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@jesseschwartz7714

11 ай бұрын

Nobody explains what leds means and do when they are solid and when they blink?

Thanks Will. Active balancing makes so much more sense than wasting the energy using resistors.

After making a portable diesel heater, I found the 100ah lead acid battery, a bit on the heavy side, and slowly educating myself on the move to LiFePO4 using your very informative channel, cheers for taking the time to do the bits that are important to people like me new to the game.

Thanks for the heads up Will! I was literally just looking at those on Amazon last night thinking "Man, those things don't look like they could do much"

I have always wondered why they didn’t make these. I’m glad they finally are. Fantastic video thanks.

Will, been watching lots your videos over the past week. I really like the way you explore and test. I decided that to see more, I'd want to support you on Patreon. But I couldn't find anywhere on your KZread channel that you even had a Patreon page. I searched Google to find you there. It's not begging if you mention it under each video, maybe right after your equipment list. I figure the more people support you, the better and more varied your tests and reviews will be. Keep up the good job.

I was waiting to hear conjunction with BMS. 3:18 Thanks, great video. I think I will get one of these as a back up.

Another benefit of active balancers is that contrary to passive ones, they work all the time even when the battery pack is not fully charged. Passive ones only try to prevent each battery from being overcharged, nothing more, which just slows the charging of other cells down a lot while draining the charge current. I've been studying myself many approaches to achieve this over the last decade, but not being a good electronics guy I always ended up with complex and inefficient circuits. Also tried to implement capacitive charge but it does not work when cells'voltage differ by just a few tens of mV. These new devices are way better by design.

I just got installed the 16s version on my lifepo4 5.1kwh bank. The easiest way to check it's function is to charge just one cell and the board will wake when the voltage difference goes above 100mV. For sure it works well, I'm impressed myself. At least you showed us that removing any one of the leads to the balancer will cause catastrophic failure (in your follow up video) so thanks for that helpful tip! Also the active balance current is heavily dependant on the voltage difference. Keep up the fantastic work bro!

@DarrellnKitty

2 жыл бұрын

What one did you use, I am building at 12v 12 battery 904ah system

I continue to learn from your videos. You present very well....

always excellent, Thanks again Will.

Although I would probably never build my own battery I find all your experiments very interesting

@videokfm

5 жыл бұрын

Don't be scared to build your own battery banks. I started watching youtube videos and thanks to youtube channels like this one I finally built my own solar system for home.Using 8.34Kw solar panels and 24Kwh LTO battery bank. I use 264 off Yinlong 40A cells in a 12P 22S configuration.And by the way I am in South AFrica. So if I can do it then anyone can do it.

What would have awesome if you used a DC clamp meter on one of the balance leads to confirm the actual charge speed. Great video and I may add this to my diy DashCam backup battery made of 32700 LiFePO4 cells in 4S2P. I also built my ebike batteries using 18650 lithium LiCoO2 cells. I first built a 10s10p but wanted a bit more power so I build a seperate 3s10p battery each with their own BMS and run them in series. I am really contemplating if I should get one and solder a male JST-XH 11 pin and 4 pin connectors to the existing wires and of course sharing the 11th wire between the connections. That way, both battery packs will be balanced between each other.

@WillProwse

5 жыл бұрын

Aww dang it!!! You are so right. Dang. Will have to do that

thanks for this video, def going to buy a few of these for my batteries :)

ABSOLUTELY GREAT EXPLANATION NOW I PERFECTLY KNOW WHAT TO BUY NOW . KISSES

Is sure seems like a good quality BMS manufacturer would build that in to their BMS.

Awesome video Will 👍

This is great! I have a Tesla battery like you had last year, plus I also have collected about 300 18650s. With all this potential I already own, I'd hate to spend money on anything like Battleborn batteries. But my 18650s won't be as good or in balance with the new, stronger Tesla's. So I think this will really do an excellent balancing job!

this made me LOL ... a positive review of an active balancer?!?! thanks for all your hard work

man... I've been looking for something like this for a LONG time.. thanks for sharing bro!

I was going to go with active balance only but then after watching Off Grid Garage Utube's i change my mind. I am going with Smart Active Balance that has capability of software monitor and control. Not much more and well worth the extra cost. I never use or like the bms but active balace is a must have. I learned the hard way after having many failures on home built from recycle battery for my lithium solar pack. 14s100p. Had i have the active balance in place that would prevent short life and early failure of pack that i built. for sure.

