turn it on near full charge voltage, or a smart bluetooth balancer. I was also considering knocking up some cheap under-over voltage modules that could be used to switch Balancers, Chargers and low-voltage disconnects, if there's a market for them?

[@OffGridGarageAustralia]

@@jackoneil3933 That's a bit risky, running without BMS. I would not do that and even the Daly is great for just the safety purposes. There are electronics available which can turn on a relay which can turn on the balancer at a certain voltage.

[@jackoneil3933]

@@OffGridGarageAustralia Thanks, if you have a link or title to the voltage sensing control modules I'd appreciate checking them out. I have seen under-voltage/over-voltage high power Mosfet switch units, but they are expensive, and only do a single under-voltage or over voltage trip. And there's some potential issues with using mosfets for controls on common rail devices. My idea was more for a sense/switch module with multiple triggers and isolated relay outputs. I'd also appreciate your thoughts on the risks of running without a BMS? I feel pretty comfortable with fuses for short-circuit protection, more so than relying on a BMS soft switch alone, and I would always install a fuse between the battery and BMS for protection in case of BMS Mosfet were to blow to ground or latch-up. Over-current protection however is something a BMS might be better suited for than a fuse, as fuses operating at near their burn current generate a fair bit of heat and and they have to be replaced rather than reset. I used to work a lot with and did a little design work with AC and DC industrial power systems and my stance was to have robust and reliable shot-circuit protection and reliable over-current protection for power SCR/TRIAC and Mosfet devices, something I often see neglected on solar and EV systems.

[@jmaus2k]

These Daly BMSes are not designed for solar. They need long overnight charges everyday near max voltage to balance properly at the 1/300 of the rating for balance current which doesn't work with the sun's schedule. And if you charge with 100V they will fry the mosfets and not even disconnect charging - typical solar charger controller failure. And they can't charge with the same current as they can discharge - need more charging current than discharging current or at least the same. Completely backwards from what is needed.

[@jasondevine6014]

Yes as I found out! No documentation on MOSFET max voltage.

[@PowerPaulAu]

The different charge/discharge currents depends on the version, there are lots of versions and even different generations of versions. Some of the Daly BMS's I have are rated for 250A charge and discharge. As for not being suitable for solar, I disagree. I run a 43kWh pack powering my home completely off grid from solar, and it's been perfectly happy for close to a year so far. Regarding the max voltage, that's a strange thing to need to know. If you have a component fails upstream (eg the MPPT charger pushing in 100v), that's equivalent to putting in 100PSI into a tyre that's supposed to be used at 50PSI. And killing a BMS due to that, is a user or system fault, not a design fault. The solution to that, is to not put 100v into it. It's good to present peoples findings as their findings, but saying "are not designed for solar" is presented as a fact, when it's really just an opinion.

[@jmaus2k]

​@@PowerPaulAuObviously, you didn't read my post describing why it isn't designed for solar. Daly BMSes suffer from the we think we know how it should work syndrome. There are better BMSes designed for solar. Higher balance currents, separate/split ports with higher charge currents, relay based versions that can actually handle a few hundred volts overvoltage protection. They could add battery sense cable protection too...what would that cost an extra 16 resistors. Easier to just put a big red text warning and blame you for a reversed connection. The most important thing for a BMS is to protect against overvoltage on an offgrid solar system. The $40 extra cost for a good relay with a BMS is an obvious decision if it saves a $3000 battery pack or stops a fire. Manufactures are not thinking this way. Hopefully, that changes.

[@PowerPaulAu]

@@jmaus2k "Obviously"??? Really??? You're incorrect, I did read it, and that's why I wrote "I disagree". But "obviously" you're correct and I'm wrong. That was "obvious" sarcasm in case it wasn't obvious. As I already mentioned, which should be "obvious", I've been running one of these very happily for 12 months now, and another in a different setup, plus I've sold dozens (literally) of batteries being used with solar gear, with zero problems. But of course, you must know much more than Daly, that's "obvious" because you're so well known and respected (that was sarcasm too).

[@robben8704]

Any daly bms over 200a is 300ma balance and not 30ma and why you not start the balance a 3.4v?

[@OffGridGarageAustralia]

3.4V is still in the flat area of the curve. From a voltage perspective, all cells will look the same. No way to balance at 3.4V with LiFePO4 cells. We have done the tests for that in previous videos. Also, if you start balancing at 3.4V it would balance all cells, all of them. this would not make a difference to the voltage delta at all.

[@michaelwilkes2519]

In my experience, once the pack is fully charged, if you let it rest for 30 minutes, it is back to just a few mV deviation. My pack only gets substantial deviation when approaching full charge while being charged. Walk away and come back later and the pack is once again balanced.

[@OffGridGarageAustralia]

Yes, that is correct. Mine does the same.

[@Dabobeans]

I used to really look forward to new episodes on this channel, the battery build and all of the pieces and parts to make the system work. Seems like anymore we are down into the weeds about topics only the most nerdy viewers care about. It's no longer an enjoyable watch for me, but it's not my channel and as long as Andy is having fun, I understand.

