Question re Equalisation

No problem, it will just carry on where it left off at the next opportunity.

Alb said:

No problem, it will just carry on where it left off at the next opportunity.

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Brilliant, thanks for the confirmation, Alb

OK, the 100% charge has finished and the charger has shut-off. Is there anyway iof knowing if the equalisation is happening? I've looked on the battery screen and it just says "Charging Complete". The charge finished 10 minutes later than estimated so could it really be that the equalisation only took 10 minutes?

Dear Lee..

I did my first equalisation charge in the day time and watched it on the smart meter (remote screen) you could see it 'slow' from 7.4 down through 6... 3... 1... 0.5... 0.3... stop...

Sincerely Martin

Mine isn't drawing any kw's. The charger clicked off about 10 minutes after the estimated charge ending time (according to the MG app). So, I'm not sure if it did the balancing in those 10 minutes.

Seems strange that there's no "Equalisation Status Screen" either in the car or on the app. I therefore have no idea if it did balance or not.

When the car has reached 100% and goes into battery balancing the car will draw 300-500W which you can see above you home load on your IHD (in house display)

Jomarkh said:

When the car has reached 100% and goes into battery balancing the car will draw 300-500W which you can see above you home load on your IHD (in house display)

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I charge my car at work, and we do not have an electricity meter. However, as I say, the charging point shut off 10 minutes after it was due to complete the 100% charge (light went blue as opposed to green when it's charging).

Could it be that it only needed 10 minutes to balance the batteries? I've only done 1200 miles in 2 months, so maybe it did.

Is there some way to see the equalisation status of the batter cells? Should the voltage be at a certain amount when fully equalised for example?

If you DC Rapid charge a lot that will but the cells out but AC 7kW EVSE are a bit kinder.

Jomarkh said:

If you DC Rapid charge a lot that will but the cells out but AC 7kW EVSE are a bit kinder.

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I only ever use AC 7kw charger, so maybe it did only take 10 minutes to balance then. I’ll have to keep a closer eye on it when I rebalance it again next month.

Jomarkh said:

If you DC Rapid charge a lot that will but the cells out but AC 7kW EVSE are a bit kinder.

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When the car Regens it will unbalance the batterys as well I can easily get 100a + Regen that the same as 40kw dc charge the short bursts of 40kw must unsettl the cells a bit?

LeeB said:

OK, the 100% charge has finished and the charger has shut-off. Is there anyway iof knowing if the equalisation is happening? I've looked on the battery screen and it just says "Charging Complete". The charge finished 10 minutes later than estimated so could it really be that the equalisation only took 10 minutes?

Click to expand...

"Charging complete" doesn't mean the equalisation has finished, it usually says "connected not charging", or words to that effect, when balancing is finished.

I have done 14 months and 15,000 kms in my Gen 1 ZS EV and 99% of charging at home using the Granny charger. Never done a "battery balance" never been asked to. I believe this is due to the slow gentle charge done at max 2.5 kw.

OK so we agree that the car doesn't tell us when it has completed an equalisation or balancing of the battery cells.

So do we trust that it has? I can only speak for my zappi but our home chargers are suppose to be smart and record everything it does. If I look at the myeneri 'energy usage of devices' graphs and compare my equalisation charge with a standard charge I can see the 'stopping' is more gradual on the equalisation charge than the more abrupt normal charge. This gradual reduction in charge is similar to that I have seen on my smart meter monitor that I mentioned earlier.
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above showing gradual reduction in charge (equalisation)
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above showing more 'rapid' reduction in charge (normal)
[Yes I see the scales are not exactly the same but you get the drift]

Granted I'm not looking at this every time I charge but once seen then I know I can leave it to get on with it.

Sincerely and in good faith
Martin

LeeB said:

The charge finished 10 minutes later than estimated so could it really be that the equalisation only took 10 minutes?

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Yes, that's entirely possible. Especially for a car that has had a few charge cycles, but not yet clocked up vast distance on the odometer.

MartinReid said:

I did my first equalisation charge in the day time and watched it on the smart meter (remote screen) you could see it 'slow' from 7.4 down through 6... 3... 1... 0.5... 0.3... stop...

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Part of that might have been if you're charging from excess solar only, near the end of the day. Or it could be that the battery simply can't take 7.4 kW when it's nearly full. The last part (0.3 kW) might have been the actual equalisation.

But a battery that's not well equalised might behave like the above, until the cells equalise better. Mine are quite well balanced (I equalise once per month), and usually do about 10 minutes at ~325 W. The change from full charging to 325 W is quite abrupt. But then I plug it in again 20 minutes later, and find that it takes 2.4 kW (all I let it have) for a few minutes, then a few more minutes at 325 W, then it won't take any more. The few minutes at 2.4 kW could be due to the cells cooling off; usually it's late afternoon by that point. But maybe it's because the cooling system has been off for 20 minutes, so heat from charging has "seeped in" to the core of the cells and they have slightly higher capacity when warm. I'd love to know the actual reason.