I have been looking for something like this for a while. I will post a video showing some way out of balance batteries and my best attempt so far at getting them in line. I will also get these devices that you mention to help the matter soon.

I've been messing around with the 8S version, had great results so I'll be using it on my LiFePO4 8S solar batteries.

@DaDude999

4 жыл бұрын

I have the 8s version too, but I want to use it on my 7S LiPo pack. I don't know what to do with the 8+ lead. Do you?

very impressed with the ACB more then a bms

Great find, just order 4 four for my Li-Ion packs in my shed, I took a look today and they are really unbalanced. This should do the job, cheers bru!

@ghostwriter6699

5 жыл бұрын

Wayne - as Will pointed out earlier in a correction -- NONE of these that he recommended is a TRUE Balancer .. they basically balance one cell to the adjacent cell - not across the entire battery ... There ARE some Balancers that do ACROSS the battery .. and most don't -- and the Chinese are selling the ones that DON'T as the ones that do... anyway .. good luck

@swormser865

3 жыл бұрын

@@ghostwriter6699 Which ones balance across the whole battery I’m thriving to do 16-32s thx

@7:06 I was wondering the same thing. There as a company in Italy with something called “Flash Balancing” that balances so fast that it can keep up with the normal charger and normal load. So if you had a cell that degraded more than the others, it would send a message to the cloud saying there is a problem, but the battery will keep working almost like normal. Like in your video, the balancer couldn’t keep up with the inverter load, so you had to turn it off early, when the lowest cell reached the danger level. Flash balancing would have kept feeding the lowest cells until all cells reached the minimum voltage. And during charging, when stubborn cell is trying to climb in voltage too fast, the flash balancer is now distributing that excess power to all the other cells as needed to keep balance. The beauty of the system is it would allow you to use fairly low quality cells, and if one degrades you keep on going until you have time for maintenance, then just replace that weak cell.

Active balancing with a top and bottom BMS would be interesting. By doing this you can gain more power from the pack as the main BMS would cut off normal when one of the cells gets to the lowest point. Might need 6-7 Active balancers.

Nice job Will as usual! Ironic you covered this type of balancer as I was just looking into active balancing as well. Now that I have several of the Deligreen 4s BMS's installed on my LFP's, it was eating at the back of my mind that burning off the extra power to balance the cells was so inefficient! Have you looked at some of the higher amp rated active balancers like the 5a one that uses a buck converter and several capacitors? Again, nice job on all your videos! Keep up the awesome work!

@WillProwse

5 жыл бұрын

What?!? Where is this 5a balancer?! I would like to know more haha

Omg i was watching a video from great scot's channel yesterday about BMS and i was like, why don't they just make a circuit that transfers current from the high voltage battery to the lower one to make it more efficient and now this video! Efficiency

@tacticaladvance

5 жыл бұрын

You can buy a BMS that do this from Batrium, a 7s will cost $400 lol. So this is a cheaper option.

Am impressed, so just ordered a 16S version for my 14S 6kWh pack. It will also balance small S packs too.

@WillProwse

5 жыл бұрын

Oh awesome!! I hope you love it. They are pretty cool little boards

@xlgoldfish

3 жыл бұрын

How is the balancer holding up after a year of use?

RE: That red BMS you like (looks like there are many sellers on AE)...one AliExpress note was recommending that “you must like to use use inexpensive pcb balance device” (sic, but they certainly speak better English than I speak mandarin) in conjunction with it saying a BMS was great for over/under/temperature protection but was less so for balancing. Now I know what they were referring to. Thanks for another timely explanation.

@WillProwse

5 жыл бұрын

The balancing on Daly BMS is fine for differences in self discharge rate and solar use. It's fine. Totally different type of balancing. It still works great. Same with Orion and other passive balance BMS boards

Great vid will keep up the good work 😎👍👍👍

Awesome device thanks!

Interesting stuff!

Great video. I am looking to build a small system that will power a 12v auto bilge pump to keep a dingy empty. I was looking to use 4 x 18650 cells and this could be a great addition as the unit needs to be set and forget. Maybe a micro-micro system with just a 1.5w panel could be a good video subject?