[@OffGridGarageAustralia]

You will enjoy the next video then again 😉 Thanks for the feedback.

[@briansomers4753]

Andy I know how much time and energy goes into your videos....Don't listen to the trolls....I follow and watch many u tubers...and have enjiyed all your vids..sometimes not for the comments but for your absolute personnallity...if you painted a wall and watched it dry and just were your self while it was dring I'd still watch...great job please keep it up from Brian in altoona pa USA

[@Muppet_Interfector]

Andy, I think that the balancing on the Daly is achieved by placing a resistor across the cell that has too high a voltage. At 30 mA it requires approx 110 Ohm resistor. The resistor needs to burn off about 105 mW. That is probably consistent with a surface mounted resistors heat handling capacity. I therefore think that the reason they have such low balancing current is simply due to the capacity of the surface mounted resistors they are using. The other issue where capacity might be a problem is the current handling of the FET used to switch in the resistor, this would be secondary as the internal resistance of the FETs will be very low if they can be turned hard on. They can claim they have a balancing function which places them ahead of those without balancing however it is of limited value if you are trying to balance a couple of Amphours of difference in the cells. It would take about 30 hours to burn off One amphour of capacity difference, as long as you keep the charge current above the threshold charging current.

[@OffGridGarageAustralia]

Thanks, good points. Yeah, the Daly design looks like a compliance BMS so they advertise they actually have balancing. As some said, the batteries were too small for the Daly but I think the outcome will be even worse with larger cells. As you said it takes over a day to burn off 1Ah. And the charger needs to be on for that all the time 🤦‍♂️ I wasn't aware that there are BMS without balancing function...

[@Muppet_Interfector]

@@OffGridGarageAustralia Daly

[@davidkettell6236]

i think you are getting bored Andy . lets get number two battery up and running !

[@SWEDISHBOATING]

Why did you set the balance voltage at 3.5 ? Default is 3.2V so it balance longer time, during the charge? (now it just balance a small time of the charge) The bluetooth turn off if no current so it will not drain battery if not been used. ( no need to shake your head, its kinda smart function) :)

[@OffGridGarageAustralia]

Balancing at 3.2V makes no sense at all with LiFePO4 cells. The charge and discharge curve are so flat and the cell could be at 40%SOC or 80% SOC with the same voltage. You need to get over the knee of the curve to start balancing when the cells start to drift apart. If you stay below that, balancing has effect. The absolute minimum voltage is 3.4V to start balancing just when the curve gets out of the flat area. I made a lot of videos about how to charge/discharge LiFePO4 here on my channel.

[@SWEDISHBOATING]

@@OffGridGarageAustralia so you saying balancing only matters around 90% charge, where you might want to stop charge anyway ? Then balancing is not a big deal. The only thing I loose from start balancing earlier around 3.3 -3.4 is some small energy when charging. Or will they start to drift if I dont top them now and them ? Or if I wanna stay below 90% SOC then a lover volt balancing would be needed?

[@SWEDISHBOATING]

@@OffGridGarageAustralia btw I heard you can make DALY BMS balance when discharge , you just set - in the start balancing voltage. ( -= voltage going out from bms)

[@geirvidarskoglund8229]

hey andy. I trust you. I've been watching all your videos since you started almost 2 years ago. I totally agree that daly BMS does not work optimally. so you can for example try your 280ah to run 10 cycles without any balancing to see how much they drift. for no one here is going to pay a lot of money to buy 99.99% batteries that are completely customized so as not to go out of balance. we buy what is cheap to then we need to a slightly more expensive BMS. anyway, the more advanced BMS are better no matter what battery you have in my experience

[@OffGridGarageAustralia]

The Daly will not work with LiFePO4 chemistry due to the flat voltage curve. Once the voltage rises and shows a deviation across all cells, we're already at 95%+ SOC. The Daly may work with Li-ion cells due to the linear curve.

[@jimhanty8149]

i understand why you are confused about why the balancer is not doing what you wish...... you are using a 59 dollar...(two large pizza's)" piece of equipment to make 20,000 dollers worth of stuff perform good.. cheap stuff is never good .... cheap stuff is cheap stuff... thats all..

[@kimmogensen5390]

can somone help me figure this out??? i have run into my first problem with my daly bms i set up a 280 ah 8s battery 1,5 months ago the battery are usually running between 90% and 40% and i rarely discharge at more than 50 amps and only for 1 hour , mainly i draw about 3-6 amps from the battery and charge at about 16-18amps and for the time i have not seen more than about 0,020v but this morning the battery shut of at 21,6 soc and the cells are way out of ballance average v is 2,995v max is 3,183v and minimum is 2,723v difference is0,446v, the battery shut down as the lowest cell reached 2,500v ,,anyone know what the heck is going on???? this is really bad as i depend on that 1 battery for now for all my power needs , the cells is from a known good seller ,,jenny from docan

[@SeemanUbot]

I have been monitoring my Daly BMS for two years. I can only confirm everything. Its bugggy... 😢

[@LemonJuiceGV]

Daly bms is the worse. I bought two bms of them and tried adjusting the settings. 1st: tried balancing the cells. Nope, only balancing when cell is >50% of charge, after that there's no balancing and if one of cells isn't equal after 50% of charge, rip cell. After updating the bms software, it got interrupted and password no longer works. 2nd(new model): balancing is far worse and States balancing is always disable when it is on (confused? That's what the app says). After balancing is off. The cells are still offset. Honestly, it is a monitor and not a "battery management system"

[@james10739]

I think it's the cheapest at a decent quality

[@OffGridGarageAustralia]

That's a good summary!

