Active balancer ok to use with BMS?
- Thread starter Despotes
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Ampster
Renewable Energy Hobbyist
I believe so and that is why I disable balancing from my BMS when I installed the active balancer. My BMS is an Orion BMS and has lots of great controls and reporting benefits but only has a puny balancing current. That is why I installed an active balancer with a 2 Amp balancing current on my 42 kWh pack.
Steve_S
Offgrid Cabineer, N.E. Ontario, Canada
It should not be an issue. I used QNBBM-8S Active Balancers with the Chargery BMS' but had to disable the Chargery's Passive Balancing. Many people with the JBD's use Capacitive Active Balancers without issue. Andy from Andy's Garage (YT) just did a shtick with the Seplos Gear and adding a balancer as Seplos saw fit to only include a 150ma Passive Balancer (talk about dumb).
wattmatters
Solar Wizard
No issue as long as you can set a minimum voltage for balancing to operate and turn off whatever balancing the BMS does.
Ampster
Renewable Energy Hobbyist
Then you would lose any benefit of have the BMS. For a 4S pack the BMS should be able to balance even those cells. Or help it along with a resistor or 12 volt bulb on the high cell.
Yes. As long as the cells are good any amount of imbalance will be corrected over time.
Don't go too short on the charging absorption time as that is when most of the balancing occurs.
29mV delta V at pack voltage 14.2V would be regarded as approaching balanced.
29mV delta V at pack voltage 13.2V does not allow any meaningful assessment of balanced state.
If your chasing 29mV delta V with a Heltec Capacitor Balancer it will only move about 300mA with such a small delta V and would need to spend a time at Float voltage.
Depends on the settings. Most recommend balance only while charging. This is a more constant way to ensure all are similar state of charge condition.
Steve_S
Offgrid Cabineer, N.E. Ontario, Canada
There are several different Active Balancers, TBH, having one with a BlueTooth App that allows you to adjust settings is the way to go really. JiKong, Neey and a couple of others do this. I personally use JKBMS in all my packs now as I replaced the Chargery BMS & QNBBM -8 Combo's I had before. Now you do NOT need a big 5A Balancer a 1A or better 2A model will do the job quite nicely.
I decided to abandon the Chargery Setup (300 USD) & QNBBM-8 ((150 USD) for 5 packs in favour of the JKBMS because it's all in one Nice Tidy Package and no issues. In fact, the whole setup in my parallel bank works amazingly well (better than I hoped for actually).
The JK JK-B2A8S20P does 4S-8S @ 200A with 2A Active Balancer, the cost $136USD + S&H
More Info Here: https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005003104573871.html
I decided to abandon the Chargery Setup (300 USD) & QNBBM-8 ((150 USD) for 5 packs in favour of the JKBMS because it's all in one Nice Tidy Package and no issues. In fact, the whole setup in my parallel bank works amazingly well (better than I hoped for actually).
The JK JK-B2A8S20P does 4S-8S @ 200A with 2A Active Balancer, the cost $136USD + S&H
More Info Here: https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005003104573871.html
MrM1
I'm Here, But I'm Not All There
Is the JK BMS you are using the one you have to "jump start" with a 9v battery the first time it is connected? I have 2 of those I will be hooking up in a week or so and wondered how the 9v "Jump Start" thing might effect the project long term. How often would it need to be "Jump Started"? At LVC? Seems an odd way to design a BMS
Steve_S
Offgrid Cabineer, N.E. Ontario, Canada
I used the 9V Jumpstart, no problem.
I also have on/off switches for all of them (6) but got them afterwards. Pisser about those is the wires are pretty darn short and with how I I built my cases I have really limited options. I dunno IF the switches will turn them on when newly commissioned, they "should" but as I have not tested that I can't say.
I also have on/off switches for all of them (6) but got them afterwards. Pisser about those is the wires are pretty darn short and with how I I built my cases I have really limited options. I dunno IF the switches will turn them on when newly commissioned, they "should" but as I have not tested that I can't say.
I saw another user @Alltron have success with Active Balancer with JBD BMS.
I was curious on a few things.
1 - Do you turn off either of the balancing features in the JDB app?
2 - I saw a interesting YT video from Off Grid Garage where he tested that it may not be good to keep Active Balancers on all the time.
Reason is it may also unbalance during lower state of charges.
3 - Also heard about installing a switch on the Active Balance to do it only when needed or there may believe be a way to automate this further somehow by wiring it up to kick in at higher SOC or volts.
Thoughts, Tips and More Info from any experts on this to set us Noobs straight? lol
Thank you!
I was curious on a few things.
1 - Do you turn off either of the balancing features in the JDB app?
2 - I saw a interesting YT video from Off Grid Garage where he tested that it may not be good to keep Active Balancers on all the time.
Reason is it may also unbalance during lower state of charges.
3 - Also heard about installing a switch on the Active Balance to do it only when needed or there may believe be a way to automate this further somehow by wiring it up to kick in at higher SOC or volts.
Thoughts, Tips and More Info from any experts on this to set us Noobs straight? lol
Thank you!
I have a standalone 2A 16S JK active balancer that was an add-on to my LiFePo4 300AHr system. This JK active balancer has no ability to turn off below cell voltage of 3.4V, however I have a setting for delta V set to 20mV and this seems to work to allow the active balancer to be not balancing most of the time.
Gette,
Take a look at this message in a previous thread on active balancers. This setup has worked well for my JBD BMS's with active balancers. The JBD (Overkill Solar BMS's) are also set to balance on any cell with a voltage above 3.4 volts only.
Active balancer or not?
this: Testing 3 battery banks with and without active balancer ... is great info. for this thread. ... has convinced me using active balancer at only the higher charge voltages ...like >3.4 v ... Is a Very Good Idea. OK and the solar voltage is set to 55.2 and apparently causes no issue...
diysolarforum.com
Also checkout the link to Overkill Solar downloads and download the user manual. It is very well written for the JBD BMS
Support/Downloads
User Manual User Manual: Download Manual (6.5mb PDF) Simplified 4 Cell Assembly Ultra simple view of a complete 4 cell battery assembly. – Click for full resolution. Bluetooth Mobile Apps iPh…
overkillsolar.com
Gette,
Take a look at this message in a previous thread on active balancers. This setup has worked well for my JBD BMS's with active balancers. The JBD (Overkill Solar BMS's) are also set to balance on any cell with a voltage above 3.4 volts only.
Active balancer or not?
this: Testing 3 battery banks with and without active balancer ... is great info. for this thread. ... has convinced me using active balancer at only the higher charge voltages ...like >3.4 v ... Is a Very Good Idea. OK and the solar voltage is set to 55.2 and apparently causes no issue...
Also checkout the link to Overkill Solar downloads and download the user manual. It is very well written for the JBD BMS
Support/Downloads
User Manual User Manual: Download Manual (6.5mb PDF) Simplified 4 Cell Assembly Ultra simple view of a complete 4 cell battery assembly. – Click for full resolution. Bluetooth Mobile Apps iPh…
Thanks @Dynoman I give that thread a read this weekend!
I do have OverKill (and Connected-Current) websites bookmarked. As they both have extensive JBD info.
