Battery balancing. No

[Joningy]

How do other MGs handle it? Some EVs do it when they see an imbalance between cells, some do it on a schedule.

It appears its a tad trial and error, I managed my first Equalisation last week at the second attempt, details on my thread "Battery Equalisation/Balancing MGS5 second attempt"

But basically I used the iSmart app, I'm on Intelligent Octopus GO, so cheap energy between 11.30pm to 05.30am, I set it to start at 11.30pm and run for 12 hours, so the majority of the charge was carried out at off peak rate, I regularly monitored the last hour or so in several ways, through the iSmart app, on my Octopus Energy app and my solar inverter app, all of which gave a view of what was happening and the current being drawn, from the moment 100% was reached, the current draw gradually reduced over approx. 30 minutes to carry out the balancing or equalisation, which probably indicates it wasn't so far out of kilta anyway.

 

[Lovemyev]

On our previous ZS EV in the charging section ( in the head unit ) under the settings for delayed charging times.
I do remember seeing a slide button, that when selected, it would allow the car to continue charging AFTER the selected off peak rate had ended.
Saved messing about with your normal off peak times I guess.
Just slide the button when you wanted to carry out a balance cycle, then flick it back when your done !.
Not sure if the S5 has this feature though .

 

[anth5864]

On our previous ZS EV in the charging section ( in the head unit ) under the settings for delayed charging times.
I do remember seeing a slide button, that when selected, it would allow the car to continue charging AFTER the selected off peak rate had ended.
Saved messing about with your normal off peak times I guess.
Just slide the button when you wanted to carry out a balance cycle, then flick it back when your done !.
Not sure if the S5 has this feature though .

Yes it does, 'charge to set %' or something along those lines. Keeps going outside of time range

It's in the battery page. That would keep it going

 

[dx4100]

Another thing, if you've only done 2000 miles, the battery doesn't need balancing so you won't see it.

I don't think this is true, I have seen it around 150 miles and 800 miles - the two times I have 100% charged. Charged to 100%, on the smart meter device it was showing charging at the full rate and when it got to 100% it went down to half that for ages and then stopped. That had to be balancing.

 

[LenEV2016]

I don't think this is true, I have seen it around 150 miles and 800 miles - the two times I have 100% charged. Charged to 100%, on the smart meter device it was showing charging at the full rate and when it got to 100% it went down to half that for ages and then stopped. That had to be balancing.

It's not a mileage thing, best practice is a once a month thing

 

[dx4100]

It's not a mileage thing, best practice is a once a month thing

Yup, I am expecting to see it every time I 100% charge to be honest until proven otherwise. Next 100% is mid December so we will see.

 

[Barrage]

I find all this equalisation charge thing confusing. Surely if it is important the process would be automated or at least explained in the manual. The S5 manual just says 'Equalisation charging means the battery management system realises basically the same voltage of all battery cells after charging, so as to ensure the overall performance of the high-voltage battery pack'
There is literally no advice similar to the things discussed on here. How can that be?

 

[anth5864]

In my opinion it's too much unknown to even try to guess, no manufacturer would want or desire to place this load on the customer.

It would make the product unappealing, let alone hard to manage.

As would a battery that could simply not easily balance itself and thus lead to a duff pack by self damage, the battery manufacturer nor MG would want this.

The absence of process here tells me that the systems that are at play are doing the balancing, I think it's wise to once in a while for a long trip get it up to 100% and do that with some time to spare so any 'balance' can take place, but not too much before end of charge (2 hours maybe). That's it...

20-80% cycles all other times. The ZS, the MG4 would show duff batteries if something wasn't right. I've not seen any stats that battery returns are higher overall for MG, if anything they appear good

It sure is appealing to want to understand what's it's doing so I see why it's very interesting discussion and I like reading these threads too , but I have solar and I can see what it's doing on the inverter stats, it mirrors my solar cells largely. Sometimes it does a little longer 'balance' or tail charge as I call it. Most times it caps out pretty quick, tails off the charge rate (probably a small balance charge going on) but it's not going anything complex, it doesn't vary much from one 100% charge to the next.

