New BMS from IC GOGOGO Store / E&J Technology Group

fhorst said:

No, sadly it does NOT!

I wish it did.
Lifepo4 (lithium general) doesn't self Balance like a 12v lead acid.
That have 6 cells, if there is voltage difference between them, it stabilise.

Lithium doesn't.
And it does get out of balance.
That's just how it works.
You can't stop this from happening.

With high charge and discharge like electric vehicle, this happens quite fast.

With low charge and discharge (like regular solar use) it goes a lot slower.

But it does get out of balance!!

At the top of the charge, between 3.5 and 3.65v there are just a few ah needed, like 1Ah for 100Ah cell.

When a cell goes too far out of balance, the other cells are still at the 3.49 bump, and a few already passed it, boosting to 3.65.

The BMS should be able to burn of the extra amps for the higher charged cells, giving the ones that are left behind time to keep up.

The cell should not be charged further than 3.65.
If it does damage can / will occur.

The BMS doesn't only slow down the charge of the highest cells, it also stops if one goes too far.

Sadly it can't stop 1 cell, only the whole battery.

One of the reasons for me to have the active balancer.
It helps reduce the (too) high charged cells, and boost the lower charged ones.
Still, depending on your charge speed (and that can be on a sunny day more Amps / watts then you first thought), one of the cells may get close to or pass that 3.65 volt mark

Then the BMS does need to do its job.
If it doesn't, you have one or more batteries in that parallel string damaged, and next day it gets more out of balance due this damage.
As result the next parallel string reached the 3.65 mark too fast, and your damaged string is still on 3.45 ...
(Or even lower, depending on damage)

Your settings on the inverter and charger don't help if the cells are too far out of balance.
As more cells get damaged, more imbalance occur.
Without BMS cell after cell is killed.

Manual monitoring works just as fine, if you stop the charge when it gets too high, and / or burn of the highest charge with resistor.

Most people don't like to watch their battery array so closely.

Bigger array is more stable.

I went from 32*152Ah to 48x, and that already helped.
Next step with 16*280Ah made it even more stable.

I'm still dubbing if I want to spend the money ($1400) to get +1000ah 50 kWh
It's now 736, 37.5 kWh

I'm a sucker for round numbers

BMS is a must, like your seatbelt.
You never need it.
Untill you do.
The damage without... You really don't want to know.

Safety first.

Click to expand...

Great, thanks for you explanation!

I think I'm gonna use a Daly BMS then, a 4S 12volt BMS for my 8S (4x2S) 12v battery and will monitor it with a BattGO BG-8S to watch all individual cells. Just to be sure then. I think that would be a good enough system

I know you can use a separate port BMS for charging, but what does the seperate port do? Balance charge it?

The separate port have one port for charge, the other for discharge.

For balancing, the (reliable) Daly (not smart edition) is one of the worse BMS.
With its 0.35ma it's about nothing.

The BattGO BG-8S have good Balance function, and if you use it for solar, check and if needed Balance every 3 months normally is enough.

Several other BMS have more power for balancing (burn off excessive watts)
Daly is one of the more reliable brands.

The new type "Smart" is really not ready for launch.

fhorst said:

The separate port have one port for charge, the other for discharge.

For balancing, the (reliable) Daly (not smart edition) is one of the worse BMS.
With its 0.35ma it's about nothing.

The BattGO BG-8S have good Balance function, and if you use it for solar, check and if needed Balance every 3 months normally is enough.

Several other BMS have more power for balancing (burn off excessive watts)
Daly is one of the more reliable brands.

The new type "Smart" is really not ready for launch.

Click to expand...

0,35ma? That is really bad indeed. I think I will do that then. Use a Daly BMS for protection and the BG-8S for monitoring if it need balancing. Can't find a reliable BMS which have it all. A Daly with better balance function and bluetooth would be the way to go. The Daly is really good build quality but if it ain't working good enough...