[@christophec252]

Hi again. Daly seems to be the only one that discuss with the inverter. Seems yours does not? Is it really so important the inverter and BLS discuss together? If yes I need to use pylontexh cells or custom with Daly BMS. If not I would like to know why the inverter builders want a rs485 communication port if not necessary. What can happen if the cells are empty without communication between inverter? Hope I’m clear!😁

[@patrickarcega9861]

These cylindrical cell will settle from full to 3.3- 3.4v so discharging it to 13.2 or 3.3 per cell will technically balance them. Im not a fan of daly bms but its not on the bms. You will see what im talking about when you discharge them to 2.9 or 3.0 per cell.

[@coreybabcock2023]

Yesterday i dropped my last savings on two KS2 corp 12 v lithium lifpo4 batteries these are 200 ah cells 4 cells per metal box with heating pads too and I made my own 400 ah battery pack it's very heavy and using my 200 amp daly BMS and a free renogy 500 amp battery monitor it's working well so far took Me all night to build it out and it's fully charged now ready to go in my van when it's warmer out I made a few video's on it under the live section

[@Dutch_off_grid_homesteading]

Heya more test's done with a clear and easy to untherstand explanation

[@todamnbad]

I know you don't do private support but I am super confused on wiring the neey, I will be using a power supply since I am running a 12 volt system but the manual for the neey is confusing me and I have never connected a BMS or a balancer

[@OffGridGarageAustralia]

Send me an email...

[@todamnbad]

@@OffGridGarageAustralia just need to find it again, I will send pics and my issue as soon as I find it

[@OffGridGarageAustralia]

@@todamnbad it's on my website all the way down or click on About on my KZbin channel.

[@todamnbad]

@@OffGridGarageAustralia gonna be a few, apparently my brain if fried and making me not see it

[@jasondevine6014]

Thanks Andy. You will get a bashing from the Daly fanboys. As some others have pointed out these BMS are really only good for ebikes and such that have long chargers overnight on wall chargers. Thanks for this practical demonstration, great use of your tester!

[@OffGridGarageAustralia]

Thanks Jason. As always I'm sharing what I find. If someone disagrees, that's totally fine but they need to argue good to stand against the test 😉

[@TheGalifrey]

You're using small batteries so charging at only 12w nominal (12v x1a) which results in the Daly only having a small charge window to balance the cells. With larger cells the time it spends above 1a will be far greater, giving a much better balance window. This is a result based on your small capacity cells couple with a low charge rate. Bare in mind the balancer has a 20mv threshold for balancing as well so it is never going to be as good as a balancer with a lower differential threshold. Also you started with cells that weren't Top Balanced and you cut-off at 3.6 (average) not 3.65 so you physically instructed the charge program to shut off before the cells had a chance to balance at the top. Now the clincher, because of the range you chose to run the cells at, that lack of balance ISNT an issue. Balancing is to ensure you don't run the cells massively out of spec (or one of them) with the range you chose and the Daly setup, that small imbalance isn't an issue because you aren't running one cell massively out of spec. If you were charging to 3.65 and dropping to 3.2v then this imbalance would be more of a problem but in this case combined with all the other factors of your test, this lack of precision isn't going to be a problem longer term.

[@OffGridGarageAustralia]

That makes no difference if I do the test with small or large batteries. With larger cells, the BMS would have more time to balance but also has a lot more energy to burn. The 30mA will only discharge 0.7Ah per day. That will never be enough to balance say 280Ah cells (that would imply the cells would charge for 24h on a low current at high voltage to make an impact) As I said in the video, the cells where top balanced but I charged one cell a tiny bit higher to see what the balancer function does. Yes, the imbalance was not critical to a point where the BMS had to disconnect due to one cell running off. But in comparison to alternative BMS', the Daly seems from the days before yesterday. Not up to date with current BMS and they possibility to balance.

[@TheGalifrey]

@@OffGridGarageAustralia What you're saying is right but you did invoke an unrealistic imbalance than that which you would get from normal operation on top balanced cells (you have shown the importance of properly top balancing for sure). As a result of this artificial imbalance it will take a long time to correct at 30mA, but as shown on your video, it will get there after 100 cycles or so, you could fix that more quickly by reducing the charge current to 30mA for a while to let the charger catch up. For me I would just use my ISDT Q8 to put them back in balance if such an imbalance occurred, but I agree, the balance current is rubbish and they need to improve that. With so many 2A active balance options out there Daly needs to do better.

