DALY has now Active (Smart) Balancing! Is this the new NEEY?

In this video, we will test the two active balancers from Daly, one smart with Bluetooth connectivity and app and one standard without any connection. We will compare them to balancers we already have, to see how efficient they are, if they transfer the advertised current and if they are worth buying. Can they reach the NEEY Active Balancer level in terms of quality, specs and features?

Active Balancers, specs, links, prices:

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[adyceapa]

Hey Andy, I am watching you for about 1 year and a half. You have by far the most comprehensive channel on YouTube.
You are doing for EVERIBODY a HUGE service. I am really impressed.

[noelbondad]

Thank you Andy. These Chinese products are being rolled out without being fully tested. They actually let the consumers do the testing and wait for problems to come up. Then they apply fixes. In the meantime they have made money from those who dont know and dont COMPLAIN!

[bardassakkf]

Hi friend. I test a daly in new 16s calb 280 ah lifepo4 new pack. Not top balance. I had about 70 mV of differences . I set start balance up then 3.40 mV for cell and i charge at 54.7 v . Daly balance the cells with 20 mV differential. Is very low cost balancer for me is a good solution. With resistive balance of bms i complete the operation and finally i have 0.003 balance in a new pack . Very good.
Your channel is the best. Thank you.

[peternyberg]

I bought one after watching your video, this one I can set when the balancer should start, tried 3.20v and it's no problem 🤗

[danielglang]

Hi Andy. About a week or so ago I posted a question about why no one makes a BMS which charges each CELL individually (but all at the same time in parallel) rather than charge across the entire PACK in series. This new method of individual CELL charging would stop charging any cell that exceeds the upper limit and as soon as that cell falls below the upper limit resume charging that cell. This would eliminate any need for either active or passive balancing. Since active balancing currently requires discharging a high voltage cell into a capacitor and then charging a lower voltage cell from the same capacitor it is absolutely possible to build a BMS which only charges each cell individually with no balancing circuitry neither active nor passive.

I decided to try to make such a BMS myself and in the process, I have learned a few things about how difficult and costly that could be. There would need to be a circuit to take the large "48" volt input from the charger and break it down into smaller voltage paths, one for each cell. This would add additional cost and complexity to manufacture due to the additional circuitry. This explains why chargers currently charge across the entire pack rather than each cell individually, it is simply cheaper and slightly more efficient.

HOWEVA, I decided to try to understand the balancing process more precisely and so decided to build my own BMS using an Arduino to control the process. Since my career was in programming, I do have the LOGIC background to know how to write the code for such an endeavor but have had to learn a new programming language to code the Arduino. I also needed some time to acquire the hardware necessary to build a small prototype. Also, since the chargers today are built for the larger voltage across the entire pack method, I will initially use that method rather than charging each cell individually. Perhaps in the future I will try individual cell charging.

During the learning process, I discovered that one needs to sample an individual cell's voltage multiple times and then average the readings out to get a more accurate (truer) voltage since the Analogue to Digital Converters (ADC) in the Arduino chip detects a slightly different voltage each time a cell is sampled. Sometimes it is slightly higher (in millivolts) and sometimes it is slightly lower. This brings into question how accurate the ADC samplers are in current BMSs.

I have learned that the programming required to create a BMS is in essence very simple and can easily implement both active and passive balancing at the same time. The program simply loops through a series of steps. Step one: ALL the CELLS in a PACK are sampled to determine the highest and lowest voltage cells. Step 2: Charging of the entire Pack is stopped if any cell has a voltage which exceeds an upper SAFETY limit. Step 3: When one or more CELL(s) are above a BALANCING limit and one or more CELL(s) are below the balancing limit, active balancing is invoked to transfer some of excessive voltage from the highest cell to the lowest cell. Step four: If there is a Cell above the limit but no cells below the limit passive balancing is invoked to drain some voltage from the offending cell.

CURRENT BMS design usually doesn't utilize BOTH active and passive balancing choosing instead to use only one of the two methods. When utilizing active balancing alone a BMS usually only attempts to balance when the difference between high and low cells exceeds a certain limit and there is one or more cells below the individual cell limit otherwise it would continuously be transferring voltage and draining the entire pack. A BMS using passive balancing alone wastes some of the stored electrons thereby requiring more time to fully charge a pack.

Since all the CELLS are connected in series across the pack, only one cell can be connected to the capacitor or draining resister at any one time.

In either active or passive balancing, the number of volts transferred depends on BOTH the capacity of the hardware to handle the amperage as well as the time allowed to complete the transfer process. The BMSs you are currently testing may have the HARDWARE capacity to handle the higher amps but have not provided the required time via the SOFTWARE to actually complete the transfer.

