Battery-Balancer

Battery Balancer Ultimate Guide

What is a battery Balancer?

The battery balancer (aka battery equalizer) is a kind of electrical control device which is special designed to control the voltage of every single battery in the battery bank, to push the higher voltage to lower voltage battery so that all the voltage difference between adjacent batteries become same or similar, the battery equalizer is attached to the battery pack and does not change the circuit structure and performance of the primary battery bank.

Battery Balancer is designed and offers by ZHCSolar Inc, there are two series balancers available, one is HA Series, in the HA Series, it has HA03 96V Balancer, HA02 48V Balancer and HA01 24V Balancer listed, the HA Series is support Lipo and Lead Acid Battery Balancing.

Another Series is HWB Battery Equalizer, the HWB is Only Support Lead Acid Battery Cell Equalizing, which has 48V 60V and 72V Models to choose from.

Why the battery bank needs a balancer?

As affected by the quality of battery raw materials, production process, storage time, working environment (mainly temperature), and some other factors, even the same type and batch of batteries can not have the same performance, let alone the capacity, terminal voltage, internal resistance, charge and discharge performance, self-discharge rate, state of charge, etc.

After the batteries are used in series for a period of time, the differences between the batteries gradually emerge. The most obvious physical parameters of the changes are: the terminal voltage of each battery varies and presents an enlarged state. The longer the battery is used, the greater the voltage difference.

The most intuitive phenomenon is that after charging the battery pack, the effective discharge time is significantly shortened, and the charging time is also greatly shortened. The main reason for this problem is the imbalance of the batteries in the battery pack.

Every single battery in the battery pack is connected in a series structure, all batteries work in the same charging current or discharge current. During charging, part of the battery internal resistance will increase, it will soon reach limit charge voltage and continue to rise as the charging does not stop, which will cause over-charged,  at the same time, the battery temperature is increasing, although the rest of batteries not reached the charge limit and not fully charged, the charger still ends charge due to the whole bank voltage has hit the end, as long run, the performance of some battery will be seriously affected by the overcharging, while the rest batteries not fully charge to shorten the use time.

Note: during the charging, if a set of batteries is overcharged for a long time, there is a risk of fire.

After the battery pack enters the discharge cycle, the voltage of the larger internal resistance battery increases rapidly when charging, and the voltage drops rapidly when discharging. While other batteries still have a lot of power, the battery with a larger internal resistance will soon discharge below the cut-off voltage or even lower.
Although most batteries are at normal voltage, the total voltage of the battery has reached the discharge cut-off voltage. The discharge control circuit closes the discharge based on the total discharge voltage, which seriously affects the battery’s service time. If there are more than one of these in a battery pack, the problem becomes extremely serious, especially for important battery power systems.

What are the main factors that affect the service life of rechargeable batteries?

Besides the factor of battery raw materials, production process conditions, the service life of battery mainly related to the work environment, mainly including environmental temperature, charge and discharge current, charge and discharge voltage.

Once the battery is used, the work environment, such as temperature, charge and discharge current value generally stays in constant, the biggest influence factor on the battery is charging and discharging voltage, the two most harmful state of battery are overcharge and over-discharge, once the battery is in those state for a long time, the battery will be irreversible damaged, the capacity and performance is reduced, or batteries become dead. Over-discharging and overcharging are the two biggest killers of batteries.

A large number of statistical data show that in the use of traditional battery packs, it is impossible to make all batteries work at the same safe voltage, and the failure of battery packs is frequently caused by over-discharge or overcharging of individual batteries.

Therefore, to ensure that the battery pack is always in the best working state, it is necessary to ensure that each battery does not happen over-discharge or overcharge.

What does a battery balancer do?

the Battery Balancer’s role is to balance the battery voltage of the battery pack, make all the battery voltage to be same or similar, When the battery is in charge or discharge, all the batteries can reach the same charging limit voltage or discharge cut-off voltage at the same time. meanwhile, the pulse sent by the equalizer also has the function of repairing and maintaining, which extends the use time of the battery pack.

