Lifeboat Conversion Ep41: Why I'm changing over from Victron to a generic battery bank balancer [4K]
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EPISODE 41
Battery banks with more than one battery, whether in series, parallel or both, should be balanced to avoid uneven levels of charge. I use plenty of Victron electrics products, but in this case I've abandoned the good ship 'blue box'....
Products mentioned:
Victron Battery Balancer
Insert made up brand name here HA02 Battery Equalizer / Equaliser
ST16 Nylon DC 25A connectors
Model: NME A/S (Husnes, Norway) 7.5m TELB
Engine: Bukh DV48 turbo diesel
Feel free to ask any questions in the comments!
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![Lifeboat Conversion Ep42: Getting on with a load of smaller jobs inside and outside of Alan [4K]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/sDXXJp9P6oc/mqdefault.jpg)
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In avionics, both sides of that bus bar would be fed from the source, both for redundancy and current sharing. Ex RCAF CommRadar tech.
Everyone else: paragraphs on why certain batteries and charging capacities require certain flux capacitors and speeds.
Me: woohoo Alan!
that's cause they know what they are doing, this plonker is making it u as he goes, I just hope nobody copies him.
@@harrismagnum04 good thing the "plonker" is always trying to learn, and readily accepts advice from expert commenters.
When I ordered, everything was a no name to me. Just by chance, I discovered a company called Aickar had products of shockingly good quality. It is amongst the cheapest brands on the biggest websites. They don't even advertise that all of the wire is silicone insulated or any of the other excellent features. Their products look pretty identical to many very inexpensive products. When you were showing those connectors, it triggered my mind. I have a jump pack made by them, the best one I've ever used, that uses the exact same connectors. I realize this endorsement is probably a little late, but what do I know. You might have many more electrical components to buy. It's really good gear. No affiliation by the way. There's also an umlaut in the company name, but I can't tell what letter they mean to apply it to.
I had a look for that company but found nothing in Australia by them. A jump starter, now called Moock, is all I could find by them. Oh except for Aickar smelly diffusers. Lol.
Alex you explained that very well. Some may comment that a battery has a BMS with active balancer but that only does that battery. You have given yourself a plan 2 to fall back on. PS I did my boat radio licence from your boat yard 17 years ago. Small world.
Indeed - I'm pretty sure these Lead Carbons don't though.
You know your stuff. Best to be safe than sorry.
Better grade lithium ion systems will have ways to connect the battery BMSes together so they do in fact work as one.
Yes, if your banks are lithium (with the extra demands they have when in parallel) then those BMSs need to talk!
@@AlexHibbertOriginals yep. And lead acid doesn’t have a BMS internally balancing cells, because it’s a much more robust cell in and of itself and doesn’t really need it.
Have you considered a DC-DC charger? may as well make use of the alternator if you are cruising for so long. I see that engine has a 50amp alternator, at least the original. I wouldn't use the 30amp charger but victrons 9 amp or 18amp DC charger may not have such a bearing on the alternator and atleast you'll get another 100amps each day after a very long cruise. Third back up if solar and wind become unavailable. Cover all bases.
I'm not familiar with those particular 24a connectors you showed, but they look like they have screw down terminals (with little set screws.)
I'd recommend learning about how screw down terminals can fail. I actually wrote a whole paragraph about it, and remembered that Tim Hunkin did a great segment on them: th-cam.com/video/q43tZ6DjuIE/w-d-xo.html
My concern is that especially with stranded wire, the screw usually only grabs a couple of strands that are lucky enough to get under the screw - when they break the wire can fall out. Not to mention the screw coming loose, corrosion, etc. etc. Crimp-on ferrules would help but then you might as well just use crimp connectors.
In case you'd appreciate my tier list of connector methods:
S tier: Soldered connectors like the Anderson or XT60 and the like are utterly reliable. (but take time to solder)
A tier: Crimped on connector's I've used less - but if done correctly with a good tool, are even more reliable. (and used in aerospace, etc)
A tier: Wago type clamp connectors are a new trend - and appear to be extremely capable. Apparently in Germany, thats how all the mains wiring is done now.
C tier: any screw down terminal. With both stranded and solid connectors - there's many ways the wire can slip out. And it's hard to verify they're held well before they fail
D tier: twisting two wires together and covering with electrical tape.
Ah yes indeed. I do solder, and use Wago/lever type connecters, as well as Andersons ( the large ones, and Powerpoles).
I'm actually going to do a small section soon mentioning how and why I use these 25A (don't do me out of an amp!) MT16s in certain circumstances. For example, you can once sure of it being permanent, epoxy pot the two shafts. There's a lot to recommend them - their form and size, very tough body, and the ability to wire twist though the holes, locking a pair together temporarily. Not perfect, but they have their place.
Use the one that suits your needs, whatever floats your boat. 2x👍
Well the balancer is more for batteries than floatation, but I appreciate the sentiment.