When a pack is older, maybe it'll spend longer doing it's maintenance? My solar batts have done that in cold weather and as they have aged a little, but overall the lack of process tells me, it's software managed and nothing much we can do as end users is doing anything to change what it 'wants or needs' to do.



Battery chemistry and process is a complex thing and I respect those who spend the time to figure it out, it sure does interest me too and I see why it's of interest, but as an end user at the end of the day I want my vehicle to self manage this I really do, and I'm happy that it does!

100% every often
20-80% most of the time (you know, all the good guidance stuff).

 

[Barrage]

In my opinion it's too much unknown to even try to guess, no manufacturer would want or desire to place this load on the customer.

It would make the product unappealing, let alone hard to manage.

As would a battery that could simply not easily balance itself and thus lead to a duff pack by self damage, the battery manufacturer nor MG would want this.

The absence of process here tells me that the systems that are at play are doing the balancing, I think it's wise to once in a while for a long trip get it up to 100% and do that with some time to spare so any 'balance' can take place, but not too much before end of charge (2 hours maybe). That's it...

20-80% cycles all other times. The ZS, the MG4 would show duff batteries if something wasn't right. I've not seen any stats that battery returns are higher overall for MG, if anything they appear good

It sure is appealing to want to understand what's it's doing so I see why it's very interesting discussion and I like reading these threads too , but I have solar and I can see what it's doing on the inverter stats, it mirrors my solar cells largely. Sometimes it does a little longer 'balance' or tail charge as I call it. Most times it caps out pretty quick, tails off the charge rate (probably a small balance charge going on) but it's not going anything complex, it doesn't vary much from one 100% charge to the next.

When a pack is older, maybe it'll spend longer doing it's maintenance? My solar batts have done that in cold weather and as they have aged a little, but overall the lack of process tells me, it's software managed and nothing much we can do as end users is doing anything to change what it 'wants or needs' to do.



Battery chemistry and process is a complex thing and I respect those who spend the time to figure it out, it sure does interest me too and I see why it's of interest, but as an end user at the end of the day I want my vehicle to self manage this I really do, and I'm happy that it does!

100% every often
20-80% most of the time (you know, all the good guidance stuff).

 

[Rei]

The note is probably just there to stop people worrying if they see it charging very slowly when it's already at 100% or whatever limit they set, or stopping and starting charging.

 

[Joningy]

In my opinion it's too much unknown to even try to guess, no manufacturer would want or desire to place this load on the customer.

It would make the product unappealing, let alone hard to manage.

As would a battery that could simply not easily balance itself and thus lead to a duff pack by self damage, the battery manufacturer nor MG would want this.

The absence of process here tells me that the systems that are at play are doing the balancing, I think it's wise to once in a while for a long trip get it up to 100% and do that with some time to spare so any 'balance' can take place, but not too much before end of charge (2 hours maybe). That's it...

20-80% cycles all other times. The ZS, the MG4 would show duff batteries if something wasn't right. I've not seen any stats that battery returns are higher overall for MG, if anything they appear good

It sure is appealing to want to understand what's it's doing so I see why it's very interesting discussion and I like reading these threads too , but I have solar and I can see what it's doing on the inverter stats, it mirrors my solar cells largely. Sometimes it does a little longer 'balance' or tail charge as I call it. Most times it caps out pretty quick, tails off the charge rate (probably a small balance charge going on) but it's not going anything complex, it doesn't vary much from one 100% charge to the next.

When a pack is older, maybe it'll spend longer doing it's maintenance? My solar batts have done that in cold weather and as they have aged a little, but overall the lack of process tells me, it's software managed and nothing much we can do as end users is doing anything to change what it 'wants or needs' to do.



Battery chemistry and process is a complex thing and I respect those who spend the time to figure it out, it sure does interest me too and I see why it's of interest, but as an end user at the end of the day I want my vehicle to self manage this I really do, and I'm happy that it does!