What kind of battery does the battery balancer work for?

The equalizer is suitable for nickel-cadmium battery, nickel-metal hydride battery, and various lithium-ion battery, Almost all kinds of Lead-Acid battery and Lifepo4 Battery can wire with a battery balancer to fix the voltage difference.

The battery balancer structure includes a circuit board, equipment shell, and connection wire, which has a certain size and requires a small amount of installation space, especially suitable for the battery pack composed of the above batteries.

What is a lipo battery balancer?

A Lipo Battery Balancer is a kind of battery equalizer that supports balancing the lipo battery cell in the battery pack, equalizer eliminates the voltage difference in each battery cell and then all the battery voltage goes equal, thus the whole battery bank performance and power increased. the HA Series balancer is suitable for balancing lipo batteries.

Is the battery balancer an active balance device or a passive balance device?

the battery equalizer belongs to active equalization, which has better control precision and equalization effect than passive equalization.

Can the equalizer be used on super capacitors?

It can be used for super capacitor groups composed of the same type and the same nominal capacity super capacitors in series.

What is the battery configuration? What is the state of charge?

The so-called battery configuration requires not only the same capacity of each cell in the battery pack but also has the same or similar internal resistance, terminal voltage, charge state, decay rate, and charge-discharge characteristics of each cell.

State of Charge refers to the ratio of the residual capacity of a battery after a period of use or a long period of use to the capacity in the fully charged state, as short as SOC.

Does the equalizer have special requirements for battery capacity consistency and charge state?

For a traditional battery, even the type and capacity of the battery cell are the same, there is also a charge of state differences.

when different SOC batteries connected in series are used together, even the physical parameters are the same, There is also the problem that charging and discharging cannot reach or approach charging limit voltage or discharge cut-off voltage at the same time of every battery cell, equalizer perfectly solves the problem.

The equalizer completely ended the bottleneck of the battery that had to be configured to work. As long as the capacity difference is not too big, even if the capacity is different, a different state of charge, it also can be used in series, battery equalizer conducts real-time charge and discharges flow adjustment.

At which battery stage the balancer works?

The battery balancer equalizes at all stages of the battery’s operation. Including charging period, discharge period, recovery period, and static period of balance, while some other products can only balance the charge and discharge (like Victron Balancer).

According to statistics, the total time of the battery charge and discharge recovery and stationary periods is significantly greater than the total time of the charging and discharging periods, which shows the advantages of using a battery equalizer is very obvious.

Can New and Old Battery Mixed with Battery Balancer?

Yes, The equalizer has completely ended the history that new and old batteries cannot be mixed. As long as the capacity difference is not too big, a new and old batteries can be mixed in series even if the capacity is different and the state of charge is different.

The equalizer will automatically adjust the parameters such as capacity and state of charge When a battery in the battery pack needs to be replaced when it fails, no need to replace the entire battery pack, only replace the faulty battery with the same model, and the rest of the work is done by the equalizer itself.

How many batteries can be equalized by the equalizer at least at the same time?

When the number of batteries connected in series is 2 or more, it can be connected and equalized.

How many batteries can be equalized by the equalizer at most? Is the wiring complicated?

The equalizer is an independent module, the number of equalized batteries is not limited, and the device is easy to connect. For example, to equalizing two batteries there only three connecting lines.

How accurate is the battery balancer voltage difference control?

Since all voltage detection components are manually selected, the voltage difference control accuracy of the test board is within a few millivolts, that is, the voltage difference of adjacent batteries is only a few millivolts.

Can the equalizer control the battery’s charge limit voltage and discharge cut-off voltage?

The equalizer cannot control the charge limit voltage and the discharge cut-off voltage of the battery pack but can control the battery to reach the charge limit voltage and the discharge cut-off voltage at the same time.

