Balance charging

[Chrisjk]

Hi never use commercial dc chargers
Always charge at home 7kw max podpoiint
Do I need to do balance charges?

 

[Alb]

Yes, it's still advised but pretty easy to incorporate into your normal charging schedule.

 

[profdraper]

Yes, google it or search the forum here. There's a bizillion posts on this.

 

[Lovemyev]

Let’s assume for a minute that you have a Gen2 face lift ZS EV model.
If so and it’s a standard range model with the LFP battery, every time you place your car on charge, it will charge to 100% SOC.
Then it will automatically balance the pack regardless.
If on the other hand you have the Gen2 face lift long range model, it has the NMC chemistry pack and if you set the charge to say 80% SOC then I can not see any evidence to suggest that the balancing process has taken place at this level myself.
I have the LR model and have monitored the charging process, when the charging level is set to 80% it does not convince me that any balancing is taking place.
In this case, it would suggest that on the LR model, you need to charge to 100% in order to commence the balance cycle.
The original ZS EV was the same, balancing only commenced when the HV battery was fully charged.
On the LR model, it is suggested in the manual and the head unit, that charging to 80% SOC is recommend for good long term battery health.
Then charging to 100% if longer trips are required.

 

[Tim Green]

With my gen1, I used to put it on charge for long periods, as I had a standard rate electricity package. Nowadays, I am on Octopus GO so it is only charged over those 4 hours. Normally, this is enough to allow some time for balancing, but of course if the car is low on battery, it may only be marginal on full charge. Is this regime good enough, or should I extend the 4 hours to 5 hours, for instance?

 

[Lovemyev]

With my gen1, I used to put it on charge for long periods, as I had a standard rate electricity package. Nowadays, I am on Octopus GO so it is only charged over those 4 hours. Normally, this is enough to allow some time for balancing, but of course if the car is low on battery, it may only be marginal on full charge. Is this regime good enough, or should I extend the 4 hours to 5 hours, for instance?

Standard range or long range model ?.

 

[Tim Green]

Still on the same Gen1

 

[Lovemyev]

Araahhhh - Okay ?.
Are you using a wall box or the supplied Granny lead at home ?.

 

[Tim Green]

I use a 7kW (old) Podpoint which is controlled by a timer, via the inhibit switch.

 

[Lovemyev]

If it helps, regarding your question of :-
Is four hours on GO enough or should I upgrade to five hours”.
I guess it depends on if the increase to five hours is going to cost you more money, which I expect it would.
You daily rate will be a lot more expensive when you chose these off peak rates by and large and therefore of course, you want to keep away from charging on that higher rate.
If you work on the theory that for every hour you are charging from your wall box, you will be adding an extra 25 miles of range to your battery.
So your four hours on GO will add approx 100 miles of range to your battery.
From this, you can then judge at what level you need to place your car on charge to hit 100% plus the balance cycle.
When the car is balancing, the draw is pretty low from the wall box.
Another option maybe to charge using your four hours one night, then the following night put the car back on charge again.
Balancing on every single charge on the Gen1 is not vitally important TBH.

 

[Tim Green]

Well often the fours hours is enough to fully charge and allow a bit of balancing.
Sometimes there is no balancing if I have driven more the day before.
That's the question, how much balancing is required?
If I increased the normal running hours to 5 by running the timer on to 5.30 am say, then that allows 4hours recharge and one hours balancing, but may even allow two hours balancing now and again.
Or I could just plug it in more often, and get more balancing that way.
Obviously I don't want to do normal charging in peak hours.

 

[Gadget Geek]

Well often the fours hours is enough to fully charge and allow a bit of balancing.
Sometimes there is no balancing if I have driven more the day before.
That's the question, how much balancing is required?
If I increased the normal running hours to 5 by running the timer on to 5.30 am say, then that allows 4hours recharge and one hours balancing, but may even allow two hours balancing now and again.
Or I could just plug it in more often, and get more balancing that way.
Obviously I don't want to do normal charging in peak hours.