[@daler2577]

have you tried using that same charger on 200 mah cells ? when it gets up to balancing voltage it will be there for longer as they will take longer to charge and therefore may balance near the target ballance

[@pohsinhee3076]

Maybe you need to do a full discharge to confirm the capacity of cell 3 to a certain voltage. So that it show that the voltage is rising early that the other three cell because of it lower capacity. Higher internal resistance of cell 3 also give rise voltage when charging. Experiment for Inquisitive mind. Thanks

[@scoobyblu5815]

Those battery a are crap, and if your going to use them put some in series, 12 not 4

[@jamess1787]

"In sunny Antarctica"

[@OffGridGarageAustralia]

It felt like this! But now we're back to 🌞🥵🦘

[@coreybabcock2023]

It does keep the batteries in balance I've had all 4 strings at 3.388

[@fajar79]

the problem with all your test is you are using almost new condition cell. try using old cell, in here we usually buy used cell from famous 48v battery pack. you can see jk bms is really good, the active balancer work flawless without need to top balance all used cell. try using daly bms? forget it, you already top balance, wait several cycle, daly bms is useless

[@OffGridGarageAustralia]

That is correct. Hence I had charged one cell a bit higher at the beginning to create a certain imbalance. The design from Daly just does not cut it in today's time if you compare to other BMS'.

[@tompreiss5010]

BMS'S do not program themselves or configure themselves automatically and thay differ from manufacturer to manufacturer.😔😔😔😔😔😔😔😔😔😔🐮🐮🐮🐮🐮🐮🐮🐮🐮

[@OffGridGarageAustralia]

What's your point?

[@jamess1787]

I could understand using 35mA while the batteries are not being charged, or if the deviation is low enough. How hard would it be to whack in a 20 ohm and a fet for each cell for "faster balance"?

[@OffGridGarageAustralia]

Many comments here saying it's working for them and keeps the battery balanced. They either have super super super matched cells or their C-rates is very low so the cells don't drift.

[@cbuytenhuys]

Hi Andy, Quick question, can you top balace a pack of cells just by charging each cell individually to say 3.55 volts until 0 amps ?

[@OffGridGarageAustralia]

Yes, absolutely. That is a manual balancing basically.

[@fezdk]

Does the voltage difference even matter for these tiny amounts? Once they get to rest, will they not even out? If they're top balanced, will you not get the same capacity out either way - if the test should be valid, you would need to do full cycles and see if the capacity drops over time due to misalignments and low/high voltage disconnects, right?

[@OffGridGarageAustralia]

Yes, you're right. The capacity is what matters. I'm comparing the Daly just to other BMS which do a far better job with balancing. I can leave pretty much every other BMS just sitting there and it will top balance my cells over night automatically.

[@KevIsOffGrid]

Andy at start of video in settings "Voltage difference 0.02v for balance" Andy tired at 10pm "why is this balancer not turning on" at 0.013v diff :) Wakey wakey

[@OffGridGarageAustralia]

Apparently 20mV is the lowest you can set it to...

[@stupidmonkeykev]

@@OffGridGarageAustralia which is very balanced for the real world, if not your OCD on balancing......

[@JerrePictures]

Hy Andy , your videos help me in to constructing my overlander. I also ordered a Daly BMS. And I get your point. BUT and here is the big BUT. We do agree charging and discharging is energy. And that is now the point. Long talk short we need to balance but balancing is charging and discharging mostly it are 1 til 2 cells that need more attention so these gonna be charging more than the other it is energy...but these will fail quicker it is like humans they work fysicaly harder and will die faster. Balancing need to be done!! Bit not to much! In my case I also buyed a 5-8amp active balancer that will react only if there is a difference of 5mV while charging or discharging...but still doubting if I will use it maybe I put a switch on it. But remember in order to have a longer lifespan for your battery do balancing only when it is highly recommended...

[@OffGridGarageAustralia]

Yes, a Daly with active balancer and that switch is a great idea for a setup!

[@peters619]

Andy - would the Daly balance better on a 280Ah pack as the charge current is likely higher say 5A triggering the balance on the whole time and the charge time is much longer due to the size of battery meaning the balancer would be on for a much longer amount of time than with your small batteries?

[@OffGridGarageAustralia]

No, it will be even worse because of the amount of energy it needs to balance. Yes, it has more time but also needs to deal with far more capacity to balance. 30mA is only 0.7Ah per 24h balancing. Who is charging for 24h though to keep the balancer alive. This design makes no sense to me.

[@garys-half-baked-offgrid-dream]

Hi Andy, so far I like my Daly BMS. Of course I haven't wired it up yet but it is a lovely Red! Balancing is the least of my concerns, my Cells are testing over 20Ah low 😭😭😭. They are only 105Ah to start with! 16s1p Just enough to boil a kettle and keep the lights on, not your monsters.

[@OffGridGarageAustralia]

I thought you may like the red colour!

