Cell balance test

Why do we need Cell Balancing?

Cell balancing is a technique in which voltage levels of every
individual cell connected in series to form a battery pack is
maintained to be equal to achieve the maximum efficiency of the
battery pack. When different cells are combined together to form
a battery pack it is always made sure that they are of the same
chemistry and voltage value. But once the pack is installed and
subjected to charging and discharging the voltage values of the individual cells tends to vary
due some reasons which we will discuss later. This variation in voltage levels causes cell
unbalancing which will lead to one of the following problems

Active balancing
Active cell balancing methods remove charge from one or more high cells and deliver the
charge to one or more low cells. Since it is impractical to provide independent charging for all
the individual cells simultaneously, the balancing charge must be applied sequentially. Taking
into account the charging times for each cell, the equalisation process is also vary time
consuming with charging times measured in hours. Some active cell balancing schemes are
designed to halt the charging of the fully charged cells and continue charging the weaker cells
till they reach full charge thus maximising the battery's charge capacity.

 Charge Shuttle (Flying Capacitor) Charge Distribution

With this method a capacitor is switched sequentially across
each cell in the series chain. The capacitor averages the charge
level on the cells by picking up charge from the cells with
higher than average voltage and dumping the charge into cells
with lower than average voltage. Alternatively the process can
be speeded up by programming the capacitor to repeatedly
transfer charge from the highest voltage cell to the lowest
voltage cell. Efficiency is reduced as the cell voltage differences are reduced. The method is
fairly complex with expensive electronics.
  Inductive Shuttle Charge Distribution
This method uses a transformer with its primary winding connected across
the battery and a secondary winding which can be switched across individual
cells. It is used to take pulses of energy as required from the full battery,
rather than small charge differences from a single cell, to top up the
remaining cells. It averages the charge level as with the Flying Capacitor but
avoids the problem of small voltage differences in cell voltage and is
consequently much faster. This system obviously needs well balanced
secondary transformer windings otherwise it will contribute to the problem.
Passive balancing
Dissipative techniques find the cells with the highest charge in the pack, indicated by the higher
cell voltage, and remove excess energy through a bypass resistor until the voltage or charge
matches the voltage on the weaker cells. Some passive balancing schemes stop charging
altogether when the first cell is fully charged, then discharge the fully charged cells into a load
until they reach the same charge level as the weaker cells. Other schemes are designed
continue charging till all the cells are fully charged but to limit the voltage which can be applied
to individual cells and to bypass the cells when this voltage has been reached.

This method levels downwards and because it uses low bypass currents, equalisation times are
very long. Pack performance determined by the weakest cell and is lossy due to wasted energy
in the bypass resistors which could drain the battery if operated continuously. It is however the
lowest cost option.

What is Cell Imbalance?

If lithium cells are overheated or overcharged, they
are prone to accelerated cell degradation. They can
catch fire or even explode as a thermal runaway
condition can occur if a lithium ion cell voltage
exceeds 4.2 V by even a few hundred millivolts.