Chargery bms bad reviews?

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elkeith108

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Mar 13, 2020
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Is the chargery bms that good that I can not find a bad review. Will it work with a 7s80p 18650 battery. I was thinking about getting a batrium but for the price I could have this as a spare or if it is good enough keep it as main unit. Any opinions, there are only a handful of people on here using these and I don't want to purchase something that will not work.
 
I do not own one but I think the chargery uses separate external relays which is good. Im sure the chargery will not have some of the features that the batrium has. But from what I read it still does the job
 
Doin it said:
I do not own one but I think the chargery uses separate external relays which is good. Im sure the chargery will not have some of the features that the batrium has. But from what I read it still does the job
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I have been reading about the electroducus sbms0 and maybe this is the one. Does anyone have any opinions on this unit.
 
I been using the chargery bms8 on my solar system (240 watt panel/220ah 4s lifepo4) for the past year. Its been a solid performer. Its the only bms I recommend for a solar system.

With solar you need to disconnect the charge at the panel (with a contactor/relay) otherwise you have all kinds of problems with voltage surges. Some people recommend I get a better charge controller, I tried mppt / pwm, with a regular mosfet bms I get voltage surges.

You can find the chargery bms8 on ebay for 95 dollars, you can also find the chargery bms16 for 110 dollars, if you plan on upgrading later. Both will work on a 7s li-ion/lifepo4, all the low/high cell voltage are programmable, 1.2 amp cell balancing is programmable, temp/ over current is programmable. It also has audio/visual alarms.

The only bad thing I can say about it is the amp counter. It has a shunt (either100 or 300 amp) to measure the amps going in/out of battery. Unlike a coulombmeter that keeps track of the amps, this uses watt hours. To me its useless as a SOC. Also since the contactors/relays are always on when the chargery is powered, I added a toggle switch to the relay so I can turned it off at night. I leave the chargery on 24/7.

I set it up last year when I bought it, 1 year later, havent had to mess with any of the setting, hadn't had any voltage surges. Everyday my battery is fully charged. I expect my cells to be at 3.65 volts, the max. The only setting I have to mess with is the charge controller, in the summer I lower the bulk setting (more sun) in winter I have to increase the bulk setting (less sun).

With the chargery bms you can use any controller you want, mppt/pwm, lithium capable or not. I use it with my 8 year old ecoworthy 20 amp mppt. You can also use it with any other charge method any where you can put a contactor/relay to disconnect the charge. On my system I only use one contactor to disconnect the charge (I use a 4 dollar 30A automotive relay its all I need). For over discharge protection I just rely on the alarms. On my 220ah battery I rarely use more then 30 ah in a day.

You can use the chargery on your system before spending big bucks on a baltrium. I think you will find its all you need.
 
jonyjoe505 said:
I been using the chargery bms8 on my solar system (240 watt panel/220ah 4s lifepo4) for the past year. Its been a solid performer. Its the only bms I recommend for a solar system.

With solar you need to disconnect the charge at the panel (with a contactor/relay) otherwise you have all kinds of problems with voltage surges. Some people recommend I get a better charge controller, I tried mppt / pwm, with a regular mosfet bms I get voltage surges.

You can find the chargery bms8 on ebay for 95 dollars, you can also find the chargery bms16 for 110 dollars, if you plan on upgrading later. Both will work on a 7s li-ion/lifepo4, all the low/high cell voltage are programmable, 1.2 amp cell balancing is programmable, temp/ over current is programmable. It also has audio/visual alarms.

The only bad thing I can say about it is the amp counter. It has a shunt (either100 or 300 amp) to measure the amps going in/out of battery. Unlike a coulombmeter that keeps track of the amps, this uses watt hours. To me its useless as a SOC. Also since the contactors/relays are always on when the chargery is powered, I added a toggle switch to the relay so I can turned it off at night. I leave the chargery on 24/7.

I set it up last year when I bought it, 1 year later, havent had to mess with any of the setting, hadn't had any voltage surges. Everyday my battery is fully charged. I expect my cells to be at 3.65 volts, the max. The only setting I have to mess with is the charge controller, in the summer I lower the bulk setting (more sun) in winter I have to increase the bulk setting (less sun).

With the chargery bms you can use any controller you want, mppt/pwm, lithium capable or not. I use it with my 8 year old ecoworthy 20 amp mppt. You can also use it with any other charge method any where you can put a contactor/relay to disconnect the charge. On my system I only use one contactor to disconnect the charge (I use a 4 dollar 30A automotive relay its all I need). For over discharge protection I just rely on the alarms. On my 220ah battery I rarely use more then 30 ah in a day.

