Best BMS or active balancer for 16S2P 48V 28kwh battery

[timselectric]

Per cell.

It's in the chart, under Daily Balancing.

Yes, it was right in front of me the whole time. lol

 

[kolek]

How is Batrium when it comes to support? Do they provide any support for noobs like me or are you on your own? I assume you're totally on your own with the JK-BMS.

 

[kolek]

For 16S, you need a Watchmon Core and a K9.

With 32 cells you can go 2P16S, personally I prefer 16S and a K9 for each.

Don't worry about Blockmons, those are a thing of the past with the introduction of the K9.

You will need some type of shunt trip breaker for critical faults needing to shut the system down. I have a ABB Sace S5N with shunt trip. The Batrium senses a critical fault and trips the breaker. Very flexible system, you can add expansion boards to control fans, PV input shutdown, alarms, whatever you want.

@Zwy or anyone else who is using the Batrium, do you happen to have a wiring diagram?

 

[Nobodybusiness]

How is Batrium when it comes to support? Do they provide any support for noobs like me or are you on your own? I assume you're totally on your own with the JK-BMS.

Batrium has Videos.
Support “They have it via email but they are in Australia “

If you are not willing to do a lot of search and scratch without clear concise instructions then might not be for you.

It’s very powerful but support is very limited unless you buy it in 30 minutes increments.

 

[Nobodybusiness]

@Zwy or anyone else who is using the Batrium, do you happen to have a wiring diagram?

The wiring is straight forward.
All cells are wired to the K9 and the K9 is connected to the Core..

It’s all the commands inside that you have to search videos and scratch your head.

I know @LithiumSolar uses it and actually has some YouTube videos on how to hook it up.

 

[Zwy]

How is Batrium when it comes to support? Do they provide any support for noobs like me or are you on your own? I assume you're totally on your own with the JK-BMS.

To get initial setup you would email them and they will provide a link in the knowledge base usually. There is plenty of info on website, the problem is some of the older material like Blockmons is still mixed in there.

One of the best resources I found was @LithiumSolar videos on Youtube. This is the K9 install. The Watchmon Core install is similar to the Watchmon 5 video he has.

 

[Zwy]

Here is the Watchmon 5 install:

 

[Zwy]

As for wiring, it basically is cell balance leads to each K9, then a color coded comm cable to go from K9 to Core.

Shunt trip is wired thru a 30V/5A relay either on main board (it is isolated from board) or one on the expansion board. For the ABB breaker, on a 48V pack you will need a transformer to reduce the voltage to 24V for the shunt trip so the main board relay can be used. The expansion board has 3 solid state relays rated to 60V plus 3 mechanical rated to the 30V/5A. These can be utilized if fans are desired for the K9 balance heat sink, alarms, anything else you might want, all programmable in the software.

Shunt is corded, pretty hard to mess up with color coded connector. Only need a fused voltage sense wire off battery + to shunt.

Core can be powered off battery voltage up to 60V and is preferred to have expansion board voltage the same as Core main board.

4 temp sensors for each K9, all plug and play. 1 ambient temp sensor on Core you can run for ambient temp at battery location, it's installed when the Core comes.

 

[kolek]

@Zwy @Biasjo @Rocketman

So to summarize, is this a fair summary of the Batrium vs JK-BMS?
- modular ability to expand / monitor / shutdown your battery banks
- ability to monitor your batteries over standard networking cables
- more reliable than a FET BMS
- out of Australia vs China (to me this means support is at least available if not free)
- better software

Disadvantages vs JK-BMS
- more expensive
- passive vs active balancing, added heat generated and some power lost
- more complex / more pieces to the puzzle
- maybe less accurate balancing?

 

[kolek]

This might sound weird but I use JBD to manage the battery. Since my equipment is about 300 feet away I use Batrium to monitor the cells via network.
You can also add a Heltech active balancer to each one also.
Not had any issues yet.

Use these to connect each cell to each BMS/monitor..

So essentially the Batrium has the ability to monitor the cells over a network and it's possible to use any BMS or active balancer in combination with the Batrium network monitoring?
For example, can I run a JK-BMS and just monitor with the Batrium? And can active balancing be used on the cells in conjunction with the Batrium BMS, or do they end up potentially conflicting?

 

[Zwy]

@Zwy @Biasjo @Rocketman

So to summarize, is this a fair summary of the Batrium vs JK-BMS?
- modular ability to expand / monitor / shutdown your battery banks

Yes, you can go big. 6 batteries with a K9 each per Core unless you add a power supply, then you can add more. I suppose the reason for the power supply is all the K9's are daisy chained. 6 280Ah would be over 80Kw.

@kromc5 runs a Batrium on his very large system.

- ability to monitor your batteries over standard networking cables

Wireless too.