Sadly the Daly with Bluetooth (smart) isn't ready yet.
The ones who did buy are sorry they did (me included)

You have 2*12 Volt?
2 different chargers and inverters?

Otherwise you can put them together, 2 cells in parallel, 4 in series.

On 12 Volt, the Amperage goes high fast, with imbalance as result.

I don't know your charge and discharge.
Higher amperage is faster imbalance.

Probably start with Balance charge first.

If they are new cells, they probably are already a good match.

Many people don't charge 100% full but try to stay in the range of 15-85% or 7-93% to increase cycle life.
(Can give 50% boost) only once and a while they go closer to Full, to balance.

Depending on your cells and usage, you need to balance every day/week/month/ quarter or half year.

Best is to monitor closely the first period, and slowly loosen.

There is a videos of Will about top Balance.

Be careful, babysit.
If you let it charge like I did, you might end up with bloated cells.

They aren't useless (depending on your overcharge) no longer nice to look at.
Most people continue to use, without noticing any difference.
Some choose to buy new cells.
My vision is that slightly bloated lifepo4 cells aren't dangerous.
Bloated Lithium polymer is.
Some people say all bloated are as dangerous as lithium polymer..

Up to you to decide.

If you no longer want to use then, please send to me. I'll pay for the postage cost

Top Balance can be needed and can be dangerous for your cells if you just let them be.

Charging takes for ever to pass the 3.49 volt per cell.
The step from 3.49 to 3.65 (and over) is just a few minutes !!!!
(As @Jeremiah found our recently)

I like the active balancer who does all the time something and prevent to go too much out of balance (in theory)
High C rate charge or discharge, that's something it can't handle.
The BMS or BattGO BG-8S need to do that

fhorst said:

Sadly the Daly with Bluetooth (smart) isn't ready yet.
The ones who did buy are sorry they did (me included)

You have 2*12 Volt?
2 different chargers and inverters?

Otherwise you can put them together, 2 cells in parallel, 4 in series.

On 12 Volt, the Amperage goes high fast, with imbalance as result.

I don't know your charge and discharge.
Higher amperage is faster imbalance.

Probably start with Balance charge first.

If they are new cells, they probably are already a good match.

Many people don't charge 100% full but try to stay in the range of 15-85% or 7-93% to increase cycle life.
(Can give 50% boost) only once and a while they go closer to Full, to balance.

Depending on your cells and usage, you need to balance every day/week/month/ quarter or half year.

Best is to monitor closely the first period, and slowly loosen.

There is a videos of Will about top Balance.

Be careful, babysit.
If you let it charge like I did, you might end up with bloated cells.

They aren't useless (depending on your overcharge) no longer nice to look at.
Most people continue to use, without noticing any difference.
Some choose to buy new cells.
My vision is that slightly bloated lifepo4 cells aren't dangerous.
Bloated Lithium polymer is.
Some people say all bloated are as dangerous as lithium polymer..

Up to you to decide.

If you no longer want to use then, please send to me. I'll pay for the postage cost

Top Balance can be needed and can be dangerous for your cells if you just let them be.

Charging takes for ever to pass the 3.49 volt per cell.
The step from 3.49 to 3.65 (and over) is just a few minutes !!!!
(As @Jeremiah found our recently)

I like the active balancer who does all the time something and prevent to go too much out of balance (in theory)
High C rate charge or discharge, that's something it can't handle.
The BMS or BattGO BG-8S need to do that

Click to expand...

I have 8 new CalB 100ah cells which I made a 12V battery pack from. So a 200ah 12V (4x2S) battery which I use it in my RV. I have a solar charger with 100watt solarpanel and a Victron Multiplus for charging and inverting. I use very little AH, maximum 14ah with the fridge and heating on. The charger I can setup the AH as high (or low) as I want. So I set it to 20ah right now with a 14.0V absorption voltage. That 20ah is the maximum of the Victron Multiplus.

But how can I balance charge the battery? Via the Separate port on the Daly BMS?