You could time the charge so that your reach 100% within the 4 hours, and then let it balance in the expensive hours as that only uses a few Watts rather than killoWatts.

 

[Tim Green]

Yes, but I really need to know roughly how much balancing is required - that's the question!
I may be already covering all it needs.

 

[Lovemyev]

MG recommend that a balance cycle should be carried out once a month, as a very rough guide.
The length of time it actually takes to balance the pack, is another story completely.

 

[Tim Green]

Ok, that's a start, thanks.
If I allow an extra 6 hours, once a month, I guess that should cover it?

 

[Chrisjk]

Yes, it's still advised but pretty easy to incorporate into your normal charging schedule.

Thanks v much, rather as I thought
You say incorporate into normal schedules, do I have to use the Granny charger via a 13 amp socket, or can my pod point do balancing? if yes can you confirm the procedure for me plaease

 

[Coulomb]

You say incorporate into normal schedules, do I have to use the Granny charger via a 13 amp socket, or can my pod point do balancing?

You can use either, or even a public AC charging station. It just has to be AC (11 kW or less).

if yes can you confirm the procedure for me please

Just charge to 100%, most times that you charge if it's an LFP battery, or roughly once a month if it's an NMC battery. The only slightly unusual thing is that you have to leave it alone when it gets to 100% SoC. This could take from 10 seconds to 10 hours, but if you do it regularly and all is well, it's usually of the order of half an hour.

On my Mark 1 ZS EV, the dash will be showing 100% and charge complete, but the LEDs in the MG logo stop "breathing" and turn on constantly during the balancing process. On the Mark 2 and with most other MG models, the LEDs near the charge plug will do something special, I don't know the exact colour and pattern. At the end of the balancing process, you just unplug at your convenience as usual.

 

[Chrisjk]

You can use either, or even a public AC charging station. It just has to be AC (11 kW or less).

Just charge to 100%, most times that you charge if it's an LFP battery, or roughly once a month if it's an NMC battery. The only slightly unusual thing is that you have to leave it alone when it gets to 100% SoC. This could take from 10 seconds to 10 hours, but if you do it regularly and all is well, it's usually of the order of half an hour.

On my Mark 1 ZS EV, the dash will be showing 100% and charge complete, but the LEDs in the MG logo stop "breathing" and turn on constantly during the balancing process. On the Mark 2 and with most other MG models, the LEDs near the charge plug will do something special, I don't know the exact colour and pattern. At the end of the balancing process, you just unplug at your convenience as usual.

thanks again
sorry to be a pain, not really a Geek on these things!
where can I view the state of the battery wear n tear?
also, despite reading another contributors helpful words about battery info on a label, there is no such info/label under the passenger seat on my car.

 

[Colin E]

MG recommend that a balance cycle should be carried out once a month, as a very rough guide.
The length of time it actually takes to balance the pack, is another story completely.

For my Gen 1 EV I do 100% and balance every month as recommended (using the granny charger). Easy if you are not a busy user.

 

[Spinynorman]

For my Gen 1 EV I do 100% and balance every month as recommended (using the granny charger). Easy if you are not a busy user.

I’ve a Zappi 2 charger and charge to 100%, it then drops the charge to 0.3 kW for about three hours or so whilst it’s balancing (I presume) before saying ‘charge complete’ and dropping to 0 kW. I’ve a Mk 1 ZS EV BTW…
I have the Octopus tracker tariff, as I work from home during the daytime and it’s much cheaper than any other tariff, so I wait until the tariff goes right down to something like 10p then do everything - like charging/dishwashing/laundry etc. The cheap charging rates on other tariffs would be no good for me, as I’m a light user and can mostly afford to wait until the tracker goes low to charge.

Saved loads by going over to tracker from my Go Faster tariff, which had a very bad daily rate…