You can use the chargery on your system before spending big bucks on a baltrium. I think you will find its all you need.
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Well I made a drunk purchase last night and bought the electrodacus before I read this post. On ebay chargery had a version 2 that looked like a one piece box instead of two. It looked very good. I hope this was a good purchase.
I just really wanted something to test that was not to expensive but also was safe.
 
electrodacus is a good solar controller, the only one that is actually made for llithium (measures cell voltage) all others controllers that say they can do lithium aren't (they only measure overall voltage).

Its just more complicated in hooking everything up. Since it uses contactors to disconnect the panel, you won't get voltage surges. it's the charge controller I would have got if I didn't have the chargery. From the manual it seems to do everything the chargery does plus it can control other solar controllers and handle external dc chargers including alternator power.

When you want maximun safety, I recommend you also put an overvoltage protection relay (cost about 6 dollars) into your system. I use one always even with the chargery. It' like a deadman switch, since the overvoltage protection relay measure overall voltage directly from the battery, if the controller fails, the bms fails, the overvoltage relay will activate a larger relay to disconnect the solar panel. I actually have 2 x 30 amp automotive relays on the solar panel (one control by chargery, one by overvoltage relay). You can never be too safe.


image_pkokcc.jpg
 
jonyjoe505 said:
electrodacus is a good solar controller, the only one that is actually made for llithium (measures cell voltage) all others controllers that say they can do lithium aren't (they only measure overall voltage).

Its just more complicated in hooking everything up. Since it uses contactors to disconnect the panel, you won't get voltage surges. it's the charge controller I would have got if I didn't have the chargery. From the manual it seems to do everything the chargery does plus it can control other solar controllers and handle external dc chargers including alternator power.

When you want maximun safety, I recommend you also put an overvoltage protection relay (cost about 6 dollars) into your system. I use one always even with the chargery. It' like a deadman switch, since the overvoltage protection relay measure overall voltage directly from the battery, if the controller fails, the bms fails, the overvoltage relay will activate a larger relay to disconnect the solar panel. I actually have 2 x 30 amp automotive relays on the solar panel (one control by chargery, one by overvoltage relay). You can never be too safe.


image_pkokcc.jpg
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Thank you for the advice I was going to look for a backup safety device and that looks perfect. Would you know of a safety device to prevent batteries from charging below freezing. I'm going build a battery shed and live in the Midwest. I would love to have a way to not charge plus warm the batteries to a acceptable temperature before charging.
 
jonyjoe505 said:
.....
Everyday my battery is fully charged. I expect my cells to be at 3.65 volts, the max.
.......
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Are you also using LiFePo4 cells?
Hope they're not getting overcharged?
 
elkeith108 said:
Thank you for the advice I was going to look for a backup safety device and that looks perfect. Would you know of a safety device to prevent batteries from charging below freezing. I'm going build a battery shed and live in the Midwest. I would love to have a way to not charge plus warm the batteries to a acceptable temperature before charging.
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Chargery also does "Low temp cut off"
 
Hope they're not getting overcharged?

In winter I have the controller bulk setting set to 15.5 volts(max it will go) and usually struggle to get to 3.65 volts. The few times it does get to 3.65 volts the chargery will disconnect the panel.

If I set the bulk setting to 14.6 volts as recommended for a 4s lifepo4, the controller will only charge at 1 amp, at 15.5 volts I get the full 12 amps the 240 watt panel can put out. I demand max performance. Because of the extreme performance, I have the overvoltage protection relay, in case bms fails.

As far as charging or not charging in cold weather, you can buy temperature control relays on ebay (cost about 5 dollars), they are fully programmable in turning on/off a relay at certain temperatures. They have small 10 amp relays, but those small relays can power bigger relays. You can see on youtube how to use those relays. Some that I bought only display in celcius.
 
jonyjoe505 said:
Hope they're not getting overcharged?

In winter I have the controller bulk setting set to 15.5 volts(max it will go) and usually struggle to get to 3.65 volts. The few times it does get to 3.65 volts the chargery will disconnect the panel.

If I set the bulk setting to 14.6 volts as recommended for a 4s lifepo4, the controller will only charge at 1 amp, at 15.5 volts I get the full 12 amps the 240 watt panel can put out. I demand max performance. Because of the extreme performance, I have the overvoltage protection relay, in case bms fails.