@@AlexHibbertOriginals☺
no nonsense , solution oriented ,brevity bordering on bluntness .
A wisp of whimsy ,a dash of panache.
Oh renaissance man
a dwindling lot , few are left , carry on ,
we are still here!0
or perhaps just a reasonably well funded dilletante . ,good work.
or both.
Lead doesn't like vibrations. It gets brittle and loses connection. That's why we use crimp connectors on motor powered vehicles.
Thanks - yes I've read for some time that crimping is no.1 choice if you can.
Looks like a reasonably simple solution. Small enough to keep a spare as well. (This comment is mostly for almighty you know what.)
It's good to have spare parts in storage
Victron be with you and may the power of Victron bring prosperity to your house.
Victron be with you.
For Victron!
Hi Alex. I’ve never used a battery balancer before and I’m curious how this setup protects the integrity of your system when one (or more) of your batteries drops a cell (or more). From this video explanation it seems to me that the healthy batteries will be compromised by any bad battery as they constantly try to balance that dead battery, which can never be balanced? Does the balancer automatically prevent this or are you purely reliant on manually monitoring this yourself? Thanks.
Hi Nick. I think you need more elaborate monitoring systems, including those with software, to automatically diagnose and circumnavigate dying or dead cells. My system will need at least very occasional checking to make sure a battery isn't dead and dragging the bank down.
OOf.. that closup on the back of the fuse panel shows that the bar he snapped off was for the switch lights, not for a common positive... guess he has non light up switches now.
I did actually do a continuity test before doing any soldering/de-soldering, and it was indeed a common rail. There may well be a side effect of the switches not lighting, but I'd have disabled this anyhow, as I don't want shining lights all over the boat.
Can 8 12v in 2s4p where each 2s 24v is running to common busbar utilize two of these? Meaning two leads for the 2s, the other two leads for another 2s?
I think so, although you'll get some natural/direct balancing between the pairs. The balancer treats each battery separately with connections to each terminal, and sends current from high to low.
I've just recently wired an alarm to the contacts on the Victron. What I've noticed is that when the voltage goes > 27.3V and the balancer activates, it sends a pulse to the Alarm contacts. This causes intermittent chirping of the alarm horn.
Has anybody ever reverse engineered the internals of the Victron balancer? If its a passive, resistive dissipation type balancer or has an active switched capacitor, transformer or incuctance based topology?
I think both of these are dissipators, so with an energy loss. No 100% though.
If you ever want to change to a better MPPT controller then look into EPEVER brand MPPT TracerAN series solar charge controllers. They have the 10, 20, 30 & 40 amp in 12v - 24v & 50, 60 & 80 amp in 12v, 24v, 36v & 48v. The great thing about these controllers is that the heavy duty nature of components inside the case with a large heatsink on the back & led front panel as well as monitoring through phone app.
You're going to have to start paying for these ads!
@@AlexHibbertOriginals lol
After countless hours of research and watching videos that's what I bought. I can't afford to waste money as I already have that spot filled and her name is Lindsey.
The TracerBP Series is also pretty good too!, I have a couple of the IP65 rated ones that came with my folding portable solar panels.
A lot of the EPEver Units have RS485 and there are various communication gateways for them (USB / BT / WIFI / etc), and are fully programmable.
@@KSSilenceAU Theyre all the same internally, its just whether or not they have screens or certain connections
Somehow you to into the possession of my RED BOX again ... tsk tsk :)
It's almost like paid promotion, but not.
I had exactly the same idea, but I was thinking of using relays, instead of mechanical switches. My batteries seem to keep the voltage equal really nicely, so I haven't bought any equalizer yet. SOC percentage is changing quite much and there is about 20% difference, but the voltage is same and when I charge all of them, they get same amount of Ah in from the charger, before BMS kicks in. So I am pretty confident that I don't actually need battery balancer at all.
Only issue with the HA is that it makes a high frequency sound which is annoying
It's just letting you know it's there.
It’s worth knowing that the Victron energy one is worth using in certain cases where the equipment needs to meet certain industry regulator standards or in cases where you need to have specific ratings such as if it was installed in a building for a system it would definitely make a lot more sense as you can put it in an enclosure without worrying about heat as they give you all the necessary information for that
I certainly am a fan of the expensive blue boxes, except that they do keep customers as arm's length for tech support.
@@AlexHibbertOriginals it’s because you are technically meant to be an approved installer otherwise we buy it from if it’s an authorised reseller they meant to provide your technical support. I think it’s too many minimise language barrier problems.
AMAZINGNES!!! 3rd
Цікаве використання цього активного балансиру, візьму до уваги, дякую!
dont use this balancer with lifepo4 batteries
is there a proper balancer for lefepo4 batteries?
ALEX how do jion team Allen???
alexhibbert.com/aho :)
what about an individual 12V charger for each battery in a series hookup? Wouldn't that charge each battery to capacity, and thus equalize at the same time?
