I shouted it out loud: YES!!!!!!!!!!!! The NEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEY!!!!! What a spectacular time to be living! But now, with nothing further to do, I will watch the rest of the video!
Hi Andy, I’m currently living at tambourine Mountain but moving to Stanthorpe to go COMPLETELY offgrid, no power, post, water, sewage etc. Yes we have a post office and minimal store about 4-5ks away and Stanthorpe 13km away but we have been 80% self sufficient in veg, 100% self sufficient in water and sewerage. I’ve bought my panels, inverters and batteries (maxxcell and 16 3.4v to make 2kw as my starter package) I love your experimentation as my next 5-10 years will be this. Thanks for all your dedication and information. Cheers Mike.
I want to thank you from Sunny Texas, USA. I watch most of your videos as you are very entertaining and I am interested in similar things. This video you did on the 15 amp Neely active balancer was what my "Frankenstein" system needed. I run my house on a solar system I built and installed myself and use a DIY power wall that I made from recycled 18650s. The battery is a 14S 260P and I was struggling with balancing because the battery was too big for what was on the market. Then one day I checked on your channel to see what was up and you had this video of the 15 amp balancer. It did the trick. In 72 hours I went from a cell difference of 1.2 Volts to currently 0.86 volts. My battery lasted the whole night and only needed to recharge from the grid once versus what would have been three grid charges. I could explain more but this comment would be longer. I use two 100 amp Daly BMS in parallel with a 4 amp active balancer with the new 15 amp Neely. Thanks a bunch good Sir. Paul Zertuche.
This is one hell of a beast. I wish NEEY would develop a Smart Industrial BMS, it looks like they are trying to deliver interesting products according to users needs and wants, there are not many manufacturers like that.
Hello Andy, congratulations on the UA-cam channel, I was able to buy this Neey 15a balancer for my new 2p16s battery (with a future extension to 4p16s) on Ali for 301 euros. I think that for this price it is a perfect balancer for any installation. Greetings from warm Spain.
How about this balancer but cannot find how to download the software to my Android phone if you or anyone else could tell me that would be greatly appreciated thank you
It's obvious that this company is listening to its customers I wish next time they would include the screws so I could mount it connected permanently thanks again Andy
And so quick... When I watched the footage back, I realised that it took less than 20min to balance. The rest time was 'wasted' with setting up the camera.
After all this time, it looks like they've finally build what the DIYers have been asking for! Another great video and practical example Andy - cheers!
@@OffGridGarageAustralia if i knew 100% that it works as you claim in the video I'd order one. I don't need the bother to maybe have to send it back and then lose the shipping and border fees.
@@OffGridGarageAustralia you're helping me tremendously I have a 20 s system 280 amp hour Eve batteries in a boat electric boat project and my backup battery and trolling battery is an 8 s system and I just ordered that 20 15 amp active balancer after watching your video I'm still learning I'm 67 years old and your videos are making my life much easier thank you again
Well done review Andy. Good product they have made. The only thing I can suggest is to include one black balance cable. Have the option to choose the power supply plug for different countries.
Hi Andy!,and Thanks again for this really nice video,with this really Good active Balancer, I think this is currently the best! impressive at the speed at which it balance,( normal with these 15A of balance), Thank you again for sharing this video, because I had already seen this balancer, but I was not sure of its effectiveness, but now, we know from you!👍
bought one of these 6 months ago and still cannot find how to get software onto my phone a Google pixel if you could help that would be greatly appreciated thank you
Which protection board would you recommend to go along the NEEY 15A Smart Active Balancer? We are looking for something that offers over-charge and over-discharge protection, over-current, short circuit, etc. Our continuous current is usually around 200A (peaks can be around 500A) and our charging current can be around 280A. We are using 24 cells LiFePO4 battery.
Hi Andy, really enjoy your battery, BMS and balancer videos. This 15A balancer is a beast and can work ideally for very large Ah batteries. Would've been great if Neey had balance cables with ring terminals in addition or instead of crocodile clips so that it can be safely and permanently connected to a battery. I guess one would need to cut the crocodile clips off and attach your own ring terminals if you want to leave this balancer connected to your battery and have the peace of mind that the cables are properly secured. Would've been great too if they went up just one size to keep the balancer cables from getting so warm but I guess they didn't want to make the balancer even more expensive. Having said all that, Neey certainly seems to be ahead of the competition with their balancers.
Does pull power from only one cell at a time then switch to send that power to only one cell at a time? Because if we compare this to a multi-channel balancer that has a lower amp rating perhaps it's not really as powerful as it sounds.
I was thinking the same thing except, Thing is its usually only a couple to a few cells that reach ovp or uvp depending on how many cells you have in a row. Within twenty minutes of balancing you're good to go again.
How might I order additional correct connectors for the balancer? I have eight 300Ah batteries and am wanting to rig permanent cables to each battery bank that I can then connect to a single Neey balancer when I want to balance each bank.
You can buy the cables separately from the Hankzor store on AliExpress. If you cannot find them, contact them so they can send you the link. Have a look under the NEEY balancer, there is the link to their store. off-grid-garage.com/battery-management-systems-bms/
Thank you for this review Andy. I just ordered the 10A version from Hankzor. My LTO battery bank is 18P23S LTO 55-AHr pouch cells. So 18 pouches in parallel to form each 2.3V "block". Therefore about 900 AHr total. After testing all 414 pouches individually, multiple times, using monitored charging and discharging, I believe I've got them sorted into pretty equal blocks; should be within ±1% in terms of capacity per block. So within about 10 AHr. So my thinking was the 10-amp balancer should get the pack balanced, in general, within an hour or so. The usable voltage range for LTO is roughly 1.8 to 2.7 volts per cell. I plan to set the BMS limits at 2.0 and 2.5 vpc (using a Chargery BMS for now, driving external contactors to kill charging or discharging when necessary). It will be interesting to see how the individual cell voltage measurements compare between the Neey and the Chargery. The unit I bought from Hankzor says it's 4th generation. Do you know whether its operating algorithms are the same as the 4A version, or more like the 15A version??
At the end it is the nice show case of the upper end quality you can get and therefore it looks really good and performed quite well or as expected. There might be some that have these big batteries at least some in germany and UK I know about (60 kWh to 100 kWh LFP batteries) that might consider getting those. Not sure how that would end if you need to run a 6 x 15 kWh or 6 x 16 cell battery from a single balancer with 6x 16 cables you should be able to switch around cause no one would buy 6 of these. So they will need to get a switch with 6 positions on 16 contacts each 15 A and I guess there will only be one vendor or so and that multiswitch will come also with a nice price tag close to that of the balancer. But it was a nice test to watch working so fine and fast compared with the previous adventures in the past. At least Neey has learned its lessons. So hats off - chapeau !
This NEEY is probably not designed for a single 16s 280Ah battery. But I like you thinking about a switch to connect multiple banks and it cycles them though either automatically or with a manual switch. I'm sure they are reading here... It's really good what they are showing now and sets the bar really high. Like the JK-BMS and the NEEY 4A balancer before.
The question is if one really needs to topbalance every battery every time when irl most batteries may not get charged full most of the time. Cycling would be as “easy” as a series of small relays or with some logic triggered from a 100% soc status. Even manually with sets of extra cables would not be a real problem when one plans the top balancing of the packs. I am wondering if the balance leads are really fused.. a 15A or higher short can create a lot of damage within a day.. what happens when the software fails ? The battery is not protected by the BMS, since the balancer is connected directly to the battery. So to leave any high amp balancer permanently and virtually unprotected connected directly to the cells is placing a lot of faith in the balancer and its software. At least one should program a very loud low or even high cell voltage warning. Or initiate a balancer disconnect via a relay on the BMS triggered by a lower then 2,5 of higher then 3,65 cell voltage alarm. This prevents damage from incidental software bugs or freezes.. (cpu’s often freeze at certain high temperatures). This won’t protect against fysical hardware faults or shorts. Aka, the higher the balance currents the greater the damage in case of a failure. So.. periodically planned manual top balancing may just be the way to go.
This was my first thought when I saw the size of the balance cables, I was wondering how warm they might get with such a current. On most batteries they would probly be fine as it balances so quick, but on a battery with a dud cell that just does not want to balance, I imagine it could become an issue if left unchecked.
Nice review. 👍🏽 I can see that at T18:33, when you set the start vol to 3.50v. The balancer uses average voltage to start balancing rather than the minimum pack voltage. This is the same as previously tested neey 3rd generation where you pointed out that there’s risk of over charging due to 22-24 milivolt difference I hope I’m correct. I ordered the 10A version works pretty the same. Thanks
Thx for the video. Interesting device. The more batteries you build, the less the price should not matter. Maybe it's perfect for the balancing quicky from time to time :). For a single battery use (excluding builds like the 5p16s you mentioned) it's a little on the expensive side - just buy good cells - balancer saved ;). Anyway now i know such a balancer exists, in case i get to use inbalanced batteries anytime.