[@camro210]

It's a very good point. My Overkill/JBD BMS can balance *either* while charging or discharging (not charging, to state it better), but unfortunately not both. In light of that, my (limited) testing with my 2p4s EVE 280ah battery has shown it to be more useful to balance while NOT charging in my case, but of course still above 3.45v or so. 1- The effect of the tug of war between charge current and balance current on the cell voltage seems to make the balancer a bit less effective, since it bounces back and forth as the balancer hits the voltage differential threshold and turns on/off. 2- The best charger for my application unfortunately only has pre-defined charge profiles, and the closest one to what my preferred settings would be charges to 14.5v. In my case, there are plenty of times where the battery will get fully charged and then have no loads applied for quite a while. So by balancing while discharging (aka, not charging), I can also use the balancing to more quickly bring the cell voltages back down to the flatter area of the curve.

[@OffGridGarageAustralia]

That's exactly right. I have used the QUCC BMS a few times to let the battery top balance again. Just by itself over night. Turned off all the load and set the power supply on CV. Battery was fully balanced at 3.6V in the morning.

[@randallgoguen3463]

Let me ask could Daly change this non charging/non balancing behavior with a firmware update? Might make an interesting video topic.

[@OffGridGarageAustralia]

Yes, absolutely. That is just software related. I have done this several times with the QUCC BMS and left the battery on a power supply with CV over night and had the BMS balancing my cells perfectly until the next morning. The JK BMS works even better and faster with its active balancer.

[@topeye4202]

Even the cheapest balancing PCBs for DIY 12v Lithium batteries are balancing with a 43 Ohm resistor, means with nearly 100mA and this permanentely. I really don't understand what Daly is thinking by doing it just with 30mA in such huge batteries, it makes absolutely no sense.

[@OffGridGarageAustralia]

That's my impression as well. 80-100mA would actually work, but 20-30mA is just not doing anything.

[@bassobalalaikka5005]

correct me if I am wrong, but i thought that you set the balance deviation setting to 20mV when you said 2mV.

[@OffGridGarageAustralia]

Someone said 20mV is the lowest you can set it to. I wanted it to be 2mV but it jumped back to 20mV? Anyway, it did not make a difference as the best I could achieve was only 40mV deviation anyways.

[@aussieaustrian8704]

I have a 200Ah pack with a 100Ah BMS. On first full charge/Discharge/charge cycle a cell reached 3.55 volts before the pack was charged. There was a 125mv deviation. I stripped the pack and paralleled the cells for 4 hours and put it back together and ran 3 full discharge (2.95v) and charge (3.55v) cycles with the BMS balancing over 13.8v (3.45v/cell). I chose 3.45v balance because that’s where on the first charge cycle after balancing that I saw them drift above 10mv. 3 cycles later the largest cell difference I have seen is 19mv. What’s the problem ? I think Andy is setting the balance voltage a little too high? It’s already drifting by the time his balancer kicks in and is too close to cut off for it to work. Also I noticed that the balancer worked on discharge as well but not below my 3.45 setting.

[@uhjyuff2095]

That is real good news to hear that the Daly BMS is balancing even if there is no charging happening. I think that was the big flaw that @Off Grid Garage was experiencing.

[@diysolaradventures7894]

Wow watching this particular video i got my Daly bms to actually turn on and work i been up all night watching your video much appreciated

[@OffGridGarageAustralia]

Thank you. Keep watching, lot's of information in these videos.

[@tuty-5336]

hi my name is liton i am from bangladesh i need your help i have 19 batteries each 3.2 V and 100 MPR what kind of BMS can be used to make this battery pack and how many board BMS to use here please me Please help a little.

[@OffGridGarageAustralia]

For this, you can use the JK BMS which can handle batteries from 8s-24s. It goes up to 200A and is easy to program and setup. Hope that helps. Link to that BMS is on my website: off-grid-garage.com/battery-management-systems-bms/

[@sebastienl2140]

30mA for a 6Ah cell is like 1.6A for a 280Ah so dalybms for big battery bank is challenge

[@OffGridGarageAustralia]

The Daly will even work less effective with larger cells.

[@michaelfarrugia5590]

Hi all, I'm new to this channel I'm seeking advise on the Daly BMS 4S 12v 250A I recently purchased. Its running on 280AH Lifepo4 four pack. It was balancing well until I discharged the battery to its min and once I restarted to charge it up again the balancing feature is not turning on. Does anyone have any advice to why this is happening and if you can provide any assistance would be much appreciated.

[@BecomingOffgrid]

What settings are you using?

[@jwarnes71]

Mine wont balance at all. Been trying all settings, no balancing. Bought a 40A 6S connected to 4 cells 20AH pack, still never seen it balance. Even has 200mv difference. Might get the uart tool

[@uhjyuff2095]

Yeah, I think you have to adjust the "gain" calibration of the shunt and trick the bms into thinking its charging all the time so the balancer is activated. Good luck, I wish Daly would just put a switch like all the other Smart BMS companies to deactivate "Charge balance"

[@x3n4t0r]

I use a Daly BMS in my 24V House Battery since 18 Month, running them from 100%-20% 24/7. So far they are perfectly balanced.

[@OffGridGarageAustralia]

What is your balance voltage set to and what kind of batteries do you have?

