question

mrhappy avatar image
mrhappy asked

How many battery pairs can one balancer balance?

I am studying Victrons documents on wiring, really good info. Regarding battery balancing I came across this page explaining how to make sure you can use one balancer for several strings of battery pairs:


battery-bank-midpoint.png


My question is, how many strings can one balancer handle? If I have 10 strings of two 75Ah AGM batteries per string, can I then connect all midpoints and use only one balancer to keep them all balanced? How about 16 strings, which my battery bank have?

I am at the moment on the fence about whether to buy one victron balancer or import 16 chinese balancers so I would have one balancer per string.

Any thoughts?

batteryBattery Balancer
2 |3000

Up to 8 attachments (including images) can be used with a maximum of 190.8 MiB each and 286.6 MiB total.

3 Answers
Alexandra avatar image
Alexandra answered ·

@MrHappy

If it is a 48 volts system a minimum of three, with 24 volt then you can use one, it will take longer to balance though so you can add more balancers to each string. 1A/0.7A per balancer balancing ability, once the threshold is triggered.

http://bb-demo.victronenergy.com/

1629039224638.png

Going by the manual, it is one balancer per string, so if you ave 16 strings, it is 16 balancers.

What voltage is your system though? Maybe some clarification with a battery connection diagram would help clear up how many you need.


As the manual suggests though, if you use a bmv and you get the midpoint from that then you can use less balancers in the system, I reiterate it can take longer to balance a system that way, especially if you did not start by charging and setting up the bank correctly in the first place.


1629039224638.png (402.8 KiB)
2 |3000

Up to 8 attachments (including images) can be used with a maximum of 190.8 MiB each and 286.6 MiB total.

mrhappy avatar image
mrhappy answered ·

Hi Alexandra.

If you read the part furthest down on Victrons own wiring manual, which I put in my initial post, it says the following:

"Once the midpoint of the battery bank is connected one battery balancer can be used, instead of using 3 battery balancers (one for each string)."

With an example of a 24V battery bank with three strings of two batteries in each. This is the information which made me ask the question. In the example there are three strings balanced by one single balancer, but there is no information about how many would be the limit.

(even the demo page you link to shows three strings with one balancer)

2 comments
2 |3000

Up to 8 attachments (including images) can be used with a maximum of 190.8 MiB each and 286.6 MiB total.

Alexandra avatar image Alexandra ♦ commented ·

@MrHappy

So what do you understand by midpoint? And string?

The balancers can be paralelled in the bank to increased the balancing speed. In practice usually the owner goes minimum.

There will be a balance between cost and usefulness of having more in the system as they would not be needed.

0 Likes 0 ·
Alexandra avatar image Alexandra ♦ commented ·
The point of the battery balancer is to overcome the imbalance that you get with ohms law in a bank with your wiring. So a connection diagram would help you decide how to work your balancers.
0 Likes 0 ·
mrhappy avatar image
mrhappy answered ·

Thank you for your involvement, @Alexandra. I kind of get it now. My question is a bit like asking "how long is a rope" or "how fast is a boat". One balancer can handle a specific amount of balancing current and how much current is needed to keep up with balancing depends on the time frame needed, the amount of imbalance, the size of the batteries connected, how high charging current connected chargers are pushing into the system and how high current is drawn from the batteries by loads. My question is a simple one but with no simple answer.

My batteries are 75Ah AGM 12V batteries connected as pairs with equal length cables to two busbars. Now 30 batteries, so in my mind 15 "strings", each with a "midpoint" usable by a balancer. I would not want to connect any midpoints at all, so I suppose I would have to go with 15 balancers. I really want this pack to last as long as possible. At this point, the highest difference between any two batteries in the same pair is 0.089 volt or 89 millivolts. Most of them are between 40 and 60 millivolts, some as low as 9. Not sure that needs balancing, but maybe it would be a good preventative measure to install balancers...

1 comment
2 |3000

Up to 8 attachments (including images) can be used with a maximum of 190.8 MiB each and 286.6 MiB total.

Alexandra avatar image Alexandra ♦ commented ·
@MrHappy

You should be fine in the beginning. Especially if you charged all of them up fully before initial use.

A piece of advice then. While you have tried to do best practices with wiring, every 3 or so months rotate the battery pairs in the bank as a routine maintenance outside ones into the centre etc. Check your pairs against each other.

Check with a clamp meter during charge and discharge to make sure they are all load sharing the amps in or out within reason. Otherwise you will find some pairs bearing a heavier load than the others they will die before the rest of the bank.

0 Likes 0 ·

Related Resources

Additional resources still need to be added for this topic