HA-02 Balancers

[Riaanh]

Hi guys

Sorry for starting a new thread, but had a look at the Balancing of Batteries thread, and scared of posting there with a new question, as the topic shifted a little.

To the guys in the know, who are willing to take a stab at clarifying the statement on the HA-02 balancers highlighted in the picture?

[Mark]

It will balance for example...
a 2x 12v in series 24v bank or
a 2x 12v in parallel 12v bank.

Sent from my SM-G800F using Tapatalk

[ebrsa]

@Riaanh I suppose it refers to connecting to a bank of batteries connected in series as far as series is concerned. But as an example I have connected battery 4 on bank 1 to battery 5 in bank 2 of my 2x8 T105 which are connected in parallel. If one has two banks of batteries and connect the first 2 pairs of HA02 wires to the first 2 batteries of bank 1, those would be in series. Then connect the 2nd 2 pairs of wires similarly to the 2nd bank they would be also in series. However the first 2 pairs in relation to the 2nd two pairs would be in parallel. At least that was my interpretation and is how I interconnected the two batteries mentioned earlier. I hope I was right but would apprecate your views on my connections.

[Chris Hobson]

2 hours ago, Riaanh said:

Hi guys

Sorry for starting a new thread, but had a look at the Balancing of Batteries thread, and scared of posting there with a new question, as the topic shifted a little.

To the guys in the know, who are willing to take a stab at clarifying the statement on the HA-02 balancers highlighted in the picture?

It's Chinglish so could mean anything...... Looking on the instructions on E-Bay ....

"One equaliser can connect 2-4 batteries at a time, if battery pack is less than the 4, the extra cable is left vacant (positive and negative terminal should be insulated). The equaliser can be connected with batteries in parallel for larger capacity balancing. Several equalisers can be connected in series for larger voltage balancing."

I think that is what they are getting at.

[Riaanh]

Thanks for the feedback @Mark , @ebrsa and @Chris Hobson.

This is always the difficulty with our Eastern friends.

Most of the manuals/information pamflets are "very loosely" translated with Google translate :-)

If you look at the following images, the first three are from the "manual"/google, I simply highlighted the connections for clarity.

The single 48V series bank are good.

The Double 48V series bank are imo OK, but not ideal.

The 2X 24V banks image is also good but again not ideal imo.

Then I added another image to illustrate my understanding of ebrsa's connection he refers to.

This is the one of concern to me. I cannot see why it should not work, but my fingers are still really raw from all the hot components I touched lately

[Chris-R]

I've checked with the supplier and got the answer below

"  Hi Chris,

 

Thank you, I am great~

The battery equalizer HA02 can balance 4pcs batteries once, no matter the batteries are in series or in parallel.

So HA02 can be used more convenient and widely.   "

 

 

The balancers is designed for equalising max of 4 batteries. It will not be wrong to attach more batteries whether in series or in parallel of a mix thereof, but the process of balancing will be longer or shorter. The max rating of the HA-02 is 10 amp / per unit

 

Hope this helps

[Chris Hobson]

54 minutes ago, Riaanh said:

 

Hi Riaan

Happy with this configuration. Wire pairs are isolated so paralleling the HA02 capabilities.

[Riaanh]

Thanks @Chris Hobson and thanks to @Chris-R you are a supplier 1000.

The concern I had mainly was although they mention serial, or parrallel, in the manual they refer to "All connections between pais should be avoided".

The feedback sofar received would indicate that all 4 battery equaliser units inside the HA-02 are isolated, and that Neg of part one can be connected to Pos of part 2 and so on with no ill effect.

The feedback also confirm that for example the neg of battery 1 unit can be connected to neg of battery 3 unit without ill effect.

Thanks all for the information provided.

So in effect it will now run 2X24V banks 1 and 2 on Bank 1 end 3 and 4 on Bank 2.

[Chris Hobson]

12 minutes ago, Riaanh said:

The feedback sofar received would indicate that all 4 battery equaliser units inside the HA-02 are isolated, and that Neg of part one can be connected to Pos of part 2 and so on with no ill effect.