That's what's going to happen sometimes (from the generator) but you can still get unequal discharge, and we won't always have a complete 'empty to full' charge.
Yay
I've been investigating alternative energy options for my home and I keep coming across this problem as it relates to batteries. A lot of these new lithium chemistries are tremendously energy dense, but with an eye towards durability the manufacturer inevitably advises that you never run the batteries below 40% for argument's sake. I find that this makes it virtually impossible to compare products side by side, which is almost undoubtedly the reason. You seem like a fairly analytical guy, have you found any particular spec to be much more relevant comparing products for durability? In my mind, if it's bad for the battery to go below 40%, then it's effective use is 60% of the total. But these percentages change drastically depending on the chemistry. Hopefully we will end up with a meaningful measurement in the future. In the meantime, have you found any particular resource to be especially trustworthy? I did watch your past videos with this question in mind.
Jesse at Solar Solution on TH-cam has an unbiased comparison of lithium vs lead-acid. Let me say for my home I will not be using lithium based on what he said - HOWEVER - that's just me and the case for lithium could be more compelling for you.
Thing is lithium advertised cycle life is complete BS as there's no industry standard meaning manufacturers can lie through their teeth. Lithium doesn't have the 100+ years of field data that lead-acid has so cycle claims may or may not be true.
What really matters is battery life in years and lead acid should at least last 10-12 years and lithium may or may not last that long but we just don't have the data yet.
Lead-acid has limitations and if you abuse those the you are going to lose your battery bank - no ifs no buts. Lithium on the otherhand could be more forgiving for you. Lead acid is far, far cheaper for example $4000 for a 48v bank of 550ah 6v batteries.
Lithium easily double but lithium doesn't need the addaed ah as lead acid as it accepts charge faster so you can't necessarily compare apples and apples. For me with plenty of sunshine for most of the year lithium makes no sense but you're not me and your use and location different to mine. AGM is lead-acid tech BTW.
In Alan's case Lead Carbon certainly makes sense. The penalty of weight is actually a positive for installation low down in a boat. You can charge them fast, discharge deep(ish), they are good value, and are safe.
Any reason why you would want to disconnect a cell from the balancing circuit?
Not routinely, but perhaps if you end up with one cell wildly out of sync and want to charge that one directly and more efficiently, before drawing power from the bank again. Or if there's a question mark over the health of one side of a bank and you want to balance the healthy side before you have time to diagnose issues.
Also, you state that the balancer shunts current from the higher battery to the lower battery, but Victron says theirs simply pulls current from the higher battery to the balancer and then the extra power is dissipated as heat. Anyone got any further info on this? Also, I've looked around and cannot find any other balancer that says it only works in a small range of voltage readings. The Victron says it comes on at 27.3 volts and shuts down balancing at 26.6 volts. I also wonder why they would do that? Makes zero sense to me.
I think its because this is the voltage range in which cells can be overcharged, and it manages to get it the balancing done at this time. When the cells are out it's only a tiny amount, not heaps - perhaps this product is really only for good condition batteries and won't work if a call is really really bad? Just a guess. I have 2 x 12v in 24 series and occasionally is says a battery is higher than the other when its charging, but they equal out after a few minutes. It's barely ever on. Usually when its on it's green light - everything balanced. So guessing it works. The engineers know what they're doing
No coming on at 27.3 volts is useless for people who don’t have massively overbuilt systems. I used the Victron and it never came on. I got a $29 Mazava (now $50) from Amazon and it keeps the batteries in balance all the time. If you have a low battery in the set it will never let the set get to 27.3. Another way overpriced and useless device from Victron.
2nd.
"There are four lights!"
I'm trying to find a balancer that works at any state of charge, unlike the Victron that only comes on when the voltage readings are 27.3 volts or above. My batteries ae actually self balancing when charging up, and then go back out of balance as they discharge. Anyone know if that indicates bad cells in the lower voltage battery? It hit low voltage shutdown the other day.
it comes on at that voltage as there's no way cells are being overcharged if the packs are below that. It's not needed until that point
My other reply to you stated the real problem. If one battery is low the set will never reach 27.3 volts, making this device completely useless. Victron is way overpriced.
Interesting
Electrifying! :)
All hale victron
Excellently explained.
Bob Carlson a famous lion tamer was decapitated by a long zip tie end
There's a reason TH-cam is lauded as the spiritual home of true statements, and never misinformation.
@@AlexHibbertOriginals 😁
Kinda sus
No victron fanboy... What´s next? Will he tell us that he is not a CIA operative who tries to find the entrance to the hollow earth in
the Arctic area? I don´t know how to believe Alex any more....
You believed me to begin with?
@@AlexHibbertOriginals I should have known it after you reduced the Alan painting content bit by bit!
4th
I am sure that the brand fanboys will now reassure you that fire is the most likely outcome, now that you have gone off brand.
Poor man is as good as charcoal now