1) I think a safer way to connect is start with the alligator clips onto batteries (don't connect to balancer till after testing). Use voltmeter (multimeter set for DC Volts) to test the voltage across neighbouring contacts (connector at the balancer end). Move just 1 over & repeat test 8 times in total per connector & between connectors). They should all be similar 1 cell voltage & all positive. You can also check the 8S & 16S voltage across the far ends of a group. Then check you have the 1st group with the 1st connector & plug it into the balancer. Then the rest. 2) They could preempt ramping down current based on voltage difference, max cell voltage & SOC. Eg. 15A for >60mV difference, 1.5A for 6mV difference (~200Ah cells). 3) It's interesting it needs ~2 minutes to charge/cycle, a 6 to 20 second cycle time would be better.
Wow, really nice bit of device Andy, not much to criticise here except maybe include two black cables for power in neg & battery negative which is easily done at home. Yeah, I can see the Digital Mermaid using this soon. When I consider the price of most Victron components this device does not seem that rich for what it does, especially as u say, if ur a battery tradie who deals with a lot of batteries & cells. Great vid & review of this marvellous new balancing device from NEEY. Cheers
Is it possible to find the software interface for this fantastic balancer? Of course, it came with zero documentation, as usual for Chinese "products."
The inside electronics look nicely made. The pairs of 2.7V @ 600F are probably in series to provide a 5.4V 300F super cap that is higher then the max battery voltage. Note: For a 300F capacitor with a 1 amp charge/discharge current its voltage will change at 3.33mV per second. At 15A 0.05V per second.
You're right, Dave. Two 2.7V/600F in series will give you 5.4V/600F. It's like series connecting batteries. I thought they are all on parallel to enable charging from single cells directly.
@@OffGridGarageAustralia Unfortunately they don't add up like batteries. @universe is right. Two 600F capacitors in series will give you only 300F but double the voltage (5.4V).
@@danielardelian2 yes, my apologies. Series connecting capacitors do NOT double the capacity. Caps behave the opposite to resistors when in series and parallel. They are probably all in parallel then, to increase capacity.
@@OffGridGarageAustralia 2a takes a while, but the main issue was that I couldn't set a voltage to stop balancing so, so once I charged it again it would take a day to balance. 560ah is a lot!
The balancer works with the cell with the highest and lowest voltage. If the balancer also balances another pair of cells in sequence, (or even more pairs in sequence) for example the second highest and the second lowest, it would increase the balancing efficiency if it could distribute the energy even crosswise between these two or more pairs of cells - if it discharged the second, third highest cell before the highest, it would put the energy from it into the lowest and second lowest and not wait to discharge only the highest cell. It would probably be multiple balancers of this type in one, but they could work together and distribute the energy between them. Multiple cells managed by the balancer at once would reduce the balancing time a lot, even for a balancer weaker than 15A. Or a balancer as powerful as this would be enough to balance multiple 16S batteries at once, it would need more cables and a modified balancing algorithm for multi battery packs. Then it could transfer energy from cells in one battery pack to cells in the other battery pack. I can imagine this one balancer being connected to all three of your batteries on the Battery 2.0 shelf through the external teminal blocks, and balancing the whole Battery 2.0.
The balancer would need more super caps if it balances more than one pair. Not sure if they are the expensive part of the balancer... This is what the normal capacitive balancers are doing, they balance all cells at the same time.
@@OffGridGarageAustralia the expensive part might just be the fact its not a high selling item. the price should keep going down to an affordable for all price after more sales. I hope so. Then a gamble purchase would be in favor.
Andy, I’ve tested this balancer also. Great balancer HOWEVER…. Have you tried balancing a pack when it is miles out of balance? I’ve found that the average voltage needs to be above the balancing start voltage. For example, if one of the cells has somehow reached 3.65v and the rest are sitting around 3.4v. If the balance start voltage is set at 3.45v then the balancer will not start. Is this your finding also?
@@OffGridGarageAustralia It turns out that my phone was rejecting the app for security reasons. Got it now. The 15a balancer is making top balancing the 16s banks a dream.
I live in Asian where USD 700 eBikes are plentiful and that Neey would turn it into a USD 1200 ebike. It is rare for any of the eBikes here to have lithium batteries. Mine has sealed LA -5S for 60V/20Ah. I do have some 60Ah Lithium-Ions that I'm going to put in it to increase distance. I'm waiting on the 17S Daly BMS. I'll see if DALY can handle the job, I'm a novice so it will give me a bit more actual experience. I'm excited. I'm roaring to get started. I'm waiting on the BMS to arrive from China. Thanks so much for all the BMS videos. They're great. There is something you don't talk about much - how much unbalance can a pack tolerate? What are the ramifications?
Interesting that you use lead acid batteries for e-bikes over there. The balancer would be rather something for a e-bike store where they provide services for their customers and re-balance battery pack. For a single e-bike battery, it would be overkill for sure. The Daly will not balance well. They have very weak balancers of 50mA. There is nor real threshold on how much imbalance is too much. Usually, when you have a certain unbalance, the drift only gets worse over time.
Are you sure it survives wrong polarity of the balance wires? The "disorderly" thing i understand as being able to connect balance wires in random order without it getting upset.
Hello Andy, what about the efficiency? With the Neey V4 balancer (production date May 2023) I have measured 30-40%. My version reduces also like the 15A Version the balancer current to 2A or 1A if the deviation is very small. The old app also no longer works with this "new" V4. After a long search I have also found the new version of the app.
The efficiency is better than with any passive balancer which would be the alternative to an active balancer. Yeah, I measured as well around 60-70% with the smaller NEEY.
Hi Andy What is the voltage range this can take - ie, can it balance 8volt batteries or 12volt batteries? If not, do you know of a balancer that can do say 3v to 15v etc? Many TIA - ...pcnz
Why does it need to know the capacity of the packs if its using voltage to determine / trigger where the electrons are going? In guessing people with damaged packs/cells are having grossly incorrect reported capacities in BMS if it cant access the rest of the good cells due to hitting under/overvoltage protections prematurely. Be interesting to see if it can really help get access to the rest due to such an effective balancer...
How do you get that balance current / 60? 1 cycle = 1 minute? 15A * 1hr = 15Ah 15A / 60minute = 0.25Ah hmm 2-3min to charge and discharge for 2-3min I estimate it at a 5Ah in an hour?
Hello Andy, how is it that I see such high variations from freshly built battery packs? As much as 18mV? The most I've seen in my two self-built is 3mV for the 304A and 5mV for the 314A. I have tested my Neey active balancer and it's giving me slightly higher readings than my Seplos E10 rounding figures to the next 1mV. I really do not see any use for my brand-new NEEY, in fact, I've had it for over a year and only just decided to test it.
@@rmichaellinden6789 do you have 8 cells in series and another 8 cells in series? (a BMS and NEEY is needed for each battery bank) Or 2 cells in parallel and then 8 of these duos in series? (only one BMS and one NEEY is necessary)
Aren't they a EUR150 for the 4A version? As I said in the video, this is a balancer for shops, battery builders and large systems. Not for a single battery.
Hi.. great vid. This is the kind of balancer you could use to balance multiple parallel packs. In your case you have different capacities of batterypacls hooked up. They would have to make a 50volt version of it in that case. With a rating of 15A it might also be interesting to use as a bottom balancer. On a battery level it would enlarge the usable capacity of the frankenstein battery for example. And what of 2p16s batteries.. 15A may just do the trick. I mean, one could make a 3p16s pack and still have the same result and speed as the 4A version has on a 16S pack. With a 200A bms one would still have about 10kW of drawable power, still only discharge at a max of 1C but save money on less complexity, less cables and 1 instead of 3 bms-ses. Added later… the 1C is not correct.. maximum current would be limited by the BMS only. For the price of 2 bms-ses, cables, lugs, busbars and so on, one can almost buy another 16cells. What would be the drawback ? Except the hotter BMS ?
Bottom balancing would only work if the balancer is kept working all the time. Even with 15A, it would be only working with small loads. Only one 304Ah cell at the time can be discharged into the caps and then transferred into the 280Ah cell. Because we have several 280A cells and they all need to be kept above the UVP threshold, it needs a quite long time to balance them all out. At the end, you would destroy your perfect top balancing again and have this same issue when fully charging the next time. Bottom balancing is really a bad idea, it is a bit a thing from the past when we didn't have good BMSes and balancers.