Just ensure that the voltage each positive/negative wire pair "sees" is no more than 12V plus some change to allow for charging. The fancier you get with you wiring the greater the chance you will make a mistake. I disconnected my HA01s about a year ago and after reconnecting realised I had made a mistake. Fortunately the LED on the unit immediately alerted me to my error. The HA02 does not have any LEDS which is a disadvantage but the HA02 is much more versatile with a input range of 2.4 to 12V whereas the HA01s are 12V units. This may explain the lack of LEDs on the HA02s.

[DeepBass9]

Remembering the fuses as well........ 

[___]

I'm getting really curious about these.

The traditional type balances two batteries, and simply bypasses some current if there is a high cell. I thought that the HA02's claim to fame is that it can bypass more than one cell, so if you have a high cell in battery 1 and a low cell in battery 4, it can pass the current directly from 1 to 4 instead of passing the parcel to battery 2 where another balancer has to pick it up and pass it on.

But I still thought of this balancer as a bypass-type device, so that the various connections must at least run downhill in a manner of speaking.

Now I wonder about the term "Energy transfer" used above. Could it be that it actually uses an isolated DC-DC converter to pass energy from one cell to another, in which case it can absorp energy from any high cell and pass it to any low cell, even across banks or backwards up the chain. Traditional chargers only pass down the chain...

I'd love to see the guts of one of these things. Remember some years ago we discussed building something like this...

[___]

I really should try and keep up when it comes to these things... :-)

http://www.linear.com/product/LTC3300-1

[Riaanh]

8 minutes ago, plonkster said:

Now I wonder about the term "Energy transfer" used above. Could it be that it actually uses an isolated DC-DC converter to pass energy from one cell to another, in which case it can absorp energy from any high cell and pass it to any low cell, even across banks or backwards up the chain. Traditional chargers only pass down the chain..

I believe this is a measurable. Maybe even more so in my setup as I have one battery that is ........ (Edited for Forum response). this will in effect mean that is I pair it on 1 and 2  to the one "high" battery I have, the energy should be passed from 2 to 1. If I then move cables, and set Low and High batteries on position 1 and 3, the energy should pass from 3 to 1, and not from 2 to 1 and 3 to 4 simultaniously, relulting in an overall lower bank vlotage.

[Riaanh]

5 minutes ago, plonkster said:

I really should try and keep up when it comes to these things... :-)

http://www.linear.com/product/LTC3300-1

The 6804 is their flagship capable of handling 12 cells

[Chris Hobson]

40 minutes ago, plonkster said:

I really should try and keep up when it comes to these things... :-)

http://www.linear.com/product/LTC3300-1

These ICs are over $100 so the HA02 is very competitively priced.

I am not so sure about that price anymore. I cannot find them anymore.

[Chris Hobson]

38 minutes ago, Riaanh said:

I believe this is a measurable. Maybe even more so in my setup as I have one battery that is ........ (Edited for Forum response). this will in effect mean that is I pair it on 1 and 2  to the one "high" battery I have, the energy should be passed from 2 to 1. If I then move cables, and set Low and High batteries on position 1 and 3, the energy should pass from 3 to 1, and not from 2 to 1 and 3 to 4 simultaniously, relulting in an overall lower bank vlotage.

You should not have to move cables. Connect and forget. It will sort out highs and lows.

[ebrsa]

@Riaanh I guess I did not explain myself well. I only had one cup of morning tea at the time and was lying in bed answering on my tablet.

I have 2 strings of 8 x 6V T105s and the 2 strings are connected in parallel. I use 1 x HA02 to balance batteries 1 to 4 of string 1 and another to balance batteries 5 to 8 of string 1. The same applies to string 2 resulting in 4 x HA02 used thus far. Then another HA02 connects battery 4 to battery 5 on both strings so that the 2 x 24V blocks of both strings are balanced. What then concerned me was that no balancing was taking place between the 2 strings so I used another HA02 and connected the first pair of wires to battery 4 of string 1 and the second pair to battery 5 of string 2, leaving 2 pairs of wires of this HA02 unused. So in total I have 6 x HA02 in use and after about 3 weeks there is little difference between the batteries, not more that 0.05V but mostly about 0.1V. This is when the batteries are being charged during the day so I suppose to get an accurate picture I should isolate the batteries when they are fully charged, leave them overnight and see what readings I get. But it is just all too much hassle for now and I am still waiting for a hydrometer with a pointer to take readings of the cell SG of all batteries easier, to be delivered. It is sold by Snap-On Tools. Also I should probably acquire a clamp amp meter to see what happens between the batteries.