For the purists, the term amperage is used to define the number of electrons flowing across a circuit being the equivalent to a charge of one coulomb (6.241 x 1018 electrons) per second. In this discussion, I am using the term AMPS simply to represent the number of electrons being transferred.

Obviously, this is still in the theoretical, learning, testing, and developmental state and nowhere fully developed enough to say whether or not it can be further developed.,

[edwardvanhazendonk]

Just confirming the JK 4-8S 200A 2A active balance BMS is working like a charm. Really glad you showed us their BMSes.

[sean]

I use Daly smart BMS with the Heltec 5amp works well together.

[theoff-gridhouseinrome]

In the last month I saw my Daly BMS app showing the Active Balancing function, I tried to use but it hasn't work; but Andy give the answer if is good or not to buy or not to buy it.

[danlynch]

MY REVIEW OF THE DALY SMART, 1A, 16S ACTIVE BALANCER. before installing the new Daly, my bank had become seriously out of balance, about 0.250 mV when fully charged, sometimes nudging 275 mV. So I installed the Daly. At first it did not seem to do much -- 1 amp current was flowing through the balancing wires, as it should, yet the imbalance remained high. This continued for several days and I began to wonder if the 1 amp balance current was inadequate for 16 280ah cells. But after 5 days of normal solar system operation, it finally balanced. As I type the delta is 19 mV, with the cells charged to an average of 3.487V. So it works. No, it is not the ultimate active balancer, but for $39 USD, it is the best value, and I can recommend it.

[maxmeyer]

use JK-BMS all in...
nice test, thanks.
I didn't understand why daly is used so often? Well, I haven't been following the topic for so long, but JK-BMS has everything, 200A should be enough for everyone at 48V.

[ianendangan]

I saw this info for the small DALY balancer from Lazada Philippines. Start up >= 3.3V (average single cell voltage) Close condition <= 3.0V (average single cell voltage), Active equalizing and working current 250 micro ampere. Sounds more like a passive balancer.

[FutureSystem]

Thanks Andy, great test, JK BMS complete with excellent 2A balancing for the win, again!
SO GLAD I didn’t ever buy a DALY as I nearly did 6 months ago.

[krg]

Thanks for your testing. Jkbms is under $75usd and as you know bms and balancer. There is also a 6amp for 8s.

[inmyimage]

Another good video. Really wish I hadn’t bought all my stuff while watching Will Prowse. His love of Daly caused me to buy two 250A models. No problems so far, but haven’t put my side into production yet either.

[howardjack]

I knew there was a comments section somewhere as I had previously seen it. then couldn't find it - the secret? Keep on scrolling past all the other video icons/thumbnails.
And because I enjoy your videos, info, voice, sense of humour I have joined up. Tells me it starts the day after my 76 birthday!
Anyhoo. I have a Daly Smart 250 with BT dongle and I think I may have solved my balance problem
Live ion the road in 15" poptop. 540W solar, Renogy DCC50sMPPT, BMS as above. to 400Ahr 4S bank
My charger from Ian Goh ( FPV Solar) is set to 14V when on Genset, (will reset to 13, 6 if long term on mains)
Daly set to Bal open 3.4V, open diff 20mV
while charging Cell diff can get over 25mV
Balance works starts to work as soon as I turn off charging and slowly gets down to 5mv even 2mV
so I think that is reasonable?
HOWEVER, following other of your info I have on the way a 4th Gen active balancer,
Why? because it's there and lust to be sure to be sure
I look forward with anticipation to seeing the results
Cheers

[furcipus]

Thank you! You have helped me a lot! I hope they have better Firmware meanwhile.

[eduardorbike]

Excelente video. Una pregunta... el ECUALIZADOR queda con un indicador led interno encendido cuando esta conectado? Aunque no este en proceso de balanceo? Es un indicador muy tenue !

[rockermilano]

threshold settings on balancing is based upon average volt of the bank, not on a single cell voltage. it's not a bug, it's a feature.. 😃

[austinraney]

Well this actually makes some sense because I was wondering why me active balance function wasn't working and now I know why.... Because it's not supported by the regular BMS system only and active balancer one 😮 just wow 🤯 u answered a lot of my questions

[ranig]

I don’t understand why these can’t just trigger based on voltage delta - if it goes above defined threshold, start balancing until it gets below threshold. For LFP, most of the curve is super flat so no balancing should be done. But at the low and high end balancing would help increase longevity of cells if they’re kept balanced. On high end it helps avoid a cell peek to high (causing hi voltage damage), in the low end it will help avoid cell going to low (protecting cell as well). Since with LFP both low and high end are very steep, it should be easy to just use voltage delta to trigger. If delta is not huge I don’t mind some imbalance. Finally, when it is in the low/high end it should be great to have 5 or even 10amp since in those areas the curve is steep so a cell that is much lower or higher needs a lot of “support” to stay close to the other cells - especially when charging pack with >20 amp.