@@OffGridGarageAustralia I see what you mean… when using different capacity cells in one battery one has to balance them at every bottom and every top to keep it working. This indeed would only work on small loads.. and with multiple small and large cells this would take time. At least for the frankenstein, which is not a general setup. When using 4 batteries in series drawing 20a each one could still supply a 4kW load. General household use may not even surpass an average 1 kWh.. not talking about boilers, heatpumps, EV’s and cooking 🫣 For a small unbalance at the bottom this would be a waste.. for a huge unbalance a.k. one “bad” cell I could think of some use.. for multiple different capacity cells it would take too much time and a rebalancing at the top each time. Actually a bad idea 🫣 I have been wondering though.. What would happen when connecting a 17th virtual cell to the balancer, lets say a 15A 3,5xx Volt powersupply or a dc-dv converter effectively making a 17S battery with an always Full 17th cell. This would enable the balancer to topup any cell to the maximum selected voltage of cell #17 without the charger having to be active , so when the pack voltage has already been reached. When the source of #17 is the whole pack it would draw a little from all cells instead of one and dump it in the individual cells that need it. Some of the power (lets say 1/16th) is recycled then during each balance cycle. This would reduce the number of microcycles I guess.. since in most packs it are always the same cells that are too high (to soon) or to low. One could argue that the extra microcycles on the best and worst cells of the pack would degrade them faster… although calender aging comes first I guess. Just thinking out loud here.. I wonder if when using the whole array of batteries (lets say 4) as a source for 4x virtual battery #17 and 4 balancers would not also balance out not only the individual cells but also the individual batterypacks. The set source voltage of #17 would have to be taken into account then, just to prevent endless balance cycles creating more loss then gain by balancing. Again just analytical thinking out loud if this would be a way around balancing complete batteries without have to use 50v balancers. Thinking a bit more, this would also mean that eventually all cells in all packs will have around the same voltage, but cell #17 will still always be a bit higher. So how do we tell the balancer to stop. An other approach would be a cycling charger. So one draws from all packs at te same time, converts to a “float” charging voltage/current back to the same battery. Effectively creating conversion losses. Dc to dc would be best I guess. The balancers with just 16 cells attached would then effectively balance each cell to the virtual charger voltage drawing from the highest cells per battery but without discharging them too much since there is also a charger active… one could limit the charging current to lets say 15A or more by trial and error effectively only recyclecharging each of 4 packs with 3,x Ah.. when one balancer draws power the current to the batteries would be 0, when 2 or more would dwaw it would simply take longer to charge the balancers. When 0 balancers would draw power the 15A would simply be recycled evenly to all batteries. Doing all this… what would be the benefit of it all ? I guess the bottom (0%) soc of all the batteries may get closer together in time effectively preventing a potential high load being drawn from only one battery when the rest is turned of by the BMS, or when BMS protection is set lower it would keep the battery voltages closer together at the bottom. This makes me wonder if batteries don’t balance themselves during discharge in the lower voltage range. I would say when battery voltages are starting to differ at lower socs I guess more current will be drawn from the battery with the higher voltage. Nice story this… nice and short 😁 Have you ever tested the remaining capacity per battery after discharging the complete array to a daily safe voltage ? For people selling the whole contents of the array during peak feedin tarif time this could mean they are wearing one battery off much faster then the otherones in the array.. balancing packs may reduce wear. Wouldn’t a float charger with the whole array as a powersource not do exactly the same.. in other words, when floatcharging to lets say 3,4 Volts per cell until the current goes down to 0.. will there still be unbalance between cells after that and if not, will all cells hold approxx the same amount of power. Maybe a bit too much for the “forum” though 🫣
@@NaamNatuurlijkniet Thanks for you great comment and sharing your thoughts. The 17th cell as a power supply is a great idea at first. Once all batteries have caught up to this level, the problem begins and the balancer will pick other cells for balancing, may even over balance some slightly and will try at some stage to charge the 17th. Many of the systems and devices we're using are imperfect and if I could, I would make the 'perfect' BMS and balancer. Yes, we have done all the battery testing to determine what is the best cut-off voltage for charging and discharging. I ran the big battery tester for months to find all that out. All data has been published on my website and all videos are still here on my channel.
@@NaamNatuurlijkniet exactly. Mismatching cells never works and is not worth the effort. I bought used cells and had to group the cells accordingly. The first group i bought had a number of cells that either reached the ovp or uvp and then cut off the charge or load to protect the cells. Some reached 3.65 ovp while others were still at 2.99 or 3.30 or close. Some reached 2.50 uvp while others were still at or around 3.33v. It was like a side show bob lol. I'm still undecided about the bms in the video. If only i knew it worked as good as claimed. I have trust issues when it comes to online high priced items. Duty and return fees for an item that might not work for my needs seems like a gamble. If only a place in Canada saskathchewan would have these in stock. Or willing to order it for me payment in advance of course. The bms i have on it now works great for an overnight charge. I need a bms like in the video that claims to be able to do a quick charge.
You can cascade the inductive active balancers as well as the NEEY balancers. You basically buy two and overlap them. There is info and diagrams on the Hankzor website. The link is on my website: off-grid-garage.com/battery-management-systems-bms/
@@OffGridGarageAustralia the price started a over one grand and is down to five hundred already. I'd pay the five hundred if i knew it did what i need. I'm still a bit skeptic on having to lose duty and shipping if i have to send it back.
Hi there. I have been a subcriber for a long time, and have a question for you. I have a Lithium battery bougth here in Norway, and the BMS is only 100A. Can I change the BMS to a 200A and still be safe? (not destroying the cells?)
Thanks for your question and being a long term subscriber. That totally depends on the batteries which are in the box. If they can be charged/discharged with 200A (see cell specifications) and the cables are rated for that current, then yes, you can replace it.
Thanks Andy for all your interresting Videos : ) Seems to be quite a rocket science with the BMSs..is it ok if I take a Jikong which balances with 2A a 280Ah 24V Lifepo4 battery stack, or is there anything dangerous?
Good review and test. From my table for a single conductor in free air, a 16 Awg wire will have a 25degC temp rise, when the the wires are bundled the temp rise will be much higher. Good they used silicon wire as it has a 200degC temp rating. Lots of wasted energy as heat in the wires and balancer its self.
@@OffGridGarageAustralia Yes this is much better then a passive balancer since they are all loss. Once the batteries are balanced losses are null. Discovered you channel a few weeks ago, helpful, interesting and love the hummer. Though in Canada, your winter cold is a nice day.
@@universeisundernoobligatio3283 Welcome to the channel and thanks for your feedback. Yeah, our winter seems like a walk in the park for many. Once you live here for 14 years, you are acclimatised and 22° feels chilly, 5° freezing 😃
Not losing valuable solar storage capacity due to imbalance should compensate for the loss causes by the balancer and it's cost in the long run if you can avoid replacing or adding expensive batteries for years to come. And it may save you a lot of time and headaches when one battery is reaching the end of it's life.
Wha would be your thoughts on running 2 or 3 heltec balancers in parallel (in an 18s 3P 960AH battery) using the voltage sensing relay to activate them on/off? I was thinking I could run one 5a balancer per series and have them all switched on/off by the same single relay in the voltage detector. My question : Would there be any major issues using a shared common switch between them? I know there would be a slight difference between the actual balances of the cells between series packs, but that would be minimal (around 10-15mv) right? To add to that, would it be best to connect all the individual cells in parallel with their matching cells in other packs to keep it all balanced as one, or better to keep only the main voltage connected and let them each manage each other out? Thanks Andy!!!
The question here is: why are your cells so out of balance that you need 3 balancers? Technically, you can run as many balancers in parallel as you want without any problems. You will need a separate isolated contact for each balancer to turn them on so a double or triple pole relay will do it.
@@OffGridGarageAustralia First off, thank you for the response! I’ve watched your channel grow over the years and it’s amazing to see you doing so well! Back to our chat; Yes you’re right about the balancers needed, I was just wondering(as I haven’t had the time to experiment at lower balance currents) if they’d be able to share the same contact or not, of course which you’d answered and made sense. I’ve been building custom batteries for off grid customers the past 2 years and the majority of my lifepo4 chemistry info comes from your experiments which I love and appreciate! This latest battery is for myself personally (finally) and will be a 60v setup (now 4P because of a sale) at 1280 amp hours. I figured to play it same with 5A of current per battery string and have them separate as far as balance leads. I did have one last question, sorry for the long reply: Without fully testing every single cell and matching packs for AH balancing, would you recommend tying the cells together so that each one is balanced together with it’s parallel counterpart?