The balancing goes "automatically" when you reach the region above 3.5v
Daly just can do little.

If it's not mission critical, and you can do a few hours without power, you also can wait till the Daly protect a cell, disconnect the charge if it's 3.65 range or discharge if it's 2.5v range.

Your BattGO BG-8S can level out the difference between the cells at high or low charge state.

It's not a big deal, you'll find out soon enough how it works with hands-on.

Electrodamus is reliable BMS.
I never heard one failed.

Costs a some more then Daly, probably have it faster
(Restock in August)
(Daly overseas transport +8 weeks)
And it comes with all the bells and whistles!! (BT)

Google it

Canadian product!

I've done some additional reading on the BattGO BG-8S, it is not for Lifepo4!!

(Only 3.7v and higher voltage lithium batteries)

The active balancer, while higher in price probably will suit you better.

fhorst said:

I've done some additional reading on the BattGO BG-8S, it is not for Lifepo4!!

(Only 3.7v and higher voltage lithium batteries)

The active balancer, while higher in price probably will suit you better.

Click to expand...

Where did you found that? What I read about the BattGO BG-8S is that it is working with Lifepo4. In fact it is balancing the cells right now. It takes a huge amount of time but still. The Active Balancer you pointed out does need an external supply which I don't have in the RV.

Talked to the guy from ElectroDacus and his system looks like something I need but back in stock end of august. In the meantime I think I'll be working with a Daly BMS and with the BattGo to watch them the first few weeks...

How many MV from each other do we called it balanced?

Battgo website doesn't mention lifepo4 at all.


(English website)
Screenshot from the specifications:


For the balancing, I wish it was that easy.

Between 20 and 80% it's almost impossible to say "it is balanced".

The voltages can be almost identical yet have 5 to 10% imbalance.

This is why "we" do top Balance or bottom balance.

At low or high SOC the voltage difference between the cells are getting more obvious.
Between 3.49 and 3.65 is just a few watts, yet "high" voltage difference.

Below 2.6 and -2.5 again bigger difference, jet a few watts.

My Daly stopped at 2.25v, starts again at 2.6v, difference roughly 7-8 watts.
How do I know?
It took my active balancer (1A) 3 hours to get from 2.25 to 2.6 volts

It never hurts to start with fully charged (almost, like 95-98%) lifepo4 cells.

In this region, the Balancer will do its job.

fhorst said:

Battgo website doesn't mention lifepo4 at all.

BG-8S - ISDT

Multifunction Smart Battery Checker

www.isdt.co

(English website)
Screenshot from the specifications:

View attachment 17016
For the balancing, I wish it was that easy.

Between 20 and 80% it's almost impossible to say "it is balanced".

The voltages can be almost identical yet have 5 to 10% imbalance.

This is why "we" do top Balance or bottom balance.

At low or high SOC the voltage difference between the cells are getting more obvious.
Between 3.49 and 3.65 is just a few watts, yet "high" voltage difference.

Below 2.6 and -2.5 again bigger difference, jet a few watts.

My Daly stopped at 2.25v, starts again at 2.6v, difference roughly 7-8 watts.
How do I know?
It took my active balancer (1A) 3 hours to get from 2.25 to 2.6 volts

It never hurts to start with fully charged (almost, like 95-98%) lifepo4 cells.

In this region, the Balancer will do its job.

Click to expand...

I see in the screenshot that it supports lifepo4 (life) batteries. I will check it out when I get charging and discharging via the Daly the couple of weeks. But what's the difference between seperate port charging en common port?
Great, I will try it out.

Giela said:

I see in the screenshot that it supports lifepo4 (life) batteries. I will check it out when I get charging and discharging via the Daly the couple of weeks. But what's the difference between seperate port charging en common port?
Great, I will try it out.

Click to expand...

It supports LiFe lithium battery, something different then Lifepo4.


Difference between common port and separate??

Separate port have one cable for charging and one different for the discharge.

Common port use the cable for charging or discharge.

