Thanks Andy, helpful and entertaining as always. Always delightful too, when the green frog returns and the world is "Actively Balanced". And perhaps he should be in the outros, and on a T-Shirt with his image peeking out from the swamp at 25:05 and a subtitle: "Actively Balanced" and the heading "Off-Grid Garage"

Just have a look for "burden voltage" of current measurement. And also asume the balancer may use a pulsed DC current with alternating waveform and frequency. Those cheap DMs are useless, you will need at least ones with True RMS and use the 20A input, because it has a lower resistance. But than, to see mA, you need ones with 5 Digits. ;-)

@andrewsweet43

2 жыл бұрын

Exactly what i was about to say. If the currents are pulsed, they may very well be high frequency (i see small inductors on the banancer so yeah...). You need a far more sophisticated system to measure these currents, including active current clamps and oscilloscopes. It gets quite tricky... And i totally agree about the burden voltage of the meters. I mentioned it on my previous comments too. Andy if you are watching this, the name here is Andreas (Yeah i know the greek alphabet is really weird to read or pronounce :P ) Cheers!

@magicmanspaz

2 жыл бұрын

Was gonna say the same. cheap meters will be averaging whats actually going on as best they can. The current may not always add up for a few reasons as well.

@camielkotte

2 жыл бұрын

Haha. It crossed my mind immediately since i got served a video by KZread algorithm just before this one that explained the different uses for direct transformator and pulsed DC power supplies. Very funny or scary that anticipated yt algo?

Morning Andy, the storm Thursday here where mad. Great vlog mate, well done.

Ya gotta watch Andy's videos all the way to the end!. Love that the frogs are coming back. Thanks for all of your experiments, Andy. I lift a SPAT to you from the USA.

@OffGridGarageAustralia

2 жыл бұрын

Thanks 👍

I appreciate that you show how it doesn't work and how it does work.

Great test!

Thanks Andy, I like your Green tree frogs. A bit of bad luck with those multi meters 😒 but you get a bit of a idea what is going on

Seems a little obsessed with balancing. Oddly enough, once top balanced, I never have a problem.

@habana7638

2 жыл бұрын

Neither do I John, I don't understand why everything has to be so complicated here, nothing as easy as Lithium cells, if you have good cells…….

I'm still waiting on my updated neey to arrive, hopefully you get a new one and you can retest it for us

Yep enough of balancers, back to Battery 2 on the shelf. Great bit of investigation and explanation on the working of excellent, average and shit BMS's. Thumbs up and go green frogs!!!!!

@OffGridGarageAustralia

2 жыл бұрын

Workbench is cleaned up again and I did some real work over the weekend 😎

Is that a gas pump for a % soc? Interesting. Well done as always Andy. You've put a lot of time into the dally lol

Before you brought up about the meter's internal resistance, I already figured it out. the test leads have small gauge wire inside and the length makes a huge difference. One way I can think of is buying a banana plug that allows you to customize the wires on it and to keep the resistance to a minimum. OR to make yourself a piece of wire sized enough to handle the current while being able to measure the amperage or "voltage" (custom) but keeping everything short as possible.

Hi, very interesting as always ! Can we put two inductive balancers in cascade to cover larger battery packs like 28s with two 16s modules ? Thank you very much :D

Just hook up the jk bms and Power supply Turn off at the balancing... And use your phone to film it👍

4:55 To the Bat-Go! **image spins while batman cut music plays**

Great video. They make small cheap hall current sensors. This would let you use your cheap meters and read current .

@OffGridGarageAustralia

2 жыл бұрын

Thanks, Steve. I'll see what I can find to make it fit...

i wonder if the currents are being pulsed and the cheap meters are missing the change.. never mind the shunt resistance makes more sense :). AS these balancers work of voltage difference will they work for Li-ion batteries?

welcome brother welcome lol so you seem cool as hell and i wish i knew you but owell life is short and wierd. anywyays have a great day and god bless keep making the awsome videos and giving people something to watch

For the inductive active balancers, I have noticed that they actually do not charge cell No. 1 if it is the lowest in the pack. The led description means transferring current from 1to2, 2to3, 3to4. It is not bi-directional, so if cell #1 has the lowest voltage it will remain that way.

I liked this test set up from last time. My only question is will you upgrade your "amp" meters to something of better quality?

You could put a 1-10 milliohm resistor in series with the balance leads and measure the voltage across the resistor to get the current.