How does the equalizer controls the battery, is it wired in series or in parallel with the battery electrode?

The battery balancer connects to each battery in parallel in a special way and controls all the batteries in real-time by detecting the voltage of each battery so that the voltages of all batteries become equal or similar.

Is the power consumption of the equalizer large? Does it affect battery life?

The working current of the battery balancer is less than 1 milliampere, the power consumption of standby is only a few milliwatts, and most of the time it is in standby monitoring state. For large capacity power batteries, the power consumption is almost negligible, which will not affect the battery, conversely,  the special electric pulse will increase the battery life.

How does a battery balancer work?

After the equalizer is connected, the built-in voltage detection module immediately performs voltage detection on all single cells in the battery pack. When the voltage difference between adjacent batteries is greater than the given value, the equalization control is started immediately.

Under the control of an energy transfer circuit, a high-voltage battery transfers energy to a low-voltage battery, then the low-voltage battery voltage increased, the process makes the voltages of the adjacent batteries equal or similar, and finally, the entire battery pack voltage becomes equilibrium.

When the battery pack is charged, all the batteries reach the charging limit voltage at the same time; when the battery pack is discharged, all the batteries reach the discharge cut-off voltage at the same time; the “barrel effect” of backward batteries is completely solved.

Is the equalizer energy-consuming type or energy-saving (low-loss, energy-transfer) type?

the battery balancer is a typical energy-saving type device. Although the equalizer is connected in parallel to the battery, its working principle is to control the power transfer between the batteries. It has a high energy transfer efficiency and saves valuable electrical energy.

The energy-consuming type equalizer on the market mainly consumes high-voltage battery power and wastes electrical energy into heat. It is prone to cause accidents if the heat dissipation is not good.

What is the equalization current of the equalizer?

The equilibrium current is not a fixed value and is automatically controlled. If the voltage difference between adjacent batteries is large, the equilibrium current may automatically increase to maximum of several amperes. If the voltage difference between adjacent batteries is small, the equilibrium current will automatically decrease. When the voltage difference between adjacent batteries is equal or similar, the minimum value of the equilibrium current is only milliamps, or even almost zero, and the system automatically enters the voltage monitoring and standby states.

What is the indication method when the equalizer working?

the indication is performed by the led Indicator, as zhcsolar has two types of battery balancer, the indicator meaning may vary, please refer to the specify product manuals.

Does the battery Equalizer need a extra voltage detection module?

the Battery Equalizer has a built-in voltage detection module, which is the fundamental function of the equalizer.

What is the minimum working voltage of the equalizer?

The minimum operating voltage of the equalizer is down to 2V, that is, as long as the voltage of a single battery reaches 1V. the battery equalizer starts to work.

Can the balancer equalize two nickel-cadmium or two nickel-metal hydride batteries?

The equalizer is perfectly capable of balancing two nickel-cadmium or nickel-metal hydride batteries, but because the voltage is too low and the conversion efficiency is a little low, the standby power consumption is still very low only a few milliwatts.

Will the access of equalizer affect the original circuit of the device?

the battery equalizer is parallel connected to each battery cell, does not change the original equipment charging circuit and discharge circuit, it won’t affect the original equipment circuit.

How to Wire Battery Balancer

The wiring is varied on the battery equalizer model, check the guide of HA Series 24V 48V 96V Balancer Wiring Diagram, the HWB Series wiring diagram is different from the HA Series, the HWB lead-acid battery balancer wiring diagram may help.

Is the installation and maintenance of the equalizer complex and does it require regular maintenance?

The battery equalizer is fully packaged and has no adjustable electrical components and is maintenance-free.

in general, the installation is very simple and there is basically no maintenance required

Where to Buy Battery Balancer?

To buy the battery Balancer, please go to the zhcsolar battery balancer shop, there has a 24V 48V 60V 72V 96V Equalizer to Choose From.

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