Yet another Lipo charging/balancing question

[MetalMan]

The only time a cell is disconnected from charging is when you are using "active balancing", also known as parallel charging. To charge/balance like this you need a charger that charges through taps - a balancer built into the charger.

Conventional balancers discharge the cell(s) that is (are) at a higher voltage than the other(s). So, the charger (conventional) will still be putting out the same current, but the voltage might drop a little on the charger side due to the the balancer sinking some of the charge current (to bring down the voltage on the higher cell(s)).

[BrianG]

Well, I understand how that would work in constant current mode. If a cell is removed during charging in this mode, the voltage will simply go down.

But I was talking about when the charger was in constant voltage mode. If the charger was at 20v on 5 batteries, that's 4v per battery. However, if one of those batteries was disconnected by the balancer, that's 5v per battery.

Specifically, I was looking at the LBA6 hi current balancer.

By the way, is Bishop Power Products good (meaning; customer service)? They are having a 4th of July sale!