Stand Alone Balancer Recommendation
 

Can anyone suggest a good, high discharge stand alone balancer.

I've got great charging equipment, and its not as much for me as to help fellow racers, when they get into trouble.

I'm looking for a stand alone (plug the battery in, no AC or DC power) balancer.

I'm looking for as high discharge rate as I can get.

Would like 2S-6S operation range

Have Hyperion balance boards so if it works with them great!!!!

Also anyone know the name or type of the plugs used on the Hyperion balance board extension cords??? I'm thinking of making longer extensions.

Thanks
Kevin P.

Only balancer I've seen the balancing disch rate quoted for is an Astro Blinky basically cause it's low. I don't know what these typically disch at, but the Hyperion LBA-10 has the highest charge thru rate (10a) and it will operate in standalone mode as well. It would allow use of your Hyperion adapter boards.


http://www.allerc.com/hyperion-eos-l...0a-p-2916.html


Since this balancer has the highest charge thru, it may have the highest disch as well, but I don't know that for sure.

Thanks Duster,

I'll see If I can find the discharge rate on the LBA-10

Thanks Again

Dont think you will find a standalone device that has a high bleed current, most are under 300 mah, some as low as 50 mah

Pretty sure the LBA-10 is 120 mah or thereabouts

How do you plan to use it ?

I use one of these and they work well

http://www.modelrectifier.com/search...w.asp?ID=11403

Cheers

Thanks for the suggestion,

While club racing, I've help a few (several) of my fellow racers "fix" that lipo pack that is out of balance enough that no charger will touch it. By "fix" I either add volts to a single cell, (through the balance plug) or balance it on my Hyperion Duo 2 Charger. I wanted to find the highest discharge rate stand alone balancer availale to help with my "repair service" and not tie-up my charger while I'm racing.

That is my goal, making my race day easier. :)

Admirable goal for sure, always good to help out. :nod:

If I may offer some unsolicited advice, be careful balancing out of whack discharged lipos. If they are out of balance discharged it quite possibly (likely?) because the cell capacities are different.

If so, balancing while discharged will most likely make the situation worse. If they are charged without a balancer the different capacities will result in a cell being overcharged, which is literally dangerous. Even if balance charged the balancer will have extra work to keep them balanced. Also one risks further damage from over discharging cells from the repair balance process.

My apologies if this is unneeded advice.

If the charger will not commence the charge then the pack has more than likely dropped below min voltage (C x 3.0v)

Ive never heard of a charger not starting the charge because the cells are way out of balance

Chances are they are damaging their packs if they are taking them this low

Better advice would be to get them to not run as long or set their LVC's higher

Assuming they set their LVC's for 3.4v or so they should be aiming for a resting voltage of 3.7v / cell

Cheers

I certainly agree with crusey, prevention is way better than any cure.

Balance condition will not make a charger refuse to charge a lipo, its low voltage and your buddys are running either no lvc or using one that's set too low. Needless to say, this is not good for the lipo as far as cycle life is concerned and I'm surprised you have seen several puff in response to this kind of mistreatment.

If you have to provide this as a service, get a charger than charges thru the balance conn - this one is cheap and will do multiple lipos, at least it won't tie up your Duo -

http://www.hobbycity.com/hobbycity/s...idProduct=2055

Thanks for the input guys, I should have explained, I'm very familiar with lipos, and the correct way to keep them in good shape. I own a couple thousand dollars of lipo's and gear for fast electric boats, set-ups of 6S 10,000mah with amp draws of my hotter set-ups of around 130 amps.

Its usualy the very budget minded racer who I help out and usually I help find the problem, not just keep a wounded pack in service.

My last "repair" was due to a bad balance plug. And yes some of the more basic balancing chargers will error out with a big out of balance condition. In the last case the cells were .38 volt different and the charger in question was not having it.

Just looking for the highest discharge rate balancer I can find, to help when needed.

Thanks

K Peterson

Only one I've actually seen quoted is for a Blinky at 50ma. But I just noticed this spec in the Hyperion manual for their NET3, DUO3, and SDUO3 chargers -

"Built -in Hyperion LBA10/300 Balancers with 300mA max balance rate per cell".


It would appear that the LBA-10 balancer has a 300mA max balance rate.

http://www.hobbycity.com/hobbycity/s...dProduct=10328

This is a really neat device that should fit your need.
You can balance and discharge and set limits of where to start to balance and when to stop to discharge.
I think you can find it under the MKS brand to.
Have one and i like it!

I have one of those HK devices, found it took far too long to balance even when cells were fairly close

It also gets very hot

Cheers

Well it takes some time for shure.
It states a bleed current of 200-450mah i guess depending on number of cells.

Thats about the same as most chargers so it's not gonna be any slower then those.