I hope my explanation shows why I did not see the need for individual battery fuses. Any comments would be much appreciated.

[Riaanh]

9 minutes ago, ebrsa said:

I hope my explanation shows why I did not see the need for individual battery fuses. Any comments would be much appreciated.

Thanks for the detailed explanation @ebrsa It is clear that if you state this mornings answer was after 1 cuppa, then this afternoons answer indicate an empty earn.

Most of your connection makes sense to me, maybe a bit of overkill regarding the balancing of the banks. After all the 2 Banks Negatives and Positives are linked together for supply to inverter. (However we need to keep in mind that with your 6V cell configuration, you basically have another split in either string at midpoint.)

I think what makes your Balancing act unique is the 6V configuration. This basically doubles the effort/balancers to achieve this. Yet there are guys using the 2V cells, so that will be an extra LONG explanation

[Bush Man]

On 2/28/2017 at 11:09 AM, Chris-R said:

The max rating of the HA-02 is 10 amp / per unit

 

How does this relate to the minimum current of 72 Amps that may be required to charge a 300Ah Omnipower bank as being discussed in the thread below? Do the HA-02's limit the charging current to 10 Amps?

 

 

[Don]

15 minutes ago, Bush Man said:

Do the HA-02's limit the charging current to 10 Amps?

No, the HA-02 does not charge your batteries or limit the charging. It balances or equalizes the charging. They therefore just distribute more power to the battery that requires more charging. That redistribution is limited to 10 amps, not the charging.

[PurePower]

I may be going off topic. I have one these units on my 48v system and they work absolutely well. My batteries have been in balance since I've used them. Even my BMV-702 alarm has yet to go off for mid point issues. 

I intend to get another for my smaller 24v setup. I have 4 x 12v lead acid batteries, 2 x 12v in series 1 and another set in series 2. Then series 1 and 2 are in parallel. 

Now if I were to take a HA-02 to each battery in the bank, would they balance well? Or do I rather get the HA-01 or the Victron battery balancer?

[Chris Hobson]

I have 3 HA01s which I have just removed from my system this afternoon. My batteries are on the old side and the Ha01s were no longer able to keep my bank in balance. They can only redistribute 5A and it was battery number 4 (on the end of the string that stubbornly stays out of balance. With the HA 02 I am hoping that the redistribution is more even and faster rather than the pass the parcel process employed by the HA01s.

I would go for a HA02 and you can either leave the excess cables taped up or you could parallel the balancer for super-efficient balancing. 

[Mark]

@Chris Hobson:  Put 1 HA01 on the battery 4 with the HA02.  Give it a bit of help...

[Chris Hobson]

14 minutes ago, Mark said:

@Chris Hobson:  Put 1 HA01 on the battery 4 with the HA02.  Give it a bit of help...

No I already have a voltmeter per battery. Just too many wires. I'd forgotten what a pain battery balancers are to install (on my system). I had sympathy last night with @incagarcilaso as my batteries are stacked on top of each other. I received my HA02 on Friday (thank-you @Chris-R) but it was month end so my staff where away until yesterday evening and so immediately they were press-ganged into helping.

[Chris Hobson]

I have just read the instructions for the HA02

"HA02 battery equalizer is energy transfer type equalizer, it can compensate for batteries with two sides."

So it won't work with my VRLA batteries with six sides? Fortunately the manual's English bears no relationship to the unit's effectiveness. Chinglish does provide a bit of mirth but one must bear in mind that English is a difficult language to learn and China has only recently been thrust into the international arena. My brother teaches English in Lanzhou, which is in the middle of the country on the old Silk Route. It is a city of just under 4 million people and to date the only Westerners he has seen is my sister-in-law and a colleague from the school he teaches at.