As far as charging or not charging in cold weather, you can buy temperature control relays on ebay (cost about 5 dollars), they are fully programmable in turning on/off a relay at certain temperatures. They have small 10 amp relays, but those small relays can power bigger relays. You can see on youtube how to use those relays. Some that I bought only display in celcius.
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OK, as long as you're OK with the shorter cell life effects caused bygoing to 3.65V?
You still get almost all the capacity going to 3.45V/cell & holding there for an hour or so -"holding there" lets the cells "absorb" similar to LAs.
I find going above about 3.45V/cell makes my LiFePo4 packs unstable & balance starts going out fast.
 
I'm using this BMS for about 4 months. As of today have positive experience with it.
If you have any question, feel free to ask.
Also have youtube channel with BMS review, if anyone interested could share link (not sure if it's allowed to post youtube links here).
 
Why do you set the voltage higher? The limit that occours is since the controller goes into CV mode instead of CC
Its normal and its to protect the battery. The max voltage in the Charge controller should be the max the battery have in the Specs and not above.
 
I posted this on another thread... I would not recommend Chargery.
I deployed the 1st 16T successfully on a 14s13p APC battery pack.. so i got a 2nd one.
I got a 16 - and discovered that this model does not include balance.
I got 2 more 16Ts... and deployed the 1st on on a 14s7p APC battery and in 2 weeks it burned a resistor/failed... No abuse or signficant load or significant difference in cells (<20mv balance diff).Here's a pic of what I found when I opened it - notice the burn smudge, the resistor was so burned it was 'flakey' to the touch.
image_wslazc.jpg

What really upsets me is that it did not fail 'properly'... it went into wildly misreading cell voltages AND started a cycle of 2 minute relay OFF... and then reset? ->rely ON and repeat - causing the battery to be enabled and disabled in a cycle. Leaves my confidence shaken.If a BMS fails - the least it can do is to turn things off and leave them off.

Next - I deployed the 3rd chargery 16T to replace the 'burned one' above - but accidentally touched the end of thetemp sensor to a cell (pushing it into the battery)and it sparked/blew it up the control unit - completely non-functional. The probe appeared to be shrink-wraped / electrically protected but I guess not. While I'm willing to say 'my bad'... in the sense of'fool me once shame on me' but I'm not going to spend more money for fool me twice. Out $300 within a couple of minutes.

I still have the original 16T running - for couple of months now - and appears OK, but after the on/off failure above I've lost confidence in this product.
 
^^^ Here is a link to the recent prior thread, which includes further reports of Chargery problems.

Beware that in some cases a low-quality bms is worse than no bms at all (that's a general remark, I don't know if that applies to those at hand).
 
I suspect some of the problems with the chargery might be overheating. There is no fan on the unit and it is capable of 1.2 amp balancing, the heat will cook the unit. I disable the balancing on my chargery and just rely on my active balancers. And when i first got the chargery I notice if you use the internal power (from the balancing wires) i was getting all kind of strange cell readings, when I use external power, everything works good, all cell voltages read normal. I also miswired the shunt but luckily it didnt damage any components.



After a year and half in use 24/7 its been running excellent. I still recommend the chargery bms8, which is what I use. But I wouldn't recommend using the balancing function because there isn't any vent holes in the unit. Every balance charger I seen has a fan or vents to dissipate heat.


"Why do you set the voltage higher?"


because of voltage drop from controller to battery. At 15.5 volts on the controller LCD display the battery terminal reads 14.6 volts. It gives me more amps from my 240 watt panel. And I definitely couldn't do it without the chargery and my active balancers. I also have an overvoltage protection relay which will disconnect the panel if the battery voltage goes above 14.7 volts. I don't trust any bms, even the chargery to be 100 percent everytime. Always have a backup in case something fails.



Why I set the bulk voltage to 15.5 volts, to charge at 15 amps from my 240 watt panel, at the recommended 14.6 volts I only charge at 5 or 6 amps.



image_ahkflj.jpg
 
aleks2a said:
unfortunately another bad review:

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Watched the video, person assumes that it is the BMS that is the problem so orders another which does the same thing....... Hmmmm. Couldn't it be the battery or cabling?

He didn't check or do the obvious such as move the cells from one bank to another and see if it follows .... or disappears.
If it disappears then it was a cabling issue. If it follows then it's the cells.
If it doesn't follow then it really is the bms.

Doesn't this make sense or am I off in left field.
 
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