LiFe is the scientific name for Lithium IRON .... I think some people are using it as an abbreviation for LiFePo4

Bob B said:

LiFe is the scientific name for Lithium IRON .... I think some people are using it as an abbreviation for LiFePo4

Click to expand...

Yes, so many different types and naming confusion.

When people talk about lithium or lithium ion, 95% of the time they talk about lithium polymer.

If we assume the manufacturer knows the correct abbreviation, they mention only the higher voltage type of cells (where the Life with 3.6 the lowest one is)

lifepo4 are 3.2 volt.

it doesn't mean it won't work!
its not in the specification. That's all.

I can see from the pictures it's connected and shows the correct Voltage.
I hope it can do the balancing as @Giela likes to use.

@Giela , can you please make new post about the BattGO BG-8S??

I'm really interested to hear about your experience with it.

Can you advise people to buy?
and what can they expect?

Bob B said:

LiFe is the scientific name for Lithium IRON .... I think some people are using it as an abbreviation for LiFePo4

Click to expand...

Chortle... since you're correcting...

Po4 is polonium IV which should be a quadruple ionized polonium (Po) atom. Highly radioactive and deadly in tiny amounts.

PO4 is phosphate which is a phosphorus (P) atom and 4 oxygen (O) atoms. Commonly found in lithium iron PHOSPHATE batteries.

? ??

Po4 is polonium IV which should be a quadruple ionized polonium (Po) atom. Highly radioactive and deadly in tiny amounts......

Good we have LiFePO4

fhorst said:

Yes, so many different types and naming confusion.

When people talk about lithium or lithium ion, 95% of the time they talk about lithium polymer.

If we assume the manufacturer knows the correct abbreviation, they mention only the higher voltage type of cells (where the Life with 3.6 the lowest one is)

lifepo4 are 3.2 volt.

it doesn't mean it won't work!
its not in the specification. That's all.

I can see from the pictures it's connected and shows the correct Voltage.
I hope it can do the balancing as @Giela likes to use.

@Giela , can you please make new post about the BattGO BG-8S??

I'm really interested to hear about your experience with it.

Can you advise people to buy?
and what can they expect?

Click to expand...

I will do. I will put a post up this weekend about it. Thanks for the info!
It is balancing the lifepo4 Calb cells around 1 to 2 mv from eachother. With a off balance start from 27mv, it took about three days to balance it to 2mv difference. I think that's very (very) slow?!

Does the seperate port does something different with the charging then the common port?

I thought Life stands for lifepo4. How wrong could I be. Learning a lot about the battery type from this forum.

Giela said:

I will do. I will put a post up this weekend about it. Thanks for the info!
It is balancing the lifepo4 Calb cells around 1 to 2 mv from eachother. With a off balance start from 27mv, it took about three days to balance it to 2mv difference. I think that's very (very) slow?!

Does the seperate port does something different with the charging then the common port?

I thought Life stands for lifepo4. How wrong could I be. Learning a lot about the battery type from this forum.

Click to expand...

Out of curiousity, what's the size of your cells /system?

Yeah, I'm curious also.

For me the active Balancer part is fast.

It can do 1/2 A continuous* balancing, and stops at 0.004v difference or more, not less.

* It is 1A, using "super capacitor" or something like this to store 1A.
So it will discharge the highest cell with 1A speed for about 45 seconds and then charge the Lowest cell with 1A speed for about 45 seconds.

In that 90 seconds you have moved 1 A"h"(->1/75 part of an hour)

From 27 to 2.
Probably 0.270 to 0.020 volt difference as 0.002 is impossible for this active balancer.

3 days, 72 hours would make your setup 280Ah or close to this.

What would be totally acceptable and in my expectations even fast.

This is if all the other cells would have been perfectly balanced...
As it does one cell pair at the time.

Probably wasn't, so for me, 3 days is amazing fast to get 10% SOC * imbalance back on track.
* Estimation based on the 0.25v difference between the cells.