@@redbaronrefining5322Thanks for the info and sharing. I'm always happy to read that people are getting inspired by watching some of my videos. That's great and a good motivation. So, you're building a 4p battery and maybe hence your question about 3 balancers in parallel. I have never built a p-battery myself. I'm a control freak and want to know how every single cell performs. I found it always a bit adventures to parallel cells without any control mechanism in between. I guess, it makes it hard to identify any problems or at least delays it a lot longer than if I had a four 1p16s in parallel. 4 BMSes are of course harder to connect and setup than just one BMS but I like to be in control. And there is the redundancy aspect of course as well. You are reliant on one battery with a p-system. Back to your question: I'm not really sure how I would start such a project. Testing for capacity and Ri may give you snapshot for today but cells may age differently and these well matched cells you measured and tested today may not be well matched in 2 years time any more. So what are you doing then? Re-test all cells again and match again? I'm really having a hard time to find any benefit of a p-system tbh...
So, this one will be on my new battery pack. But I never used an active balancer with bms before, is it okay to use them together? And which BMS should I consider? I want the best of the best, budget is not an issue.
Nice but one theoratical Thought. 15 A and just an internal temp sensor .... what if if its to cold , it would push and could well damage your cells as long as there is no external Balance stop
But is your battery fully charged when it is that could? It only top balances. I would assume the battery has charged up during the day from solar and warmed up enough.
@@OffGridGarageAustralia sunny warm i know and not in Germany as well.But whar abtut the Finish guy sitting in a hut with 20 h sun ... i know just hypotheticaly
passend zu der gerade gestellten Organic zeit bei Bolus Frage - damit ist meine erste Frage schon beantwortet - ich dosiere auch nach Bali Reef empfehlung Organic und Armin, so wie Elementels dem KH und CA beigemischt gemäß Rechner nach ICP. - untern strich kämpfe ich ehr mit zu hohen Nährstoff Werten als mit zu niedrigen - sollte ich die beiden "Alten" Produkte mal absetzen und nur bei den Elementals und Trace Anpassungen arbeiten nach icp Messungen?
Perhaps someone can advise. I just received my Neey and I want to try it out on a 2P8S battery that uses a REC Q BMS with passive balancing. I assume that I need to connect a bench top power supply AND disconnect the REC Q BMS so that they don't fight each other?
What is the actual point of this device? I design large batteries (biggest one is currently 460 kWh...) and i've never found the need to have 15A of balance current?
4) Is a balancing current of 2 to 4A per 100Ah a good target? 5) If a cell is 3.6V then you want the average balance current to be greater than the charging current at that moment (the CC stage max current or lower if you've reached the CV stage). It depends on how the battery is being used & how quickly the user is trying to charge it. EDIT: First time extreme unbalance is not going to happen every time. Once top balanced, the imbalance near 100% SOC won't change much each cycle so very little Time x Amps is needed to cope. A longer absorption stage at lower current (
Highly depends on your application, for a solar system you need more balance current than for a E-Bike application. Because a solar battery can make many cycles without getting full so you might not be able to balance for an extended period of time. For an E bike that get charged from the grid and has plenty of time to balance you need far less.
@@jonasstahl9826 e bikes only have plenty of time to charge if the driver doesn't drive multiple trips. My modified mobility scooter only has a certain amount of cell room and it demands high amps out on the trails and requires multiple quick charges for multiple trips. I use my gen set to charge due to two facts , i require multiple charges for multiple trips and they do not allow fossil fuel powered mobility scooters on the trails.
Thank u for such an amazing video. I need ur opinion on next matter: Question:Whats is ur opinion on combing old ( 9 years) and new battery cells? Its LIPOFE4 battery. Old batteries are 100Ah with different internal impedance ranging from 0.9-1.5m oms and new batteries are 0.3-0.6m oms. Final Question: Is that smart to combine and do u have any advice on how to do it in the best way
Andy I need your help I bought a new 15 amp Smart Balancer when I try to pair that with my phone Android it recognizes the balancer and then it asked me for a passcode I'm not the smartest tool in the shed maybe you can help me out any help would be greatly appreciated thanks
I shouted it out loud: YES!!!!!!!!!!!! The NEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEY!!!!! What a spectacular time to be living! But now, with nothing further to do, I will watch the rest of the video!
Yes, the NEEEEEEEEYY is back!
Finally a bms that does what's needed. 👍🤟👌.
Well well well, things are heating up really quick. 15A is no joke love it
It gets it done quickly.
Just ordered one. Headed to buy you a beer. Thank you for the 50 bucks you saved me.
Andy you are always number one! A warm greeting from Sardinia!
Thanks, Franco! Hello to beautiful Sardinia 👋
Beast mode ON!! 15A is incredible. Wonderful review. Thanks for sharing
Thanks a lot for your feedback.
Hi Andy, I’m currently living at tambourine Mountain but moving to Stanthorpe to go COMPLETELY offgrid, no power, post, water, sewage etc.
Yes we have a post office and minimal store about 4-5ks away and Stanthorpe 13km away but we have been 80% self sufficient in veg, 100% self sufficient in water and sewerage.
I’ve bought my panels, inverters and batteries (maxxcell and 16 3.4v to make 2kw as my starter package)
I love your experimentation as my next 5-10 years will be this.
Thanks for all your dedication and information.
Cheers Mike.
Thanks for sharing, Mike. That sounds really interesting. Good luck with your project.
Skip the foreplay, go 14kWh with 16S 280Ah😊
I want to thank you from Sunny Texas, USA. I watch most of your videos as you are very entertaining and I am interested in similar things. This video you did on the 15 amp Neely active balancer was what my "Frankenstein" system needed. I run my house on a solar system I built and installed myself and use a DIY power wall that I made from recycled 18650s. The battery is a 14S 260P and I was struggling with balancing because the battery was too big for what was on the market. Then one day I checked on your channel to see what was up and you had this video of the 15 amp balancer. It did the trick. In 72 hours I went from a cell difference of 1.2 Volts to currently 0.86 volts. My battery lasted the whole night and only needed to recharge from the grid once versus what would have been three grid charges. I could explain more but this comment would be longer. I use two 100 amp Daly BMS in parallel with a 4 amp active balancer with the new 15 amp Neely. Thanks a bunch good Sir. Paul Zertuche.
watch out for heater 18650s! more cells more problems.
Well done Andy, and Neeeeeey!
This is one hell of a beast.
I wish NEEY would develop a Smart Industrial BMS, it looks like they are trying to deliver interesting products according to users needs and wants, there are not many manufacturers like that.
Yeah, they came a long way and have finally really great products which just work out of the box. High quality PCBs and design. I really like them.
Hello Andy, congratulations on the UA-cam channel, I was able to buy this Neey 15a balancer for my new 2p16s battery (with a future extension to 4p16s) on Ali for 301 euros. I think that for this price it is a perfect balancer for any installation.
Greetings from warm Spain.
Outstanding video on the New NEEEY monster balancer Andy. Superbly delivered and edited. About to place an order. regards from Holy Island Max++
Thanks a lot for your ongoing support, Max!
I bought one and Cannot find software for my phone ,a google pixel, can you help me? Thanks!
BIEN ! 15A / 1mV, incroyable ! merci ANDY pour la démonstration.
15a ballencer just ordered it. Thank you Andy
Oh, wow, you didn't muck around...
How about this balancer but cannot find how to download the software to my Android phone if you or anyone else could tell me that would be greatly appreciated thank you
Thanks andy i had no idea this was available. Its beautiful. Thanks for keeping us updated on the new technology
And I had it sitting here for a while, so I thought the Frankenstein battery is the best battery to test it on.
It's obvious that this company is listening to its customers I wish next time they would include the screws so I could mount it connected permanently thanks again Andy
Hey Andy....... Nice bit of kit that Neeeeeey Thanks Andy!
Thank you. Yeah, really great tech they now have at NEEY Technology.
There is another very exciting product coming soon...
Danke aus Deutschland. Du hast mir den NEEY ein gutes Stück näher gebracht. Thanks a million
That's a kind of TOP-balancing. Very nice!
And so quick... When I watched the footage back, I realised that it took less than 20min to balance. The rest time was 'wasted' with setting up the camera.
Amasing amount grunt, outstanding!!
After all this time, it looks like they've finally build what the DIYers have been asking for! Another great video and practical example Andy - cheers!
Yeah, it seems pretty well build and working out of the box. No complaints from my (apart from having the LEDs in the wrong order from right to left😂)
I'd say this is heavily influenced by manufacturers cultures who natively read right to left....
@@OffGridGarageAustralia if i knew 100% that it works as you claim in the video I'd order one. I don't need the bother to maybe have to send it back and then lose the shipping and border fees.