[@carlh2007]

couple of questions - did you try setting the balance voltage lower say 3.4? Does the daly continue to balance if you hold 14.4v on the terminals from the charger instead of disconnecting the charge voltage as soon as it hits 14.4?

[@carlh2007]

also i wonder if its a glitch in the gui - maybe it continues to balance even tho the app says balance is off. at the start of the video your batteries were quite balanced.

[@alanb76]

We need to step back and look at the big picture here. Balancing is a waste of energy. Only enough balancing should be done to keep the cells within the settings which as I recall were 20 mV. There is no benefit in perfect balance, and the chipset has a specific goal set. When the differential is less than the set balance goal it should waste no energy and do no balancing. Perfect balance is a waste of energy. Perhaps get the datasheet on the chipset that the DALY is using and see what their design actually is. The folks who design the chipsets are usually quite good at battery management. It's kind of like driving down the freeway. You need to stay within the lane, but there is no value in being perfectly within 0.1mm of the lane center. In the big picture total energy losses need to be minimized. Balance beyond some level is not important.

[@uhjyuff2095]

I disagree. If you purchase a car that says it CAN get 30mpg on highway and then you find out that it only get 20mpg you would be very very unhappy. The Daly says it does cell balancing and yet it DOESN'T work.

[@dig1035]

Thumbs up and subscribed! Thanks for demonstrating the unique function of a Daly BMS! That was beer money good, thanks again!

[@OffGridGarageAustralia]

Thanks for your sub! Ah, it's you again.... 😂

[@mcsg_pelecan]

The Daly's are not really active balancer... I think it's just so they can say it has balanacing.

[@OffGridGarageAustralia]

They come from NMC chemistry where you have a linear voltage curve. Unusable for LiFePO4 though...

[@joevasquez1776]

Well ya don't have to worry about anymore thumbs downs 😅 . To support the voiceless, I can no longer use the like button ✅ . So here is a written like.

[@OffGridGarageAustralia]

??? Thanks anyway.

[@Sammy296296]

I just purchased my 200a Daly BMS today. And now I'm sad. 😞

[@OffGridGarageAustralia]

Don't be. It will work as many said. I just think it's not up to date with what other BMS offer.

[@mannyfragoza9652]

now i know why on some of these Lithium battery forums a few of the posters were saying its been a week and their batteries are still not completely balanced lol

[@OffGridGarageAustralia]

The Daly may actually work with li-ion cells a lot better due to the linear voltage curve.

[@williamhustonrn6160]

Hello Andy, I am concerned that you have the DALY BMS wired wrong when your charging it. I wanna ask if your charging the batteries by connecting them directly to the battery or placing it inline with P-, The way you explained the DALY BMS function i beleive is wrong. The charger is suppose to be INLINE with the BMS circuit, the way your doing it is parallel to the BMS and its unable to function properly. I have used many DALY BMS units between my powerwall project and EV bike batteries and the way it functions based on my testing is the BMS allows full current flow for bulk charging through the larger path until balance turn on setting is achieve + min Vdiff is exceeded, then modifies the path of charging it seems, because on mine when i check each battery cell, the charging voltage varies per cell based on which is high and which is low... The way your charging parallel to the BMS is going around this function of the BMS.

[@OffGridGarageAustralia]

I have the power supply positive at the battery positive. The power supply negative goes to the BMS P-. The BMS B- goes to battery negative. I think this is how you should connect the charger, BMS and battery? So in case of a voltage run-off, the BSM can disconnect the charger.

[@williamhustonrn6160]

@@OffGridGarageAustralia I was just making sure that is how you had it connected, in the video.. it looked like you just paralleld the charger to the bms, basically taking it out of the loop outside of just being a source of voltage bleed...ya.. just checked your video.. thats not how you have connected in the video.

[@zaniusfelix2097]

If you look at the balance option is its turned off. U never turned on the balance option .look at the top right where balance option is off

[@uhjyuff2095]

that is not a switch in the app, it is only an indicator to show if balance function is on or off at any specific time.

[@jakobhovman]

Dear Mister OGG Andy, Thank You for all your demo and workflow videos...! Inspirational, I like your energy...! Many have noted this... At 3:33 you set the: "Balanced open diff volt " to: 0,02V = 200 mV. I give you my best saying for ac/dc electric work (and most other): "Wissen ist gut, aber Kontrollieren ist besser" Your famous: "I just put my "red croc" amp meter on a balance lead", would have shown this. Greetings from Denmark

[@OffGridGarageAustralia]

Hey Jakob, thanks for your comment. 0.02V = 20mV btw Kontrollieren is besser 😉 I said 2mV in the video though... just to make the mess perfect 🥳

[@jakobhovman]

​@@OffGridGarageAustralia : Thank You Andy, for your reply...Perfect mess...🥳...! So, There Is, a relationship, between measure and mess...Knew it. Fallen, on my own sword... I hurry back, under my off grid rock, mumbling: Milli micro nano pico milli micro nano pico... PS: Those trees behind your garage needs topping... point something of their height. Greetings

[@steffen1182]

17:46 The balancing starts as soon as cells 3 and 4 have reached 3.6 volts. I watched it closely!