- more reliable than a FET BMS

The big problem with FET based is the FET may not open in a fault situation. FET's can fail closed leading to catastrophic damage.

I run a Daly FET based in my 24V truck camper system. I don't load it hard either.

- out of Australia vs China (to me this means support is at least available if not free)

Yes, they do have support. Troubleshooting you will pay for. Good documentation but not organized the best. Aussies look at things upside down I guess.

- better software

Batrium software is very comprehensive, very programmable.

Disadvantages vs JK-BMS
- more expensive

$830 for Core, two K9's, the Testmon tester, 2 sets of fuse holders and 500A shunt. That would do two 16S batteries with a K9 on each one. You could do one K9 if you want to go 2P16S. That's $634.

ABB shunt trip breaker another $250 to $300 off ebay.

- passive vs active balancing, added heat generated and some power lost

I wouldn't worry about.

- more complex / more pieces to the puzzle

Yes and no. You can have it simple or have it complex. It's basically 2 circuit boards on a battery with some balance leads, a shunt and comm cables. The shunt trip breaker is maybe the hardest part because of the voltage reduction for the shunt trip.

- maybe less accurate balancing?

I'd say more accurate.

 

[RV10flyer]

I have 134 kWh battery bank running on 10 different BMS's of different brands. Daly is junk. JK 150 or 200A with 2A bal is the best. $180 each shipped from China in 4-8 weeks. AliExpress - Minerals Official Store or Hankzor BMS Store. 100A Breaker on every battery and soon to have 125A class t fuse on each one.

 

[Nobodybusiness]

So essentially the Batrium has the ability to monitor the cells over a network and it's possible to use any BMS or active balancer in combination with the Batrium network monitoring?
For example, can I run a JK-BMS and just monitor with the Batrium? And can active balancing be used on the cells in conjunction with the Batrium BMS, or do they end up potentially conflicting?

That’s the way I do it.
The JK or Overkill manages the battery.
The Batrium allows me to monitor it.
The Heltech can do load balancing as long as you don’t have another turned on.

 

[kolek]

Checking:

Active balancer BMS - JK BMS

Below bluetooth active balancing BMS also support RS485/CANBus for optional are available for sell: JK-BD6A17S6P JK-BD6A20S6P JK-BD6A24S6P JK-BD6A20S10P JK-B1A24S15P JK-B2A24S20P The above

www.jkbms.com

So I'd want to buy 2 of the JK-B2A24S-20P ?

 

[kolek]

Has anyone been able to get the JK-BMS to talk to their charge controller?
I'm wondering if it could communicate to my Deye. I see it does have a CAN communication port.
Seeing mixed messages as to how necessary that is.

 

[kolek]

@RV10flyer
Sorry for the noob question, but putting a 125A class t fuse mitigates the potential of damage in the event of a JK-BMS or other failure?

 

[Nobodybusiness]

Checking:

Active balancer BMS - JK BMS

Below bluetooth active balancing BMS also support RS485/CANBus for optional are available for sell: JK-BD6A17S6P JK-BD6A20S6P JK-BD6A24S6P JK-BD6A20S10P JK-B1A24S15P JK-B2A24S20P The above

www.jkbms.com

So I'd want to buy 2 of the JK-B2A24S-20P

Now that I would have to defer because I haven’t bought any in a while.
That seems right but mine do not have the 2a Balancing option.
I just have the 11 of the JBD-SP25s003
Which is a 16s low amp balance 100 amp Lifepo4 BMS.

 

[Nobodybusiness]

@RV10flyer
Sorry for the noob question, but putting a 125A class t fuse mitigates the potential of damage in the event of a JK-BMS or other failure?

If you have your batteries in Parallel and one shorts out it will draw huge amps to that battery from other batteries and cc so a fuse on the shorted one should go first to eliminate any major fires and what not..

 

[rhino]

- modular ability to expand / monitor / shutdown your battery banks

The way this is worded can be misinterpreted. If you have a Batrium Core and 2 K9's for each of your 16s batteries it can not shut off an individual battery bank. Your entire system will turn off if one of the battery banks triggers a fault. With two JK-BMSs only the battery bank that has the issue would be turned off so you would still have power from the other bank to power your system.

 

[RV10flyer]

The way this is worded can be misinterpreted. If you have a Batrium Core and 2 K9's for each of your 16s batteries it can not shut off an individual battery bank. Your entire system will turn off if one of the battery banks triggers a fault. With two JK-BMSs only the battery bank that has the issue would be turned off so you would still have power from the other bank to power your system.

I have 10 batteries and I turn one off at the breaker, do any troubleshooting/repairs, make sure the battery voltage is within 0.5V of my system voltage and turn breaker back on. I could run my house on four batteries minimum. I like redundancy. I was hoping the various BMSs's would be a good idea, but most only have 0.15A bal current and have various other glitches. JK is going to be very busy.