question

pda1 avatar image
pda1 asked

Battery Balancer vs. once per month?

I have 2 BattleBorn LifePo batteries in series for a 24v system. Once per month I balance the batteries individually. Well, I'm getting tired of doing it.

I see Victron makes a Battery Balancer. If I install that on my system will I still have to balance the batteries or will the balancer do that automatically?


Battery Balancer
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4 Answers
kevgermany avatar image
kevgermany answered ·

No.

It's for maintaining/balancing the 12V legs on a 24V AGM system.

With LiFePO4 the BMS should do it for you as long as they're fully charged regularly.

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pda1 avatar image
pda1 answered ·

Not correct. Here's what Victron's advertisement reads;

The Battery Balancer equalizes the state of charge of two series connected 12V batteries, or of several parallel strings of series connected batteries.

There is no reference to it being specific battery types.


See- https://www.victronenergy.com/batteries/battery-balancer

1 comment
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kevgermany avatar image kevgermany ♦♦ commented ·
Sorry, was late and I misread, thought you had a parallel setup.
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k-k avatar image
k-k answered ·

You have 2pc 12V to form a 24V system, right?

It depends on the voltage. Balancer where intended for lead-batteries, but you can use it for LFP too, just look in the description at what voltage the balancer kicks in. There is a small (voltage-)window where its useful. If you are using slightly lower floatvoltage for LFP it must be a little bit higher than the startvoltage of the balancer. (27V so float 27,2V). The people that testet and used it say that around 5 to 7 days both batteries are within a few millivolts, so there is no more any need to interrupt and equalize the batteries in parallel.

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Kevin Windrem avatar image
Kevin Windrem answered ·

BattleBorn batteries can be connected in series (up to 48 volts I think) without external balancing as long as the absorption voltage is set to their spec. If you reduce voltages, then the batteries won't balance with each other and the cells within each battery won't balance either.

I'd check with BattleBorn if you are charging your bank to their spec and your batteries are not balanced after a full charge cycle.

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