Balancing: Why and How?

[BrianG]

Balancers simply monitor each cell voltage and apply a low load to any that are higher in voltage. After a while, the high cell(s) discharge so they are at the same level as the others.

Some have other features, like auto shutoff above/below a certain cell voltage, mainly to help protect against a charger malfunction.

Because the act of balancing discharges cells, most people balance while charging so the pack can get the max charge it can and still be balanced.

The Hyperion LBA10 is generally accepted as a very good balancer and has a few neat features as well.

[pinolelst]

I balance every couple few cycles and find that works fine. If I did it every cycle it seemed like the batteries were still balanced enough that the balancer was hardly working. I have both the Astroflight Blinky and the Thunder Power TP-10 (??) 10 cell balancer and both work fine.The Blinky cost 1/3 of what the TP one did and It does up to 6 cells at a time.
Make sure the balancer and battery taps are compatible.The Thunder Power taps for instance have a narrower pin spacing than most other packs I have and I have to either use the TP-10 balancer or an adapter for the Blinky

Have Fun

Steve