100% every often
20-80% most of the time (you know, all the good guidance stuff).

I agree with everything you say except in your 4th paragraph-
Do you actually mean 2 hours AFTER the charge has reached 100% to balance the cells, or do you mean something else?

There has been so much talk on this forum regarding balancing or equalisation as it is often referred to and a lot of help from the few knowledgeable members of the forum, I'm not among the hyper knowledge brigade, I muddle through electronics.

About once a month or so, as recommended I now equalize the HV traction battery in my MGS5, by as you say, charging to and PAST 100%, leaving it charging as this is when equalisation takes place, it's difficult for most of us to determine if the balancing act has taken place, unless you watch or able to monitor as you and I can @anth5864 (I also have [DIY] solar of over 6kW + huge 43kWh lead acid storage, used for aircraft traction tugs) it will carry on charging at a low rate for some while, depending on the condition of your batteries, perhaps up to and beyond the 2 hours you mentioned, mine has taken considerably less as the car is only 3 months old.

Another tip is to carry out the equalisation charge with a fairly high state of charge, say possibly 50 to 70%, as it has been explained on here it's not necessary to drop the SOC below 10% which is sometimes difficult to safely achieve in terms of time.

This method also saves electricity, by completing the equalisation within the economy overnight rate, which for me is Octopus Intelligent GO @ 7p/kWh.

I've gone into a fair bit of waffle here as it seems to be a reasonable explanation of how at least some of us carry out the balancing ACT hoping it will help a few, I sought help and was (hopelessly) educated a while ago.

BTW I never knowingly carried out an equalisation charge on my previous MG4 which was still faultless after 2 years, but I did charge it to 100% on lots of occasions and presumably most of those occasions it carried out the job unknowingly to me.

 

[anth5864]

Yeah I say 2 hour only because that is sure to allow for any balance to take place, observation is that's more than enough by far! Experience on my 100% charges have shown at most 20 mins of balancing after cutting down to low amounts of power, like sub 1kw (and just to say, I really don't know if that is 'balancing' I could simply be tail charging with or without balancing - slower rates at the top end of capacity... But it's what it seems to do. I too am no expert in this, and it's why I really want the car to take care of this )

It's a really new battery. It's never been public fast charged, 2 hours would for sure cover any balancing act. It's actually probably very hard achieve in fact given tarrifs. Again another way of saying the manufacturer of the battery and EV will have anticipated this. There's just not a chance in my opinion that they would leave this to the end user, it'll know when and how to be opportunistic to get it's itself on level, the only scenario I can see the cell deficit growing is if you used a lots of public fast charge and didn't do the odd 100% with some time to spare at the end.

Again it's just too much to try to manage for most end users, including me I just don't have time to engineer these 'scenarios'.

100% top out the odd time does the trick I feel

 

[Joningy]

Yeah I say 2 hour only because that is sure to allow for any balance to take place, observation is that's more than enough by far! Experience on my 100% charges have shown at most 20 mins of balancing after cutting down to low amounts of power, like sub 1kw (and just to say, I really don't know if that is 'balancing' I could simply be tail charging with or without balancing - slower rates at the top end of capacity... But it's what it seems to do. I too am no expert in this, and it's why I really want the car to take care of this )

It's a really new battery. It's never been public fast charged, 2 hours would for sure cover any balancing act. It's actually probably very hard achieve in fact given tarrifs. Again another way of saying the manufacturer of the battery and EV will have anticipated this. There's just not a chance in my opinion that they would leave this to the end user, it'll know when and how to be opportunistic to get it's itself on level, the only scenario I can see the cell deficit growing is if you used a lots of public fast charge and didn't do the odd 100% with some time to spare at the end.

Again it's just too much to try to manage for most end users, including me I just don't have time to engineer these 'scenarios'.

100% top out the odd time does the trick I feel

Yep that's about it and what most are doing, plug it into the charger set to 100% plus a bit, wake up, all done!