Hell yeah! Nice amp! Good video brother! Bring us the audio ace line!
I like the Phoenix Contact´s on this Neeeey. Very nice!👍
Are they Phoenix Contacts? I knew they looked familiar...
Now that's a balancer
My Daly BMS's are still going well
Thanks!
Ray, thank you so much for your ongoing support, my friend!🍺🙏
@@OffGridGarageAustralia you're helping me tremendously I have a 20 s system 280 amp hour Eve batteries in a boat electric boat project and my backup battery and trolling battery is an 8 s system and I just ordered that 20 15 amp active balancer after watching your video I'm still learning I'm 67 years old and your videos are making my life much easier thank you again
Nice its the house Neeey. I love the baby Neey.
Yea, they are building great products now.
Haha german Andy, you are a real performer on the nerdlevel, no one takes you and I love it, the best to you there in australia😂😂
Well done review Andy. Good product they have made. The only thing I can suggest is to include one black balance cable. Have the option to choose the power supply plug for different countries.
I was thinking similar, with two black cables, one for power negative & one for battery cable 1 negative.
@@evil17 Even better!
I think it usually comes with a power supply as shown in the manual.
Mine came with a black this company is listening they also need to make the positive and negative power cables much longer
Hi Andy!,and Thanks again for this really nice video,with this really Good active Balancer,
I think this is currently the best! impressive at the speed at which it balance,( normal with these 15A of balance), Thank you again for sharing this video, because I had already seen this balancer, but I was not sure of its effectiveness, but now, we know from you!👍
Thanks for your feedback. There is another very exciting product coming soon...
That is one impressive balancer. Can't see why anyone would need more than 15A.
Mine is on the way!
Nice. Do a few laps on the battery race track before you install it. It drives very smooth.
bought one of these 6 months ago and still cannot find how to get software onto my phone a Google pixel if you could help that would be greatly appreciated thank you
Which protection board would you recommend to go along the NEEY 15A Smart Active Balancer? We are looking for something that offers over-charge and over-discharge protection, over-current, short circuit, etc. Our continuous current is usually around 200A (peaks can be around 500A) and our charging current can be around 280A. We are using 24 cells LiFePO4 battery.
Hi Andy, really enjoy your battery, BMS and balancer videos. This 15A balancer is a beast and can work ideally for very large Ah batteries. Would've been great if Neey had balance cables with ring terminals in addition or instead of crocodile clips so that it can be safely and permanently connected to a battery. I guess one would need to cut the crocodile clips off and attach your own ring terminals if you want to leave this balancer connected to your battery and have the peace of mind that the cables are properly secured. Would've been great too if they went up just one size to keep the balancer cables from getting so warm but I guess they didn't want to make the balancer even more expensive. Having said all that, Neey certainly seems to be ahead of the competition with their balancers.
For fixed installations, you can simply use different cables and connectors and keep the original cables and connectors for other batteries.
Does pull power from only one cell at a time then switch to send that power to only one cell at a time? Because if we compare this to a multi-channel balancer that has a lower amp rating perhaps it's not really as powerful as it sounds.
I was thinking the same thing except, Thing is its usually only a couple to a few cells that reach ovp or uvp depending on how many cells you have in a row. Within twenty minutes of balancing you're good to go again.
@@carmichaelmoritz8662 I ordered it, got 2 severely out of balance 400 amp hour sets of 48v banks to try it on.
Can the Neey active balancer work together with the build in active balancer of the jk bms.
Best regards
Johan
Up
How might I order additional correct connectors for the balancer? I have eight 300Ah batteries and am wanting to rig permanent cables to each battery bank that I can then connect to a single Neey balancer when I want to balance each bank.
You can buy the cables separately from the Hankzor store on AliExpress. If you cannot find them, contact them so they can send you the link.
Have a look under the NEEY balancer, there is the link to their store.
off-grid-garage.com/battery-management-systems-bms/
Faster balancing - healthy battery 👍
Thanks for the testing. That's a beast ! Can you do some testing when discharging the battery ?
Well, the balancer will turn off at 3.4V. If all cells are under that threshold, it is turned off.
Thank you for this review Andy. I just ordered the 10A version from Hankzor. My LTO battery bank is 18P23S LTO 55-AHr pouch cells. So 18 pouches in parallel to form each 2.3V "block". Therefore about 900 AHr total. After testing all 414 pouches individually, multiple times, using monitored charging and discharging, I believe I've got them sorted into pretty equal blocks; should be within ±1% in terms of capacity per block. So within about 10 AHr. So my thinking was the 10-amp balancer should get the pack balanced, in general, within an hour or so. The usable voltage range for LTO is roughly 1.8 to 2.7 volts per cell. I plan to set the BMS limits at 2.0 and 2.5 vpc (using a Chargery BMS for now, driving external contactors to kill charging or discharging when necessary).
It will be interesting to see how the individual cell voltage measurements compare between the Neey and the Chargery.
The unit I bought from Hankzor says it's 4th generation. Do you know whether its operating algorithms are the same as the 4A version, or more like the 15A version??
At the end it is the nice show case of the upper end quality you can get and therefore it looks really good and performed quite well or as expected.
There might be some that have these big batteries at least some in germany and UK I know about (60 kWh to 100 kWh LFP batteries) that might consider getting those.
Not sure how that would end if you need to run a 6 x 15 kWh or 6 x 16 cell battery from a single balancer with 6x 16 cables you should be able to switch around cause no one would buy 6 of these.
So they will need to get a switch with 6 positions on 16 contacts each 15 A and I guess there will only be one vendor or so and that multiswitch will come also with a nice price tag close to that of the balancer. But it was a nice test to watch working so fine and fast compared with the previous adventures in the past.
At least Neey has learned its lessons. So hats off - chapeau !
This NEEY is probably not designed for a single 16s 280Ah battery. But I like you thinking about a switch to connect multiple banks and it cycles them though either automatically or with a manual switch. I'm sure they are reading here...
It's really good what they are showing now and sets the bar really high. Like the JK-BMS and the NEEY 4A balancer before.
The question is if one really needs to topbalance every battery every time when irl most batteries may not get charged full most of the time.
Cycling would be as “easy” as a series of small relays or with some logic triggered from a 100% soc status. Even manually with sets of extra cables would not be a real problem when one plans the top balancing of the packs.
I am wondering if the balance leads are really fused.. a 15A or higher short can create a lot of damage within a day.. what happens when the software fails ? The battery is not protected by the BMS, since the balancer is connected directly to the battery. So to leave any high amp balancer permanently and virtually unprotected connected directly to the cells is placing a lot of faith in the balancer and its software.
At least one should program a very loud low or even high cell voltage warning.
Or initiate a balancer disconnect via a relay on the BMS triggered by a lower then 2,5 of higher then 3,65 cell voltage alarm. This prevents damage from incidental software bugs or freezes.. (cpu’s often freeze at certain high temperatures).
This won’t protect against fysical hardware faults or shorts.
Aka, the higher the balance currents the greater the damage in case of a failure.
So.. periodically planned manual top balancing may just be the way to go.
@@OffGridGarageAustralia with all the comments being filtered or blocked by youtube bots or moderators they will only see certain comments.
@@NaamNatuurlijkniet exactly. That's what he basically said. Only use it for a quick charge balance.
Great video Andy, when you think about it the balance cable size for 15Amps is inadequate since you can feel heat in the cable.
This was my first thought when I saw the size of the balance cables, I was wondering how warm they might get with such a current. On most batteries they would probly be fine as it balances so quick, but on a battery with a dud cell that just does not want to balance, I imagine it could become an issue if left unchecked.
Well, 1.5mm is still OK for 15A. The voltage drop does not matter in this case as it measures after balancing. The cable gets hand warm, not hot.
Nice review. 👍🏽 I can see that at T18:33, when you set the start vol to 3.50v. The balancer uses average voltage to start balancing rather than the minimum pack voltage. This is the same as previously tested neey 3rd generation where you pointed out that there’s risk of over charging due to 22-24 milivolt difference
I hope I’m correct.
I ordered the 10A version works pretty the same. Thanks
Thx for the video. Interesting device. The more batteries you build, the less the price should not matter. Maybe it's perfect for the balancing quicky from time to time :). For a single battery use (excluding builds like the 5p16s you mentioned) it's a little on the expensive side - just buy good cells - balancer saved ;). Anyway now i know such a balancer exists, in case i get to use inbalanced batteries anytime.
Yeah, definitely a niche device for shops, battery builders and large batteries.