Great! i have been waiting so see something like this. I am going to try to get one if they make it for 18650 cell packs because I am going to build a new 36v ebike battery that i only want to charge to 90% to get the most cycles out of it. For my Van solar build I just got a Torque Power 12V 100Ah LiFePo4 Deep Cycle Battery on ebay for super low action win, which I think is similar to the battleborn. It has bluetooth built in. I am wondering if these drop in batteries like torque power battleborn have inside them a BMS or active cell balancer. Because I got a good price I choose to buy a drop in rather than do a battery build for my van to run my fridge and fan. I think active-balancing makes way more sense. Thanks for the video.

In using this in conjunction with a BMS you just parallel the leads?

great video, thanks for sharing

Thanks Will for another excellent video. Can you recommend a charge controller with low temp disconnect like you mentioned in the video?

@WillProwse

5 жыл бұрын

Recommending the victron for that. More info on the sensor setup can be found in the parts list on this page: www.mobile-solarpower.com/diy-lifepo4-solar-battery1.html

I like your videos so much!

Thanks Will, You answered my question. I was wondering if I could use an active balancer in conjunction with a cheap BMS. My BMS works well till I'm charging and get close to full voltage then I have one cell that reaches 3.65v well before the others, disconnecting the charging in the BMS. I think this will solve my issue. Rather than doing a capacity test on each of my 400- headway 38120 cells. Love your videos! 🌄

Thank you. I've been hearing the phrase "balance the batteries" without knowing what that meant. This clarifies so much! If I buy brand new batteries, do they still need a balancer?

@MrJibran999

4 жыл бұрын

Yes. Internal resistance resistance of each cells in a battery bank is different most of the times, therefore it creates the unbalancing issues in it. Apart from that the BMS also protects the battery from overcharge, overdischarge, over current which is an important aspect if you are using Li-ion battery packs. It is always important to buy impedance graded and matched cells from the seller if you want to build a battery pack for your EV or any application which has a high cyclic usage, this ensures the longer life life of your batteries and also ensures that the cells are balanced most of the time.

I've been playing with the Arduino lately. Connecting a cell to the analog port gives you its voltage. Sending a signal from the digital port to a power transistor will create connections. It might not be cheaper than what you get on eBay but it certainly gives you pin-point control!

I was wondering, with SDG&E in my home state of California is increasing the price per kw through there time of use plan. 47cents per kWh on peak (4pm-9pm) and 19cents per kWh on off peak (12am-6am) could a battery storage system be built that could save you money. Like if you used the battery just to run a window A/C or frige?

So I've been considering puting house solar panels (3-327w each) on my van so I can run A/C on solar in the desert. Any thoughts, comments or suggestions?

very interesting and informative

Neat stuff! Any boards solution like this for a larger pack (21s)? Could/should I use multiple of the smaller boards? Would it make any sense to use a bunch of 2s chips? Or two larger balancers designed for 16s with extra leads on some of the cells? Would you advise keeping these boards outside of the pack for heat reasons or is the healthy dissipation from one of these negligible?

Really useful. Thanks

Hey Will... Great vid as always!! I am building a 24v pack composed of two 12v 100a LiFePO4 batteries. Should I put a balancer between the two 12v batts? Thanks for your time!!

Seems great. I wonder if there is similar balance device for lead acid 2 volt per cell? Or even devices for lead acid whole battery bank, balancing several 12 volt batteries? My application would be E-max 110s electric scooter with 4 lead gel batteries in series 48V (60Ah). Was thinking of replacing with similar, but interested in LiFePO4 too. Just that I need a warning before I drain them as original is designed to protect low voltage for lead batteries.

i Will, what you think about the "Active Cell Balancer" do you still recommend them? Thanks 👍

Hi watched your show on active balancer. U used them on old cells one week they were all balanced

interesting, I just tested same balancer on 6S LiPo battery and it failed (over 300mV cell diff after balancing!)

How do you think an active balancer would work with 4 complete 12v batteries in series in a battery bank? Thank you for making so many great videos!

Love the videos! QUESTION- I have a battery backup generator that requires 100w, 36v input with an 8mm cable. I can't find any solar panel that has 36v output, is it a matter of getting a simple 100w panel and a charge controller that switches to 36v output to the battery backup? THANKS! Keep the videos coming!

Hello. Would it be possible to connect the active balancers in cascade? I want to do an experiment, I would like to connect 80 lifepo4 32700 cells in series so I would need to make an 80S balancer by putting 4 21S connected in cascade. It will be possible? Thanks

Always interresting stuff! The electric vehicle movement is also so exciting. I wonder if i could buy a cheap e-scooter or bit bigger and use its built in battery to power my tiny flat at night plus take me to work (5 miles) PLUS charge it via sunlight by day. Can you test this for us and make a howto video about it would be lifechanging for me.