Hi , yes burden voltage. But.... now.... i am thinking a out how do these active bms really work. Are they limiting the balancing current while charging and discharging capacitor ? Or are they just short circuiting the battery to charge a capacitor and then, discharge to the other cell ? In that case, the charge time is probably miliseconds, but how high is the maximum current ? Does these "infinite shorcircuit" discharge harm our cells ? Could you measure the peak with an oscilloscope? Do all bms (jk, daly, keen, ojkscs, ofgjks, ... ;) do the same way ? (Active bms, of course) Think about it....

Hi, and thank you for enthusiastic video's. Keep up the good work! You should consider doing the clamp meter measurement a bit different. Space out between the cells, and measure the current going in/out of the cell directly on the connecting tab of each cell. By measuring on the balance leads, you will get sum/difference of current going to and from neighbour batteries from the balancer. This can be confusing. You should even test Daly BMS again, using this tecnique.

@OffGridGarageAustralia

2 жыл бұрын

Thanks Knut. I know what you mean... I would need some more clamp meters to really show what is going on. Like 8 all in total for this 4s setup and then have one on each terminal. That would be ideal.

@knuth.degaard2236

2 жыл бұрын

@@OffGridGarageAustralia 😃 Or just the one you have, moving it around...

I wonder if there is a balancer for multiple 12v batteries in series for 24v or 48v systems?

SPAT for the Navy. Self Propelled Acoustic Target.

That clamp meter actually does change the resistance of the wire when you clamp it around it. It's measurable though.

@MrSummitville

2 жыл бұрын

How can the clamp-on ammeter change the "resistance" of the copper wire?

You can use 10A input to measure currents over 200mA, then the multimeter uses shunt inside and does not have that high resistance.. I know, that when measuring current on some devices where inrush current goes above 200mA, but then uses like 80mA is not possible on 200mA setting and i have to use 10A input. There is some kind of overvoltage protection on 200mA setting and input and therefore there is also over current protection.. 10A input does have a piece of wire about inch long and uses it as an shunt, so even currents over 10A are possible until fuse burns out :)

Have been testing the active balancer 4s on two batterys for a week now. So far the witch magic seems to work. I am using new A grade cells top balanced and they have always stayed balanced with a jbd bms right down to almost empty around the 2.8-2.6v mark when they sway about .1-.2v but with the active balancer they seem to rest at around .005v no matter what soc be it full or almost at shut off point and during charge or dishcarge are still around .03v and so far it seems they stop balancing under 3v as i can hear the fetts no longer making noise. It seems balancing between 3v and 3.6v while its not a top balance so to speak it does have an effect on the cells being more balanced when under 3v and still being balanced when full. like a sweet spot.

@hydroalternation

2 жыл бұрын

Someone else listening to a little fet screaming

Andy, as I said in another video, active balancing is an "dynamic" process based in pulses of discharging one cell and sending the energy to another cell. Such steps are done in pulses, and therefore it is not real "DC" courrent and can't be measured with dc meter (ac meters neither). You need for this task an osciloscope (multichannel). You can see with it not only the courrent amount, but also the duration of the phases (charge and discharge probably will have diferent duration) and the pulse shape (also will be diferent). Also the timing (sincronization) is an additional factor. You need such way of test if you want to really understand in depth the process.

@OffGridGarageAustralia

2 жыл бұрын

I've got an oscilloscope here and will test that.

Hi Andy take the front sticker off the battgo and it should be Good to see it👍

Can anyone please tell me the cause and resolution to Andy's problem with low production from his solar panels, when he initially thought it was diodes but wasn't (~Apr 2021)? I've spent many hours watching Andy's videos and love them (tears and all!) but I can't find the one where he figures out the cause of getting a maximum of 2amps out of his string versus the ~5 amps MPPT.

Andy, I think those are Halloween killer frogs, when you turn back, they jump, and bite you in the neck. :-D

The BattGo unit has a settings menu. If you want the light to stay on constantly you need to turn off eco mode.

Chauvin Arnoux Mini 05 Test Equipment Clamp I know there a bit expensive but ideal for you to test the balancers

What is the name on the theme song? Thanks Andy!

Hi Andy, can you explain BMS with separate charging port, please? Love you channel, This is what doing actual science is all about.

@BajanAlan

2 жыл бұрын

I have one of those . Charger only goes into c- lead.

@xspotbox4400

2 жыл бұрын

@@BajanAlan Not sure if i understand this, but a separate port is helping with state of charge thing. Electronics distributes energy from solar panel prior to battery, i think, but really have no idea why is this better than ordinary charging port.