1) I think a safer way to connect is start with the alligator clips onto batteries (don't connect to balancer till after testing). Use voltmeter (multimeter set for DC Volts) to test the voltage across neighbouring contacts (connector at the balancer end). Move just 1 over & repeat test 8 times in total per connector & between connectors). They should all be similar 1 cell voltage & all positive. You can also check the 8S & 16S voltage across the far ends of a group.
Then check you have the 1st group with the 1st connector & plug it into the balancer. Then the rest.
2) They could preempt ramping down current based on voltage difference, max cell voltage & SOC. Eg. 15A for >60mV difference, 1.5A for 6mV difference (~200Ah cells).
3) It's interesting it needs ~2 minutes to charge/cycle, a 6 to 20 second cycle time would be better.
Wow, really nice bit of device Andy, not much to criticise here except maybe include two black cables for power in neg & battery negative which is easily done at home.
Yeah, I can see the Digital Mermaid using this soon. When I consider the price of most Victron components this device does not seem that rich for what it does, especially as u say, if ur a battery tradie who deals with a lot of batteries & cells. Great vid & review of this marvellous new balancing device from NEEY. Cheers
Thanks or your feedback. That could be in deed something for Madi's boat. But she uses the JK BMS already so it will be OK, I assume.
would be awesome for top balancing a new battery. looks like a good product.
Yeah, that will be a very easy and efficient task with the croc clamps...
would be a hell of a tool for forklift trucks that run on batterys
Is it possible to find the software interface for this fantastic balancer? Of course, it came with zero documentation, as usual for Chinese "products."
The inside electronics look nicely made.
The pairs of 2.7V @ 600F are probably in series to provide a 5.4V 300F super cap that is higher then the max battery voltage.
Note: For a 300F capacitor with a 1 amp charge/discharge current its voltage will change at 3.33mV per second.
At 15A 0.05V per second.
I’d have thought a PAIR of 2.7v@600F would give 5.4v@600F?? Have I got that wrong? (It’s a very looong time since I studied this stuff.)
You're right, Dave. Two 2.7V/600F in series will give you 5.4V/600F. It's like series connecting batteries.
I thought they are all on parallel to enable charging from single cells directly.
@@OffGridGarageAustralia 👍 Thanks Andy, I was worried that I was going senile LOL :-)
@@OffGridGarageAustralia Unfortunately they don't add up like batteries. @universe is right. Two 600F capacitors in series will give you only 300F but double the voltage (5.4V).
@@danielardelian2 yes, my apologies. Series connecting capacitors do NOT double the capacity. Caps behave the opposite to resistors when in series and parallel.
They are probably all in parallel then, to increase capacity.
Thats... wow, purchased one. Finally replacing my origional 2a.
Really? For a single battery? Was the 2A not enough?
@@OffGridGarageAustralia 2a takes a while, but the main issue was that I couldn't set a voltage to stop balancing so, so once I charged it again it would take a day to balance. 560ah is a lot!
The balancer works with the cell with the highest and lowest voltage.
If the balancer also balances another pair of cells in sequence, (or even more pairs in sequence) for example the second highest and the second lowest, it would increase the balancing efficiency if it could distribute the energy even crosswise between these two or more pairs of cells - if it discharged the second, third highest cell before the highest, it would put the energy from it into the lowest and second lowest and not wait to discharge only the highest cell. It would probably be multiple balancers of this type in one, but they could work together and distribute the energy between them. Multiple cells managed by the balancer at once would reduce the balancing time a lot, even for a balancer weaker than 15A.
Or a balancer as powerful as this would be enough to balance multiple 16S batteries at once, it would need more cables and a modified balancing algorithm for multi battery packs. Then it could transfer energy from cells in one battery pack to cells in the other battery pack. I can imagine this one balancer being connected to all three of your batteries on the Battery 2.0 shelf through the external teminal blocks, and balancing the whole Battery 2.0.
The balancer would need more super caps if it balances more than one pair. Not sure if they are the expensive part of the balancer...
This is what the normal capacitive balancers are doing, they balance all cells at the same time.
@@OffGridGarageAustralia the expensive part might just be the fact its not a high selling item. the price should keep going down to an affordable for all price after more sales. I hope so. Then a gamble purchase would be in favor.
It’s $331 shipped now to us.
Hey Andy,
Is this able to connect to an iPhone?
Or a PC?
Thanks for your video’s
Andy , I bought this balancer but cant find the android app , any help from anyone would be greatly appreciated , thanks to all!!!
Andy, I’ve tested this balancer also. Great balancer HOWEVER…. Have you tried balancing a pack when it is miles out of balance? I’ve found that the average voltage needs to be above the balancing start voltage. For example, if one of the cells has somehow reached 3.65v and the rest are sitting around 3.4v. If the balance start voltage is set at 3.45v then the balancer will not start. Is this your finding also?
awesome balancer 👍
Unfortunately priced to match 😢
I still use JK BMS with 2A balancer. Why is this not enough?
For REALLY unbalanced batteries. Useful if the supply chain continues to degrade.
It is enough.
when charging at 200A, you think balancing with 2A can keep up between the lowest and highest cell? :)
@@PhilippeCJRI think your answer is the only one that justifies the $500 price tag
@@ewokjerky4508 I have the 4A Neey, and so far its also fine for the job.
Wow that App is a nightmare to install...... Works great once installed. Great info thanks again Andy!😀
Really? I downloaded and installed it. Pretty straight forward, I thought...
Having trouble as well. How did you get it done?
@@roostaman3046 You download the apk file and install it on your mobile.
What trouble do you have?
Near the bottom of the page I found a link that actually worked@@roostaman3046
@@OffGridGarageAustralia It turns out that my phone was rejecting the app for security reasons. Got it now. The 15a balancer is making top balancing the 16s banks a dream.
The white thingies on the PCB is fuses, yes. The smaller NEEY balancer also have fuses.
I thought so. 35A it says on top...
I live in Asian where USD 700 eBikes are plentiful and that Neey would turn it into a USD 1200 ebike. It is rare for any of the eBikes here to have lithium batteries. Mine has sealed LA -5S for 60V/20Ah. I do have some 60Ah Lithium-Ions that I'm going to put in it to increase distance. I'm waiting on the 17S Daly BMS. I'll see if DALY can handle the job, I'm a novice so it will give me a bit more actual experience. I'm excited. I'm roaring to get started. I'm waiting on the BMS to arrive from China.
Thanks so much for all the BMS videos. They're great. There is something you don't talk about much - how much unbalance can a pack tolerate? What are the ramifications?
Interesting that you use lead acid batteries for e-bikes over there. The balancer would be rather something for a e-bike store where they provide services for their customers and re-balance battery pack. For a single e-bike battery, it would be overkill for sure.
The Daly will not balance well. They have very weak balancers of 50mA.
There is nor real threshold on how much imbalance is too much. Usually, when you have a certain unbalance, the drift only gets worse over time.
Great footge & tests, so thd balancer could do with larger cables?!?!
It could but not really necessary. Remember, the efficiency is still better than with any passive balancer.
Thanks, this balancer for F1 cars.... 😁
Are you sure it survives wrong polarity of the balance wires? The "disorderly" thing i understand as being able to connect balance wires in random order without it getting upset.
I'll confirm that again.
Yes, you neeeeeeeed this for Frankenstein ;-)
It did a good job!
Hello Andy,
what about the efficiency? With the Neey V4 balancer (production date May 2023) I have measured 30-40%. My version reduces also like the 15A Version the balancer current to 2A or 1A if the deviation is very small. The old app also no longer works with this "new" V4. After a long search I have also found the new version of the app.
The efficiency is better than with any passive balancer which would be the alternative to an active balancer.
Yeah, I measured as well around 60-70% with the smaller NEEY.
Hi Andy
What is the voltage range this can take - ie, can it balance 8volt batteries or 12volt batteries? If not, do you know of a balancer that can do say 3v to 15v etc?
Many TIA - ...pcnz
Sieben acht neun zehn .. your German IS perfekt ❤
Why does it need to know the capacity of the packs if its using voltage to determine / trigger where the electrons are going? In guessing people with damaged packs/cells are having grossly incorrect reported capacities in BMS if it cant access the rest of the good cells due to hitting under/overvoltage protections prematurely. Be interesting to see if it can really help get access to the rest due to such an effective balancer...
I'm not 100% sure either about this setting. I have tested it with 30Ah setting and could not see any difference in balance power/performance.
How do you get that balance current / 60?
1 cycle = 1 minute?
15A * 1hr = 15Ah
15A / 60minute = 0.25Ah
hmm
2-3min to charge
and discharge for 2-3min
I estimate it at a 5Ah in an hour?
It’ll put 7.5Ah either at 2 min or 3 min cycle
Don't know how long a cycle is... It takes 1-3 minutes and depends.