@ecospider5

3 жыл бұрын

The battery in a $300 e-scooter is usually 400wh or less because of shipping laws. That won’t power a fridge or a heater but could do an 8w led light and a 10w heating blanket for a couple hours. In the summer a 2 foot x 3 foot solar panel should have no problem charging that over 8 hours.

Hey Will, at 4:44 you have the two resistors in parallel, that cuts the resistance in half. You want them in series to increase the resistance.

@gottafly2day

4 жыл бұрын

Will was discharging the battery, so he needed lower resistance.

I was wondering if it would be worth having a BMS like the 30$ on you have with a backup of the cell balancer you are showing? My application is inside our sailboat and I really want to avoid thermal runaway since that would most likely sink my boat. Basically wondering if they can work side by side and if one fails will the other take over?

@WildlyIntrepid

4 жыл бұрын

So it sounds like I can use them together. Also I guess I could put multiple togehter for extra redundancy as well as faster balancing? Since I would be in a warmer climate would i need to worry about anything else? What about low and high voltage cutoffs?

Dude you are gold god bless you!

Do they make one with the performance for sealed lead acid?

That was great thanks

great and interesting, more about it...

I have a 7 kwh setup but my BMS(chargery) cannot keep up. I am starting with 5 of these installed on each 3s set.(15s setup) Then I will be trying 5 of the deligreen qnbbm between each 3s. Hopefully this makes up for my used cells charging and discharging balance issues. Around 1kw solar seems about where they get over 300mah apart. Would like to add more solar but this is my limiting factor right now.

I used old 18650 cells to build a 12s10p pack. My lowest bank keeps getting worse and is limiting the capacity of the whole pack. This would be a great fix for mismatched crap cells that loose capacity differently over time. I just hope the price goes down to $15. $35 is a little high for my hobby stuff. But if you spent more than $600 on your batteries this is a well priced fix.

I'm planning on building my own battery and this active balancer looks like a great addition - however I'm wondering about the implications of having it connected when there is a possibility of below freezing temperatures. Couldn't it be a significant problem if it tries to balance when below freezing? Would there be a way to wire it in to other devices to shut it off in the case?

@Bumataur

2 жыл бұрын

This is a great question…

Would it work with super capacitors in car applications

did you add two or three of these active cell balancers to test them?

do you think that this active balancer is up to date a this time ? And do you think that we can put 2 or 3 on the same batterie ? (to go faster)

I'm in the process of building a couple of 320ah 12v batteries with jbd bms, am i totally fine to just wire these in parallel with the bms? Always good to double check!

Hi will love your channel . Hey i was looking at the 14.8v lipo batteries for rc cars and was thinking they would go well in a small 12v battery pack for charging phones or whatever and maybe even for jumpstarting a car . And maybe a small solar system to charge it . What do you think ? Could you design and do a story on it ??

Wazzup Will? Interesting stuff here. Curious, what battery monitor are using in the vid?

@WillProwse

5 жыл бұрын

amzn.to/2F1nKzr

Link to the cell monitor you are using please. And if i made a 12v 32ah bank with headway lifepo4 cells (4 in series and each 4pk parallel) would i need 4x 4s balancers or just an 8s?

Not related to this video but I saw on a UK narrow boat vlog a fellow was installing a lead carbon battery as an upgrade from traditional batteries. Question. What are lead carbon batteries and are they any good and available in the US?

Thanks Sir. S.O.S. Sultan Of Solar.

Nice video.

Im using a victron multiplus and smart shunt, so I have protection from overcharging and low voltage on the bank. I dont particularly require a BMS, and ive found many of the "Daly" BMS are terrible copies that get very hot and fail. 😬 So this form of active balancing will work brilliantly on the 2p4s bank i have. (2 parallel 3.2v batteries, connected in series, to give the 12v) Will having the 2 batteries in parallel impact the 4s active charger? The batteries in parallel should stay equal, but could i add an active balancer between them or would that be a bad idea?

Love you videos...I'm trying to find your video that had Amazon links to your tools...like your crimpers...fittings....etc etc...I'm about to put solar on my bus and need these tools and forget which video you did about the basic tools needed.....