@BajanAlan

2 жыл бұрын

@@xspotbox4400 From DIY Solar Forum The split port has a charge port and a battery port. The BMS can cut off Charge separate of battery (Load). The common port the load and charge port are together. If the split port sees high voltage It can shut off charging. If it sees low voltage, It can disconnect load.

@xspotbox4400

2 жыл бұрын

@@BajanAlan Thank you man, makes sense. Hope Mr. Andy finds our debate interesting and do some measurements, it seems like a very interesting feature.

Andy you shouldent run an active cell ballancer with the BMS bleed ballancer - The active cell balance will dominate and corupt the triggering of the BMS ballancer - Disconect the BMS JTS my friend : ) Hugs from Wales UK

The balancer with the red caps was working fine in the video, it was taking 24ma from the second cell on the left and putting 20ma into the last cell on the right... it is one of the few balancer that shifts energy from higher vltage cells to lower ones, most balancer just discharge the higher voltage cells into resistors... also, depending on state of unbalance the caps one can handle 5a, the others just a few milliamps, on big lifepo4 batteries it wold take forever to get them balanced at those small rates.

@OffGridGarageAustralia

2 жыл бұрын

Both balancers were active, one with capacitors and the smaller one sues inductive boost converters to suck energy from one cell and charge another. The capacitive ones work like, charging the caps in parallel and then put them in series for charging another cell. Would make sense, not sure if this is true though. Impossible to measure and test for me.

Yes Test Akb 🔋 ⚡ 👍

How much rain did you get Andy?

A test rig with ACS hall effect sensors and a Arduino data logger coming on!

Andy, when you plug the balancer in it looks "balanced" on your voltage measurements because the high batteries have a load dragging the voltage down while the low batteries have that same input voltage applied to their terminals. So you are not measuring the voltage of the individual batteries but rather the voltage of the balancer (which is acting as a discharger/charger depending on cell voltage). I hope that makes sense? There is no way to measure the true voltage of your individual cells until you remove the balancer.

@OffGridGarageAustralia

2 жыл бұрын

Yeah, that makes sense. I would need indeed 8 amp meters to measure all terminals separately to make sense out of that. The high internal resistance of the meters messes things up a lot.

Successful failures are never failures.

The active balancer is most likely just connecting each cell to the capacitor bank in a round robin fashion, faster than the multimeters can react. This is why all multimeters show some current and "not making sense".

@OffGridGarageAustralia

2 жыл бұрын

I don't think it does that. The clamp meter has shown clear numbers which make sense...

@MarkusIngalsuo

2 жыл бұрын

@@OffGridGarageAustralia, by the amount and look of the components on those active un-smart balancers, they will not be comparing cell voltages at all but only connecting cells in static constellations to some amount of the capacitors at say 1kHz frequency. Also the capacitance is not that spectacular on them. Capacitance is expensive. If it would compare voltages, there would be a central microcontroller visible and a complex switching fabric that can connect the low and high cells to a set of capacitors in turn. This is also expensive. A high switching frequency also works as a current limiter which is needed for these things to not fire off all the caps at once :D And yes, the low cells will show a current flow towards their positive pole but to be able to see what happens in less clear scenarios, you'd need a good scope to see the switching and current flow in detail.

current from 2 different sources can move up and down the same wire. When that happens the amp meter will display the difference between currents moving in different directions. So 10mA consumed from cell 2 and 5mA consumed from cell 3 would display +10mA on cell2positive, -10mA+5mA=-5ma on cell2negative/cell3positive and -5mA on cell3negative. Someone correct me if Im wrong

@OffGridGarageAustralia

2 жыл бұрын

That's correct, which makes it so hard to show how this works. I found it much easier using just the clamp meter and look at a single number.

Im all balanced now :-)

@OffGridGarageAustralia

2 жыл бұрын

Yeah, me too, enough with that!

Just noticed According To Neey they have updated the balancer so that now there is no longer a 0.3V difference between stop and start voltage

@dchevy34

2 жыл бұрын

So the prior ones can't be updated? Literally just got 2 in the mail today. Anyway to know if I've got the upgraded one other than seeing if the .3v is adjustable? Thanks

So, Jetzt muss ich einfach mal fragen. Aus welcher Ecke in Deutschland bist Du? Ich denke mal es ist die nördliche Richtung. Ich selber bin aus Lueneburg, lebe aber schon seit fast 30 Jahren in den USA Habe viel spass mit Deinen Solar Videos. Gruss, Andreas - Redwood City, California

@OffGridGarageAustralia

2 жыл бұрын

Hallo Andreas, gaaaanz falsch. bin aus Kassel in Nordhessen. Dort, wo der Herkules steht...😎

@n6nu

2 жыл бұрын

@@OffGridGarageAustralia Hätte ich mir schon denken sollen als Du Oettinger für den Sensor Kälte Test benutzt hast. Flensburger Pilsner hätte Dir viel genauere Ergebnisse erbracht. 🥸 Alles sehr informativ. Viel Spass!