This is just the formula from the manual.
Hello Andy, how is it that I see such high variations from freshly built battery packs? As much as 18mV? The most I've seen in my two self-built is 3mV for the 304A and 5mV for the 314A. I have tested my Neey active balancer and it's giving me slightly higher readings than my Seplos E10 rounding figures to the next 1mV. I really do not see any use for my brand-new NEEY, in fact, I've had it for over a year and only just decided to test it.
Hi for some reason the app isn’t available on the apple App Store can you help
Hi Andy, a great option in the app would be 2x 8 cell option like the batrium bms
What would that do?
i have a 24 volt battery ,16 cells 280 a/h , 2 x 8 cells in parallel 560 a/h , do i need 2x neeeeeeys?
@@rmichaellinden6789 do you have 8 cells in series and another 8 cells in series? (a BMS and NEEY is needed for each battery bank)
Or 2 cells in parallel and then 8 of these duos in series? (only one BMS and one NEEY is necessary)
i have 8 cells in series and eight cells in series , one batrium bms , it has a setting for two x eight in series on one bms regards michael
I Can not find a App in the Apple App Store for this 15A Balancer, can you help?
What happens, if a croco clamp jumps for a screw, will this destroy the balancer?
It will b--w up the neighborhood.
Catastrophic!
As I said at the end, the balancer has protection circuits.
I have also demonstrated it in the video.
552,91€ in Aliexpress to France !
I wonder if it would work to use 4x 4amp?
In any case it would be cheaper.
Aren't they a EUR150 for the 4A version?
As I said in the video, this is a balancer for shops, battery builders and large systems. Not for a single battery.
@@OffGridGarageAustralia I paid 75€ for my 4amp
@@edouart Great price!
What does "over flow" on the original neey mean? Says "AVQ line res exceed" now neey won't turn on
Is it unbenificial (or harmful) to run a passive balancer AND an active balancer at the same time? Lithium Ion...Molicel 21700 p42s
They can run in parallel without issues, no problem. They even can have different settings.
Hi.. great vid.
This is the kind of balancer you could use to balance multiple parallel packs.
In your case you have different capacities of batterypacls hooked up. They would have to make a 50volt version of it in that case.
With a rating of 15A it might also be interesting to use as a bottom balancer.
On a battery level it would enlarge the usable capacity of the frankenstein battery for example.
And what of 2p16s batteries.. 15A may just do the trick. I mean, one could make a 3p16s pack and still have the same result and speed as the 4A version has on a 16S pack. With a 200A bms one would still have about 10kW of drawable power, still only discharge at a max of 1C but save money on less complexity, less cables and 1 instead of 3 bms-ses.
Added later… the 1C is not correct.. maximum current would be limited by the BMS only.
For the price of 2 bms-ses, cables, lugs, busbars and so on, one can almost buy another 16cells.
What would be the drawback ? Except the hotter BMS ?
Bottom balancing would only work if the balancer is kept working all the time. Even with 15A, it would be only working with small loads. Only one 304Ah cell at the time can be discharged into the caps and then transferred into the 280Ah cell. Because we have several 280A cells and they all need to be kept above the UVP threshold, it needs a quite long time to balance them all out.
At the end, you would destroy your perfect top balancing again and have this same issue when fully charging the next time.
Bottom balancing is really a bad idea, it is a bit a thing from the past when we didn't have good BMSes and balancers.
@@OffGridGarageAustralia
I see what you mean… when using different capacity cells in one battery one has to balance them at every bottom and every top to keep it working.
This indeed would only work on small loads.. and with multiple small and large cells this would take time. At least for the frankenstein, which is not a general setup.
When using 4 batteries in series drawing 20a each one could still supply a 4kW load. General household use may not even surpass an average 1 kWh.. not talking about boilers, heatpumps, EV’s and cooking 🫣
For a small unbalance at the bottom this would be a waste.. for a huge unbalance a.k. one “bad” cell I could think of some use.. for multiple different capacity cells it would take too much time and a rebalancing at the top each time. Actually a bad idea 🫣
I have been wondering though..
What would happen when connecting a 17th virtual cell to the balancer, lets say a 15A 3,5xx Volt powersupply or a dc-dv converter effectively making a 17S battery with an always Full 17th cell.
This would enable the balancer to topup any cell to the maximum selected voltage of cell #17 without the charger having to be active , so when the pack voltage has already been reached.
When the source of #17 is the whole pack it would draw a little from all cells instead of one and dump it in the individual cells that need it. Some of the power (lets say 1/16th) is recycled then during each balance cycle. This would reduce the number of microcycles I guess.. since in most packs it are always the same cells that are too high (to soon) or to low. One could argue that the extra microcycles on the best and worst cells of the pack would degrade them faster… although calender aging comes first I guess.
Just thinking out loud here.. I wonder if when using the whole array of batteries (lets say 4) as a source for 4x virtual battery #17 and 4 balancers would not also balance out not only the individual cells but also the individual batterypacks.
The set source voltage of #17 would have to be taken into account then, just to prevent endless balance cycles creating more loss then gain by balancing.
Again just analytical thinking out loud if this would be a way around balancing complete batteries without have to use 50v balancers.
Thinking a bit more, this would also mean that eventually all cells in all packs will have around the same voltage, but cell #17 will still always be a bit higher. So how do we tell the balancer to stop.
An other approach would be a cycling charger. So one draws from all packs at te same time, converts to a “float” charging voltage/current back to the same battery. Effectively creating conversion losses. Dc to dc would be best I guess.
The balancers with just 16 cells attached would then effectively balance each cell to the virtual charger voltage drawing from the highest cells per battery but without discharging them too much since there is also a charger active… one could limit the charging current to lets say 15A or more by trial and error effectively only recyclecharging each of 4 packs with 3,x Ah.. when one balancer draws power the current to the batteries would be 0, when 2 or more would dwaw it would simply take longer to charge the balancers. When 0 balancers would draw power the 15A would simply be recycled evenly to all batteries.
Doing all this… what would be the benefit of it all ?
I guess the bottom (0%) soc of all the batteries may get closer together in time effectively preventing a potential high load being drawn from only one battery when the rest is turned of by the BMS, or when BMS protection is set lower it would keep the battery voltages closer together at the bottom.
This makes me wonder if batteries don’t balance themselves during discharge in the lower voltage range. I would say when battery voltages are starting to differ at lower socs I guess more current will be drawn from the battery with the higher voltage.
Nice story this… nice and short 😁
Have you ever tested the remaining capacity per battery after discharging the complete array to a daily safe voltage ?
For people selling the whole contents of the array during peak feedin tarif time this could mean they are wearing one battery off much faster then the otherones in the array.. balancing packs may reduce wear.
Wouldn’t a float charger with the whole array as a powersource not do exactly the same.. in other words, when floatcharging to lets say 3,4 Volts per cell until the current goes down to 0.. will there still be unbalance between cells after that and if not, will all cells hold approxx the same amount of power.
Maybe a bit too much for the “forum” though 🫣
@@NaamNatuurlijkniet Thanks for you great comment and sharing your thoughts.
The 17th cell as a power supply is a great idea at first. Once all batteries have caught up to this level, the problem begins and the balancer will pick other cells for balancing, may even over balance some slightly and will try at some stage to charge the 17th.
Many of the systems and devices we're using are imperfect and if I could, I would make the 'perfect' BMS and balancer.
Yes, we have done all the battery testing to determine what is the best cut-off voltage for charging and discharging. I ran the big battery tester for months to find all that out. All data has been published on my website and all videos are still here on my channel.
@@NaamNatuurlijkniet exactly. Mismatching cells never works and is not worth the effort. I bought used cells and had to group the cells accordingly. The first group i bought had a number of cells that either reached the ovp or uvp and then cut off the charge or load to protect the cells. Some reached 3.65 ovp while others were still at 2.99 or 3.30 or close. Some reached 2.50 uvp while others were still at or around 3.33v. It was like a side show bob lol. I'm still undecided about the bms in the video. If only i knew it worked as good as claimed. I have trust issues when it comes to online high priced items. Duty and return fees for an item that might not work for my needs seems like a gamble. If only a place in Canada saskathchewan would have these in stock. Or willing to order it for me payment in advance of course. The bms i have on it now works great for an overnight charge. I need a bms like in the video that claims to be able to do a quick charge.
Hi Andy thank you for the video! Do you think it works with jk active balancer or do i have to deactivate the Jk balancer ? (Conflict)
I'm looking for a smart active balancer for 32s, have you ran across into any device that can achieve that configuration ?
You can cascade the inductive active balancers as well as the NEEY balancers. You basically buy two and overlap them.
