Charging via output cables.

[Twelvebears]

Folks.

Does anyone know if charging packs via the output cables rather that charging port makes a difference?

With my packs, feeding charge voltage either way will switch on the pack and the charge level lights start cycling as they do when charging, so I presume the power (as during regen braking) is still flowing via the BMS.

I’m just wondering if perhaps cell balancing only happens when charging through the charge wires? Or would the BMS do this regardless off where the power flows from?

FYI the reason I’m interested it doing this is that on my setup with parallel packs, it’s more convenient to plug into the output harness than use the individual pack charging ports IF this makes no difference to the way charging works.

 

[amberwolf]

There is NO overcharge protection if you charge by anything other than the charge port.

Under the right conditions (which you can't know if they exist when doing it this way, without manual cell-level voltage checks) the pack can be permanently damaged or even destroyed (fire, etc) because the BMS cannot stop the charger even if the pack condition requires it to.

Might not happen, but it could.