[@OffGridGarageAustralia]

The balance voltage was set to 3.5V. I watched this in real life a few times and the balancer turns on inconsistently. Even the app measures and shows current flowing, the balancer will not turn on at the set voltage. This seems unreliable to me.

[@martink9785]

Random thought, I wonder if a BMS or charging method that charges the cells individually rather than the pack as a whole would be better. Once a cell hits a limit, that cell simply stops being charged (or floats if you chose). All other cells continue charging. Random thought 2. Can't sleep. If active balancing is available in the BMS and voltage of a cell is still rising because charge current is more than balance current, charge current could be actively reduced to match. So either BMS limits current, or it commands the charge source to reduce.

[@OffGridGarageAustralia]

Not so random thoughts... 1. That would be great. I think one of my viewers is working on such a charger from what he was saying.... 2. Yes, if the BMS can talk to the charger/controller it could tell it to slow down until the cells have balanced again. That's the next step in our solar setup to make things a bit more intelligent rather than just disconnecting the charger.

[@martink9785]

@@OffGridGarageAustralia I know that Stuart Pittaway has built in functionality to his 'DIY BMS ' to talk to Victron via it's CAN interface. It can't actively balance as far as I know though

[@JeremyAkersInAustin]

The BMS I use (Orion Jr2) actually does thought #2. It communicates with the charger and when the battery reaches 98% SoC it reduces charge current to 2 amps and I have a 6 amp active balancer so this allows it to balance quite effectively without having the charger shut off.

[@gatomalo69]

You are correct Andy, everything was better in the 70's, except for BMS, lithium batteries and solar panels...

[@OffGridGarageAustralia]

Hahaha, the beer was better too!

[@jwarnes71]

Everything home made is better. Home made rum is better than store bought! If you know how, then do it! Because now everything is made to make money. Back in 70s things were made for the love of the craft.

[@sr175]

Thanks Andy! I don't have a Daly as a preface but I do use a bms with 310 ah batteries that only balances while charging. It's for a rv setup and after a good top balance it stays balanced. I don't feel the bms balancer does a whole lot but this setup just works.

[@OffGridGarageAustralia]

Thanks for sharing. It's in line with what others say here as well. I guess, your cells are well matched and you also don't use high currents for charging/discharging.

[@sr175]

@@OffGridGarageAustralia I think your right but I have had a cell or two that give issues just like you. At first I played around but I just got to using it and it works great. Probably biggest load is my mini split and it can pull 60A. It's solar so not much more than 20A charge but mostly lower.

[@markseamans4682]

First, I love the channel. Next, does it really matter that the cells stay that “perfect” balance as long as when charged there isn’t a “runaway”? I have many Daly BMS’s. Great for small packs. But yeah, JK is in my future. On a side note, I have 4x packs, 4s10p, with top and 25Ah cells. I just ran them a bit for some off grid camping in my RV. I’ll check them out today. You got me wondering as I was dumping a good amount from them daily.

[@OffGridGarageAustralia]

Thank you Mark. No, it does not matter at all as long as they stay relatively balanced. This is just for testing purposes. Other BMS' do a fantastic job and keep the battery within a few mV just by leaving the balancer activated over night. The Daly does not work well with LiFePO4 cells though.

[@markseamans4682]

@@OffGridGarageAustralia Yeah, these are LiFePo4 packs, but the Daly bms’s are a bit larger than you are using. 250A, which have a larger balancing rate. I do have the active balancers you reviewed, but I’m looking to see if I can get my victron gear to “turn them on”when they get near charged to 3.5v per cell. This way, I can give the Daly some help, but not kill the pack as you have demonstrated in your videos. Anyway, keep it up, you have gone places I wanted to go, but just could not find the time!

[@OffGridGarageAustralia]

@@markseamans4682 Thanks Mark.

[@gregnorman3183]

Andy, nice that you're documenting your testing for us. It's an opportunity for us to evaluation and question, thank you. I know that you considered testing the Electrodacus SBMS0 but you had issue with it only going to 24v. I believe that there is a work around for 48v but I'd like to see you test it anyway for us 12 and 24v folks

[@orangezeroalpha]

The only real issue as best I can tell is that Dacian doesn't consider it an "elegant" solution, nor does he really want to encourage the additional risks of a higher voltage system. I have heard him mention you could have one 24v battery with one sbms0 and another 24v battery with another sbms0, and then have them in series for a 48v system. You'd just have to do some math to add the totals together as each would only see their 8 cells. People talk about it, but I have yet to see it done.