LiFePO4 array doesn't think in hours or days..
Not when it comes to stabilise
This is a process of weeks.

On the other hand, destabilise, aka imbalance...
Also takes weeks to happen.
Better yet, months before you need to top or bottom Balance to get the array back to target.

And that's it's purpose.
Not quickly Balance a new set of cells but to reduce the frequency you need to do your top or bottom Balance.
If you have a good setup, maybe even totally prevent this


During top Balance, in inexperienced hands, not monitored, no BMS or malfunctioning...
The time that's dangerous for your cells.
Going over 4.2 during charge will highly damage your cells.
And as people who have experienced, the step from 3.349 to 3.5 is hours, 3.5 to 3.65 v is minutes.
Just a few.
From 3.65 to 4.2 isn't much longer.
Most BMS stop at 3.65.
Some stretch it to 3.75

I don't like to do top balance.
It's potentially risky.
Prevention from the need to do so is in my experience better then taking the risk.

My experience is that the balancing is fast, for this reasons.

@Giela
As your experience is slow, I really like to know what you expected it to do?

( And the size of your array )

fhorst said:

as people who have experienced, the step from 3.349 to 3.5 is hours, 3.5 to 3.65 v is minutes.
Just a few.
From 3.65 to 4.2 isn't much longer.
Most BMS stop at 3.65.
Some stretch it to 3.75

I don't like to do top balance.
It's potentially risky.

Click to expand...

Sounds like The Danger IS: Getting close 3.65 v per cell on a parallel Top Balance cycle, and then easily, sort of quicking going to a higher voltage than one intended. IS that the danger you are referring to? ... and Heads Up: Be there and watching closely anywhere near 3.5 volts on a LiFePO4 Top Balance ??? Also: I am wondering how bad is for cell longevity, to by accident, getting up to 4.1 volts per cell, and then quickly bring back down to 3.65 volts per cell? Questions to pick your brain a little more. Thanks for Sharing Your Experience, and Experiences :+)

During charge the voltage is higher then "real" voltage.
Depending on how fast you charge..
C 0.5 is possible, 140A on 280Ah cell.
Your reading is not the rest voltage.

It's within specifications to go up to 4.2v without real damage.

Charging is supposed to stop at 3.65 to prevent damage.

Even at 3.65, stop charging the cell will go to rest mode and after time it's about 3.375 - 3.450v (0.5% SOC difference)

At 3.4 a cell that haven't been used a few days you can consider it fully charged.

It's a funny thing, charging battery.
It's chemical imbalance gives fluctuations that aren't visable.

If you fill a glass of water quickly with a bucket, you might get all the water inside at start.
The higher the water level, more challenging it is not to spill anything and still go fast.
Water is in movement and full (level where you start spilling) isn't really full.

Do the same with a slow flow of water and when it spills the glass is full. Absolutely top.

Can you say that when you spill the glass is full??

This is about the best visual I can think of to let people understand how high and low current Influence what you think as full.

Once in rest (water takes just a few seconds) you see the real level.

Lead acid takes 6-12 hours.
LiFePO4 a few. (3-4)

4.1 isn't always bad. If you are charging at high current it's "normal"

If you are charging at low current and just pass the 3.65 safety level to see if you can charge more then 100%....
Then it is bad, really bad.
In getting bloated cells bad.

Bloating is delaminating sheets.
Sheets who have too much space between them no longer are active part of the battery and as result reduce the capacity of the cell.

I really can advise anyone to try manually charge a LiFePO4 cell, and monitor it closely.
Untill you experienced the waiting for hours at 3.49 and the short time it takes to shoot up from 3.5 to 3.65 and higher it's hard to understand how even at constant voltage, BMS is essential to stop.
And dump load is essential to be able to keep the cells in balance.

It's like filling that glass of water where you think, or think you see it's only 3/4 full and suddenly it overflows..
Like WTF??
That can't be right it still should be able to keep more water!
Kinda bizarre

Or just accept that it works this way and accept that chemistry is strange.