There is info and diagrams on the Hankzor website. The link is on my website: off-grid-garage.com/battery-management-systems-bms/
Congrats, I sure your har work testing has allowed them to achieve the perfect balancer, they should give you a commission of every one sold
Not expecting they will sell many of them for this price. $300 would be more appropriate, I guess...
@@OffGridGarageAustralia the price started a over one grand and is down to five hundred already. I'd pay the five hundred if i knew it did what i need. I'm still a bit skeptic on having to lose duty and shipping if i have to send it back.
Thanks, very possitive video )
Does this work using a seplos BMS as solar. Or should be used on a bench charger
Hi there. I have been a subcriber for a long time, and have a question for you. I have a Lithium battery bougth here in Norway, and the BMS is only 100A. Can I change the BMS to a 200A and still be safe? (not destroying the cells?)
Thanks for your question and being a long term subscriber.
That totally depends on the batteries which are in the box. If they can be charged/discharged with 200A (see cell specifications) and the cables are rated for that current, then yes, you can replace it.
Thanks Andy for all your interresting Videos : )
Seems to be quite a rocket science with the BMSs..is it ok if I take a Jikong which balances with 2A a 280Ah 24V Lifepo4 battery stack, or is there anything dangerous?
Good review and test.
From my table for a single conductor in free air, a 16 Awg wire will have a 25degC temp rise, when the the wires are bundled the temp rise will be much higher. Good they used silicon wire as it has a 200degC temp rating.
Lots of wasted energy as heat in the wires and balancer its self.
What's the alternative though? The efficiency of the balancer is still better than any passive balancer.
@@OffGridGarageAustralia
Yes this is much better then a passive balancer since they are all loss. Once the batteries are balanced losses are null.
Discovered you channel a few weeks ago, helpful, interesting and love the hummer.
Though in Canada, your winter cold is a nice day.
@@universeisundernoobligatio3283 Welcome to the channel and thanks for your feedback. Yeah, our winter seems like a walk in the park for many. Once you live here for 14 years, you are acclimatised and 22° feels chilly, 5° freezing 😃
Not losing valuable solar storage capacity due to imbalance should compensate for the loss causes by the balancer and it's cost in the long run if you can avoid replacing or adding expensive batteries for years to come. And it may save you a lot of time and headaches when one battery is reaching the end of it's life.
Wha would be your thoughts on running 2 or 3 heltec balancers in parallel (in an 18s 3P 960AH battery) using the voltage sensing relay to activate them on/off?
I was thinking I could run one 5a balancer per series and have them all switched on/off by the same single relay in the voltage detector.
My question : Would there be any major issues using a shared common switch between them? I know there would be a slight difference between the actual balances of the cells between series packs, but that would be minimal (around 10-15mv) right? To add to that, would it be best to connect all the individual cells in parallel with their matching cells in other packs to keep it all balanced as one, or better to keep only the main voltage connected and let them each manage each other out? Thanks Andy!!!
The question here is: why are your cells so out of balance that you need 3 balancers?
Technically, you can run as many balancers in parallel as you want without any problems. You will need a separate isolated contact for each balancer to turn them on so a double or triple pole relay will do it.
@@OffGridGarageAustralia First off, thank you for the response! I’ve watched your channel grow over the years and it’s amazing to see you doing so well!
Back to our chat; Yes you’re right about the balancers needed, I was just wondering(as I haven’t had the time to experiment at lower balance currents) if they’d be able to share the same contact or not, of course which you’d answered and made sense.
I’ve been building custom batteries for off grid customers the past 2 years and the majority of my lifepo4 chemistry info comes from your experiments which I love and appreciate!
This latest battery is for myself personally (finally) and will be a 60v setup (now 4P because of a sale) at 1280 amp hours. I figured to play it same with 5A of current per battery string and have them separate as far as balance leads.
I did have one last question, sorry for the long reply: Without fully testing every single cell and matching packs for AH balancing, would you recommend tying the cells together so that each one is balanced together with it’s parallel counterpart?
@@redbaronrefining5322Thanks for the info and sharing. I'm always happy to read that people are getting inspired by watching some of my videos. That's great and a good motivation.
So, you're building a 4p battery and maybe hence your question about 3 balancers in parallel.
I have never built a p-battery myself. I'm a control freak and want to know how every single cell performs. I found it always a bit adventures to parallel cells without any control mechanism in between. I guess, it makes it hard to identify any problems or at least delays it a lot longer than if I had a four 1p16s in parallel. 4 BMSes are of course harder to connect and setup than just one BMS but I like to be in control. And there is the redundancy aspect of course as well. You are reliant on one battery with a p-system.
Back to your question: I'm not really sure how I would start such a project. Testing for capacity and Ri may give you snapshot for today but cells may age differently and these well matched cells you measured and tested today may not be well matched in 2 years time any more. So what are you doing then? Re-test all cells again and match again?
I'm really having a hard time to find any benefit of a p-system tbh...
So, this one will be on my new battery pack. But I never used an active balancer with bms before, is it okay to use them together? And which BMS should I consider? I want the best of the best, budget is not an issue.
That totally depends on your battery and system design.
What's the best car, the best computer, the best shoe? What fits me, may not fit others...
Nice but one theoratical Thought. 15 A and just an internal temp sensor .... what if if its to cold , it would push and could well damage your cells as long as there is no external Balance stop
But is your battery fully charged when it is that could? It only top balances.
I would assume the battery has charged up during the day from solar and warmed up enough.
@@OffGridGarageAustralia sunny warm i know and not in Germany as well.But whar abtut the Finish guy sitting in a hut with 20 h sun ... i know just hypotheticaly
It is Good to make top balancing
Andy I bought this balancer I cannot find the software to download anywhere could you please help me
You for not even trying to help me!
Wow!
passend zu der gerade gestellten Organic zeit bei Bolus Frage - damit ist meine erste Frage schon beantwortet - ich dosiere auch nach Bali Reef empfehlung Organic und Armin, so wie Elementels dem KH und CA beigemischt gemäß Rechner nach ICP. - untern strich kämpfe ich ehr mit zu hohen Nährstoff Werten als mit zu niedrigen - sollte ich die beiden "Alten" Produkte mal absetzen und nur bei den Elementals und Trace Anpassungen arbeiten nach icp Messungen?
Perhaps someone can advise. I just received my Neey and I want to try it out on a 2P8S battery that uses a REC Q BMS with passive balancing. I assume that I need to connect a bench top power supply AND disconnect the REC Q BMS so that they don't fight each other?
What is the actual point of this device? I design large batteries (biggest one is currently 460 kWh...) and i've never found the need to have 15A of balance current?
No idea, for me 200mA is more than enough to keep everything within the 10mA delta for the past two years..
What program is it used on mobile phones?
Link to my website is in the description. There, you can find the app link to download.
wow, almost makes me want to build a battery pack now. Power Wall 100.0
Yes, me too! Boxes are waiting in the garage for a while.
4) Is a balancing current of 2 to 4A per 100Ah a good target?
5) If a cell is 3.6V then you want the average balance current to be greater than the charging current at that moment (the CC stage max current or lower if you've reached the CV stage).
It depends on how the battery is being used & how quickly the user is trying to charge it.
EDIT: First time extreme unbalance is not going to happen every time. Once top balanced, the imbalance near 100% SOC won't change much each cycle so very little Time x Amps is needed to cope. A longer absorption stage at lower current (
Highly depends on your application, for a solar system you need more balance current than for a E-Bike application.
Because a solar battery can make many cycles without getting full so you might not be able to balance for an extended period of time. For an E bike that get charged from the grid and has plenty of time to balance you need far less.
Yeah, as Jonas said, it all depends on your system design.
@@jonasstahl9826 e bikes only have plenty of time to charge if the driver doesn't drive multiple trips. My modified mobility scooter only has a certain amount of cell room and it demands high amps out on the trails and requires multiple quick charges for multiple trips. I use my gen set to charge due to two facts , i require multiple charges for multiple trips and they do not allow fossil fuel powered mobility scooters on the trails.
Thank u for such an amazing video. I need ur opinion on next matter:
Question:Whats is ur opinion on combing old ( 9 years) and new battery cells? Its LIPOFE4 battery. Old batteries are 100Ah with different internal impedance ranging from 0.9-1.5m oms and new batteries are 0.3-0.6m oms.
Final Question: Is that smart to combine and do u have any advice on how to do it in the best way
Andy I need your help I bought a new 15 amp Smart Balancer when I try to pair that with my phone Android it recognizes the balancer and then it asked me for a passcode I'm not the smartest tool in the shed maybe you can help me out any help would be greatly appreciated thanks
Where can I buy this,thanks!