@WillProwse

5 жыл бұрын

Thanks! And sure thing: www.mobile-solarpower.com/tools.html

I was having trouble finding active balancing cells that worked in nz for lithium titanate so I got some dc to dc converters that are finely tunable and charge each cell separately. Not fast to do 11 cells but each cell is the same after charging.

@rajgj7041

4 жыл бұрын

Same thing for 4.2 v batteryes , i used 2-3 bms in parallel to get more balance

Hello, I'm looking to use a 16s balancer to keep my battery balanced when I'm out riding my 2000watt electric scooter, I had one bank of parallel cells go below 2.5volts and it ruined the cells and I had to rebuild the battery and I would like to avoid doing that again.

Hello I have a question Is there a problem if more than one (active BMS) pill is placed in parallel for fast voltage balancing? Thanks 😊

@diy solar power, i would like to ask if possible to parallel the 2 balancer like say that cheap balancer with 1.2a can i parallel into battery bank 2pcs, it can add to 2.4a? thank you!

Hi Will, I have watched several of your recordings as well as the one about the 4S active balancer. I mainly work with ebike and escooter batteries. I bought myself a 16S active balancer, hooked it up and at first stage it worked fine. I disconnected it, did a little measuring and connected it again. Then some components on my active balancer got extremly hot and burned within seconds. Any idea what I did wrong?

Does it take energy from one to another or to all of them because that is the kind I have seen

Do they use this active cell balancer in mobile phone powerbanks?

Will, do you know if the balancer in the drop-in Battle Born is a quality component?

@WillProwse

5 жыл бұрын

The cells are matched in a battle born so whether it's passive or active won't matter. Passive balancers work fine in a properly designed battery system

So what determines what state of charge it's going to stay at whatever you hook it up at or can you change the state of charge it maintains the batteries and how-do-you-do it

If I understand this correctly, since it isn't a resister load, it cannot drain your batteries if it fails (like a cheap BMS may). It may still short out and melt, but that is a lot cheaper to replace. (I'm always careful of ebay electronic boards)

Would this work on SLA batteries as well?

Is a 1.2 amp active balancer big enough or would a 5 amp be better (guessing a 5 amp would have more parasitic power loss)? If the inverter generally pulls 200w continuous, that's 50w per cell or ~16 amps per cell. 1.2 / 16 = ~7% ... so it's enough if the cell impedance's are all within ~7%? That might allow maximum power utilization for charging and discharge out of a pack, but is it the right way to think about it? If I understand it, then it's very attractive if the balancer's amperage can overcome cell impedance you no longer have to worry about min/max cell voltage (just min/max pack voltage). Can't wait to see how it works with your gnarly cells... looking forward to your thoughts on that experiment.

What about also using a victron battery protector (or similar product) to cut the battery’s out at extreme high and low voltages?

Hi Will, sorry for my question but I have been struggling to find an answer , my question is if I can use for example 3S BMS along with an active balancer, on used laptop cells 18650 Li-ion. also will it do any bad if I use them both at the time while charging and discharging my DIY battery? if so, can I undercharge my battery pack to like 4.1v per cell and keep both BMS and active balancer ? because as far as I know that BMSs does only balance when it reaches full charge

what current do these balance at then are they worth it?

Hi Will, i'm using an active cell balancer on my 200ah lifepo4 with a dali bms ( no low temp cut off). Could the balancer damage my cells when the temp goes below freezing?

I don't know if I'd rather have this , maybe if there is ALOT of balancing going on, and the system is needing the power, I think the resistor type, can use a PWM variable balancing, to vary the current, to adjust to the charge current, and a balancer that can start balancing when charging starts, at any voltage!! Some cheap bms, you can easily overcharge, BBC because the limited bal. Current, and they do not always work at proper voltages, I'm thinking about getting the chargery 8s universal bms/ monitor/ balancer, if it works out , I'll get one for my main 6s bank, that supplies up to 300amps to my inverter, I need something for my 4s life bank, for 12v stuffs!

Will it work for diy lifepo4 car audio battery?. Was thinking about buying 5 of them for even more faster balancing.

Any chance you have hacked any of the balancer boards? Is it possible to change the reference voltage from Li ion or LiPo to a lower voltage?

Can you use that balance unit for balancing 2- 12 volt 100A/H batteries in series ?

Hi, hey were do we get the lcd Display too?.

Hi,if theres already a bms do i need to put an active balancer?