Diy batteries / balancing

leon.davibe

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If you decide to diy a lithium lifep04 battery

Take the effort to top balance it first

No you most likely did not get beautifully balanced cells because they all happen to be 3.21v or 0.01 volt separated cells

Trust me trying to balance them after the fact while in use though possible is going to be a schlep and way more time consuming

And no the bms/balancer isn't gonna ballance it

And no just connecting them parralel and leaving a few days isn't gonna do it too

You have to get them on the steep portion of the state of charge graph while parallel

ie 3.65 volt

so either connect parralel and buck converter and charge to 3.65v if you have a small amp charger this can take time ie even days

If you want to speed up the process you can use the inverter to charge the battery with bms don't make the build pretty as you will most likely take it apart again if you see you were indeed not lucky to have received magically balanced cells


Disconnect the balance wire plug from the bms

Connect the batteries in series
Connect the balance wires to cells normally black wire to negative and then next wire first cell positive next second cell positive rinse repeat untill done

Some bms that cab handle higher s count have different ways of connecting lowet s count follows their manual

Can do a safety check on the plug to make sure each pin increases by about 3v

Connect the negative wire link to the bms first , and then the balance wire plug can be plugged in if more than one plug do the one with negative first and the the next ie you work your way up from first cell to last ie some 16s hms have 4 plugs so first cell1-4 then 5-8 you get the picture

So later if you want to take apart
you work in reverse ie start with the plug connected to last cell and end with the plug with negative and the disconnect the main negative

At this point you can see if the bms powered on by itself by putting the tester on the negativ coming from bms to load and the positive terminal

connect inverter and take the voltage up gently

That way you can also see how the bms behaves and how badly out of balance the cells are

Start with a voltage close to the nominal 3.2v x S the cell count of cells in your battery

Then increase the voltage in increments

ie can do 1v at a time until some of the cells hit 3.35-3.4v on 48v system with smaller packs you can do smaller jumps if you like

The bms is your safety device

As soon as you hit 3.65 v on a cell
It will be evident how bad the balance is

At this point you can take them apart connect parralel and connect buck converter set to 3.65v and charge away

Once you have them all at 3.65 they are balanced some specs sheets say 3.75 no biggy whatever you want ad long as it is about 3.6v at least

Disconnect
And build battery
 
Ok need to add my experience which I have experienced.
Currently I use Pylontech batteries.
One of my units failed. It was in for repair more than 3 months.
When I got it back, I installed the repair unit.
One battery was 100% SOC the one unit that came back was 60% SOC.
I configured master battery.
I left batteries how they were. Next morning the batteries sorted themself from unbalanced to balanced.

Don't know if it boils down from manufacture to manufacture?

I can post a picture of Pylontech battery view to show cell info. I still need to do this to keep some sort of record for myself.
 
Ok need to add my experience which I have experienced.
Currently I use Pylontech batteries.
One of my units failed. It was in for repair more than 3 months.
When I got it back, I installed the repair unit.
One battery was 100% SOC the one unit that came back was 60% SOC.
I configured master battery.
I left batteries how they were. Next morning the batteries sorted themself from unbalanced to balanced.

Don't know if it boils down from manufacture to manufacture?

I can post a picture of Pylontech battery view to show cell info. I still need to do this to keep some sort of record for myself.
Not exactly yhe same type of balancing parralel batteries will balance themselves over time

ie the next time solar kicks in the lower battery pulls more amps and the full one less

I also have 2 batteries (one with a bad cell) so it shuts down first

The other carries my home

Then when it charges the one that shutdown first charges at double the amps

ie if my inverter charges with 30a

The low one would pull 20a

And within the charge cycle they are in balance again

The series connected batteries this isn't the case

Very few balancers could actually pull them into balance if you connected cells that was out of balance into series

Most bms won't active balancers will
 
Ok need to add my experience which I have experienced.
Currently I use Pylontech batteries.
One of my units failed. It was in for repair more than 3 months.
When I got it back, I installed the repair unit.
One battery was 100% SOC the one unit that came back was 60% SOC.
I configured master battery.
I left batteries how they were. Next morning the batteries sorted themself from unbalanced to balanced.

Don't know if it boils down from manufacture to manufacture?

I can post a picture of Pylontech battery view to show cell info. I still need to do this to keep some sort of record for myself.
Do you have the connection to check the battery from pc

Have been curious how balanced these stay over time, ie that the bms is capable of keeping the pack in balance

Or do you just set it and forget it

It is awesome that at least the warrantee is honored

Even if it takes time
 
Use a propper bms. Use a seplos.
I have a shoto with a seplos bms
Shoto settings on this is pathetic

May just be my specific model

If you have unbalanced cells how low would you think it would allow individual cells to go ?
photo attached

What i can tell you is i have a cell with cell resistance not equal to the others

this bms cannot keep it in ballance i top balance it

Month or so later out of balance again

Now yes this one cell has been abused to the point that it only has about 53% of it's capacity left
 

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Do you have the connection to check the battery from pc

Have been curious how balanced these stay over time, ie that the bms is capable of keeping the pack in balance

Or do you just set it and forget it

It is awesome that at least the warrantee is honored

Even if it takes time
Yes, it is called Batt View. Think it works only with Pylontech battries.
 
I have a shoto with a seplos bms
Shoto settings on this is pathetic

May just be my specific model

If you have unbalanced cells how low would you think it would allow individual cells to go ?
photo attached

What i can tell you is i have a cell with cell resistance not equal to the others

this bms cannot keep it in ballance i top balance it

Month or so later out of balance again

Now yes this one cell has been abused to the point that it only has about 53% of it's capacity left
Having a fault cell has nothing to do with the BMS.
 
Yes, it is called Batt View. Think it works only with Pylontech battries.
Check the cell voltages when battery is 100% ideally while it is charging not when it is resting

To see what is the voltage difference of cells when they are on balance voltage to see

How well it is balanced

ie the difference is less pronounced while reting

ie a cell completely full will rest at can't remember exact voltage for the nut pickers think it's 3.35-3.4v

So under charging the full cells will spike to 3.65
While a cell that isn't full could be 3.33 at resting will stay there under charging

So if you check ballance while resting you get a false perspective

As the full cells will be 3.35and
And a 70% could rest at 3.3v

Ie you think balance is awesome
While it's not
 
Check the cell voltages when battery is 100% ideally while it is charging not when it is resting

To see what is the voltage difference of cells when they are on balance voltage to see

How well it is balanced

ie the difference is less pronounced while reting

ie a cell completely full will rest at can't remember exact voltage for the nut pickers think it's 3.35-3.4v

So under charging the full cells will spike to 3.65
While a cell that isn't full could be 3.33 at resting will stay there under charging

So if you check ballance while resting you get a false perspective

As the full cells will be 3.35and
And a 70% could rest at 3.3v

Ie you think balance is awesome
While it's not
As requested

5kW Sunsynk inverter with 2 UP5000 Batteries.


5kW inverter.jpg
 
Yea nice 30mv difference

Would love it if my shoto stayed like that

It does look like that for the first while during loadshedding

When they hit the flat portion
 
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