HV Balancer Options?

[BrianG]

Other than the Thunderpower TP-210 or networking two LBA10's, are there any other options out there?

The TP-210 is a bit pricey IMO, and two LBA10's is almost as expensive with the added wire mess of networking them via the master/slave cable.

I was thinking about using a couple of the CommonsenseRC balancers and just overlap one of the cell inputs (so both balancers have a common cell reference), but not sure how this will work.

There's gotta be something better out there, or is there?

[Arct1k]

I would have thought you could just use 2 x 5 cell $20 balancers with the ground on the second being 16.8v but might pay to check first that a balancer will work with such a high floating ground...

[Arct1k]

Brain thinking... I presume you are actaully running 2 x 5s packs - in which case the above won't actually help balancing across two packs as you'll just get two balanced packs but with different volatges ie. maybe 5 cells at 4.1 in pack 1 and 5 cells and 4.2 in pack 2...

I guess the network cable in the LBA10 config is feeding a cell voltage to the other lba10 so that they are in sync in terms of target voltage.

I don't know that this would actually get much difference if you balance charge each pack separately. Do you get that much deviation from 4.2?

[BrianG]

Putting the ground at a higher voltage is not a big deal at all. But just putting them in series won't set the cell reference. The first balancer will balance the first 5s pack, and the second will balance the second 5s pack, but there is nothing linking the two so one 5s pack could be imbalanced to the other 5s pack.

I figured paralleling the first cell input of balancer 1 with the last cell input of balancer 2 will set the cell voltage reference common to each other. But then, the cell that has two balancers on it will balance way faster because it is draining at half the voltage. Not to mention I'd really have a single 11s balancer.

Don't know what kind of variation that would occur, but the possibility is there...