[@squizwiz8241]

I want to update on my DALY. I installed the program on my computer that allows for me to make changes to the DALY. I mapped the gain function with respect to the current shunt. I programmed the current shunt to see 5x what current is actually going into the pack. This allows me to trick the DALY into thinking that I am charging at 1A, while I am feeding the pack 200mA. I also changed the balance delay to 0 seconds so there is no delay in activating it. These settings together allow for FAR more time to balance the pack on the daily basis. I have a 78AH pack composed of 6ah cells; 16s 13p configuration. I have the solar charge controller charging up to to 55.3v (3.456v/cell), and programmed to sit in the absorb cycle for 3 hours @55.3v (my system of packs need this for multiple reasons). The DALY is set to trigger balancing at 3.46v, and the balance open diff volt set to 0.010v. I am now on 36 cycles, and it finally appears to be doing its job. The pack in this video is very small compared to what I have, and I calculated it would take a whole year to balance my pack at the settings the DALY was shipped with. With the modified settings, it seems to get at least 15x more time to balance with these settings changed. After composing this pack, I balanced it the best I could, but alas, it wasnt good enough. Cell row 4 was considerably off from the others. Cell ro 4 is not at cell row 11's voltage, the next row in line to show the highest voltage. Just a note for anyone who is making a pack like mine: each of the 13 cells in parallel have their own tape behavior. Its never recommended to charge the whole pack to 3.65v/cell due to the variances! IF YOU CHOOSE TO DO SO< ENSURE THAT YOU CHARGE IT TO THIS VOLTAGE STEP-WISE LITTLE BY LITTLE WITH THIS BMS, AND APPROACH THE MAX CHARGE VOLTAGE SLOWLY. This is still not recommended, because you want the pack to balance at the votage settings that you're planning to use every single day! Good luck to everyone, this will be the last DALY BMS i'll ever purchase, even for small packs! The discharge function is sim[ply not powerful enough for anything bigger than cell sized 3200mAh in a single cell-row configuration. I have to stick with this BMS due to funds and the work it would take to replace it isnt worth the time. Use my setting, and figure out the gain settings in the PC app (real fun I'll tell you).

[@pelecho]

Can you do a test like this one with a qucc bms? Please 🤓

[@OffGridGarageAustralia]

I haven't got enough of these small cells... need to order 4 more... Please standby 😊

[@solargarage]

Thanks for showing this, great information as always.

[@OffGridGarageAustralia]

Thank you.

[@stupidmonkeykev]

How can you not be happy with that balance? thats fine!

[@OffGridGarageAustralia]

It may be after another 50 cycles... Well, I compare it other BMS' and they do a far better job with that. Daly is just useless for LiFePO4 chemistry.

[@blitzhop]

Ok I see. That's a downside, but I couldn't find another BMS with 200 and more amps. And if you pull the weakest cell down while not charging won't this cell hit bottom voltage first? I rly don't know what to buy.

[@MrLennymon]

I totally agree the Daly should balance all the time, especially at this low current, discharge the highest and transfer it to the lowest until the low battery cutoff has been reached. Still in Daly defense I was putting a newly constructed battery and panel under stress by putting my little victron load hooked up to a few high performance headlights then forgot about it till I was at 11.7 on the battery and one cell actually 20 batteries 4s5p for that cell reached 2.7 and although all different most 3.1 3.2 all in all I had a 1.1 difference. Then it started raining for days and this difference remained for days. Almost considered top balancing but as soon as the sun peeked it's brightness the next time I looked my cells were spot on within . 04 volt diff

[@graemebushell7531]

Setting the balance start voltage at 3.5V is a pooor choice because there is almost no spare capacity in the cells left to integrate that 30mA current differential over. Balancing only needs to offset the difference in self discharge rates between different cells. A tiny amount of current difference is enough to do this.

[@graemebushell7531]

High discharge current makes no difference! Differences in internal resistance make no difference! Charge is conserved...

[@OffGridGarageAustralia]

So what would you set the balance start voltage to with LiFePO4 cells? There is no point to set it under 3.45 as the voltage curve is just flat. The Daly BMS firmware comes from the NMC chemistry and this concept may still work there due to a linear voltage curve. LFP chemistry, totally different case. Even you can set LFP in the settings, it makes no difference as turning on balancing only while charging is a very poor design choice.

[@barryevans5232]

I am very happy with my new system with the Daly 4S 100A BMS. Just leave it alone and it gets on with the balancing perfectly. I have 4 x Eve LF280Kcells, top-ba;anced before installation and typical cell Voltage difference of 1 - 5 mV. What's not to like?

[@ballmanatorsciphy2026]

Hope you are having a great day in sunny Australia! Your videos are excellent. Can you review the changes in the Daly BMS app. It looks like they added "Active Balance" option in the app recently?

[@muratkeskin34]

Hi, There is a sleep time in the bms settings. If you set that time to unlimited, you don't have to turn on the bluetooth every time. I guess when I enter 15300 in that part, it doesn't go to sleep anymore.

[@wayne8113]

Thanks Andy, some good Comments today

[@OffGridGarageAustralia]

working through them... 😉

[@drewsuf77]

So what is the best bms for my 280ah 4s battery. Battery .

[@OffGridGarageAustralia]

That's a good question, Drew. What's the best computer, the best car, the best mobile? It depends on your setup and needs. You can use the Daly BMS but I would use an active balancer in addition.

[@bassobalalaikka5005]

nice to her the frog sound again replacing strong words, i prefer even kookaburra sound over beep sound.