Daly 35mA have kind of low dump load, but usually sufficient.

Average is 200mA and enough to slow down the boost from 3.5 to 3.65 so the other cells can catch up
.
DIYBMS have 850mA, and is intended for "used frankenpack"
All your old mismatched crap giving a second life and fix the imbalance with the old/new and capacity mismatch.

A new setup with matching brand /capacity /age a Daly 35mA is strong enough to keep the balance.

Hopefully giving indication how little imbalance there will occur with a good setup.

Something that an active balancer can fix before there is a need to top balance, avoiding all the potential risks of top Balance.

It's just not nice if you are depending on the cells for your energy supply and you need to to top balance...

Chances are the BMS will stop at 3.65, and if you use common bus (charge and discharge via the same hybrid unit) the BMS will also stop the discharge...

No discharge no electricity for your home.

I use the DIYBMS as it uses contactors, and I simply disconnect the solar panels (DC, +300v, +/-10A)
3 x hybrid = 3 contactors, one relay

Chargery can work the same way.

Daly? ( And most others)
It just stops all power from and to the battery array.
Leaving you in the dark for half an hour (or longer) waiting for the highest cell to do its natural voltage reduction as it's in rest.
And then the cycle starts again.
Few minutes charging, trying to slow the highest cells, with 35mA not a lot of slowing down power..
Go dark..
Wait..
Charge

Eventually the sun is setting, giving less solar power to the MPPT, less charge to the cells, no charge to 3.65
And the next day the dance starts again.

In a few days the battery array is fully top balanced.

Or you top charge always.
As it's the intended way of usage for BMS like Daly.
Top charge isn't bad.

You get +/- 2000 cycles as advertised and not +/- 3500.

If you want to get maximal cycles, you will charge to 85-90% and have significant imbalance between the cells, and that's OK as it's not a probleem.

Just don't expect your Daly to be able to cope with 5,10 or even 20% imbalance in one day of top balancing....
It was expecting (and build for) 0.5% max....

Active balancer...
That can keep the imbalance of the array at lower%, depending on your build and cells even prevent the need to top or bottom Balance at all.
(And still use max. 85-90% top charge)

I totally agree with all people who say that active balancer is useless product, totally unnecessary and waist of money.
If you always charge your LiFePO4 cells to +95%. Yes. Do not buy.
You would spending your money on something that have totally no additional value and only costs some energy from your array.

If you don't want +95%...
You will increase the imbalance that natural occur, not make it faster, just not adjust every day.

That come with a price and a perk.
Perk 1000 cycles extra.
Price larger % imbalance.
What an active Balancer or BMS with enough dump load capacity can fix

I'll join those who bought the Active Balancer with BMS function and were disappointed.
Mine ran for about 1 hour and then total failure. Same error message as with the others here.

Refund started.

From what I see, the connection wires to cell 13-14 are not good connected. Either that or the 2 voltage sensors are dead.
Still, I would first check the wiring. If is really broken there, you can still use it with batteries of up to 12 cells.

I have a second Active Balancer without the BMS function and when I connect it to the same cable everything works as it should. It is not due to the cables.
A reset does not help either

Then is broken. At least you can use it above 12s.
I have the 2A balancer with RS485 and that is enough to command the inverter/charger to shut down if there is a problem. I don't use a BMS anymore.

I'm really sorry to hear this.
Really am.

I've been one of the first to own , and was a happy puppy while it lasts.
Too short.

I received several feedback from new users that theirs are working fine.

Too soon to cheer??

Icgogogo normally is quite froward for returning.
If you bought via credit card, they will just refund being a "DOA"
(dead on arrival).

Last situation, indeed, can be used with 12 cells, where it can't Balance the remaining 4.
The rest of function is mostly in tact.
SOC will be crap.

I personally would get refund from credit card, order a new one

If that one would give also problems, they can work together as alternative option.
But face it.
The new one should not fail.
Just as this one didn't need to fail.