I still think the cells are too small, thier voltage rises too quick fir the BMS to react 🤔

check you have film on top of batt go.

Capturing solar energy is great.....next step would be to capture some of that lightening energy you had during the rain storm. ;)

@Steveuploads

2 жыл бұрын

Not even 1 thumbs up on that comment…😉

I had one of those meters and measuring current is rubbish, my other quality meters are fine. What you pay is what you get.

Try to "fully discharge " (2.5V ?)2- 3 battery cells and leave one or two fully charged, then charge the whole string with 1-2A and see if the active balancers will survive 🤔

@OffGridGarageAustralia

2 жыл бұрын

I think we have tested this before when I got the balancer. It worked a treat.

@eivindamundsen7090

2 жыл бұрын

@@OffGridGarageAustralia Cool. Need to rewarch some videos. I tried it yesterday with a cheap Chinese (bangood ) active balancer and 3 x18650 batteries. Worked fine untill I turned on the "charger". Then the first (active ) "G18Y" chip turned into a smoking super bright LED 😅. I guess it did pass too much current ? (Can't find the datasheet on the chip with the "G18Y_" SMD code, so I'm not sure how the circuit works ). Bought 10 more balancers so I can do some more tests. Btw thanks for posting super interesting videos 👍

The resolution of your instrumentation is very crude at best to witness current flowing while the switching speed of balance gear is in microseconds and all you are looking at is average over a total period of time

🐸

Time to rig up your raspberry pi with through hole DC current sensors on each balance lead. You can then record data and graph it.

@john_in_phoenix

2 жыл бұрын

INA260 is what he needs.

@jmaus2k

2 жыл бұрын

@@john_in_phoenix These look like you wire directly. Better would be a splitcore hall effect current sensors that go around a conductor and don't mess up the existing wiring.

@john_in_phoenix

2 жыл бұрын

Hall effect sensors are not as accurate.

Would have been a lot clearer if you had plugged the BatteryGo in to main power so it wasn't drawing current from the pack.

@OffGridGarageAustralia

2 жыл бұрын

Nothing in the manual how to do that...

@TheGalifrey

2 жыл бұрын

@@OffGridGarageAustralia You plug a 12v source into the input of the charger.

Hello Endy Thank you for yours excellent job, you are probably most experienced man in the internet - because you are doing the tests and learn on it. But…. I would build own DYI battery bank and I have tried to note yours battery settings and I have lost! You make so many changes during the last months so it is extremely hard to check yours current settings! I see only one way - to watch all yours movies regarding batteries, remove testing, put into timeline and note all changes. I’m not a native speaker and I do not know what is an idiom for “hopeless job” Could you summarize yours current normal (not experimental) battery settings in separate Web page (it also could be video for that - with explanation and additional comment) where list you yours settings for charger, BMS and SmartShount (could be screens). All that setting have to correspond to each other and changes in one device should be synchronized with changing on another device. I thing so that page could help to better understand yours setting and could be implemented by other, less experienced people.

rain frog

🐸🛀😜

Heya, nice test but to bad a failure well nice try lol

I think you're becoming unbalanced with all this balancing. Leave it Alone! The frogs are getting worried 🐸

Gosh you have the world supply of multimeters, no wonder they are out of stock.

I want to invite you to help build a less confusing world. Switch to UTC/Zulu time. We are all a global village now, and time zones and daylight slavings time only screw us all up. Since so many businesses change their hours seasonally or run two and three shifts already, let's all just go to UTC and if that means working from 14:00 to 22:00 so what. We already all keep odd hours.

wow you must have money if you can afford a 50 dollar battery checker lol when you could use s cheap multi meter lol

That is not a heltec balancer that’s a knock off it doesn’t even say heltec on it

@OffGridGarageAustralia

2 жыл бұрын

All the same Chinese factory. Companies just stamp their logo on it and now it's a Heltec!

yay 404 likes but i ruined it made it 405 sorry :)

@OffGridGarageAustralia

2 жыл бұрын

DAVID! Thank you! 👍

not a failure if you learn from it. just ask Elon.

Another Fail!