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Best Blender/Combiner/Balancer for 48V+52V setup?

Transit Artist

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Lenapehoking
I just started modding electrics and bought a Bafang G62X Rear Fat SuperH kit and Phaserunner__L10 kit. I'd like to add a second 52V 50A 10Ah battery to my existing 48V 15Ah Aventon Aventure.1 battery (reporting to have worked with a 3rd party 35A controller). Can/should I use a 90A Datex2, will this no name 120A work or is there a better option? DateX claims to run cool and more efficient but am I straddling my amp limit should the AA1 battery turn out 40A and I can utilize it with this kit? It seems I'd also need to use a plug converter for the 48V as the 90A+ balancers are XT90. Will that cause a bottleneck/heat? I plan to put the balancer in the frame where the old controller is, new controller outside, but is it safer to protect the blender from weather than to expose it to air? Is there anything wrong with my choice of battery? It's the only one I've found that will hide under the seat with such power. Is this a heat safe configuration overall?
Heres my Monster eChopper thus far with the battery superimposed:
View attachment 374980
 
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underSaddle.jpeg
I'd like to add a second 52V 50A 10Ah battery to my existing 48V 15Ah Aventon Aventure.1 battery (reporting to have worked with a 3rd party 35A controller if that helps guesstimate the amps).
DateX claims to run cool and more efficient but does that change if I'm straddling the 90 amp limit?
1. Can/should I use a 90A Datex2, or would this no name 120A do better having more amp overhead. Is there a better option than both of these?
2. It seems I'd also need to use a plug converter for the 48V as the 90A+ balancers are XT90. That shouldn't cause a bottleneck/heat, right?

I plan to put the balancer in the frame where the old controller is, new controller outside, but..
3. Is it safer to protect the blender from weather or expose it to air and water?
4. Is there anything wrong with my choice of battery? It's the only one I've found that will hide under the seat with such power.
5. Is this a heat safe configuration overall given an additional Bafang G62X Rear Fat SuperH kit and Phaserunner__L10?
 
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Claiming safe charging and what not. Well, those things when used with wrong batterys
like that can _not_ be safe w/o knowing the receiving end(==controller) "knows" about
this via deliberate programming/configuring, and even then, is betting STRONG on BMS
to do things correctly.

I don't see why anyone would go for such a narrow battery - as in you can't charge 52V
to full, nor use the 48V to low voltage limit, so you're going to be left only a few volts in
the end with this scheme unless charging separately.

edit: i can't tell that their product would be any different from any other "blender" except
3d-printed case on it. looks to me like the cheapest(99usd) would easily be matched with
one priced at 17usd from pswpower.com - just lacking that fugly 3d-printed case that is.
edit2:
If it was acting safely, it would have either buttons/switches for selecting what is or isn't
attached at any port, or be "hardwired" to have the 52V battery only on input1 and 48V
only on input2 or w/e. As is it can't know when to switch from higher voltage battery to
using _only_ the lower voltage battery - so it is simply working on voltages alone, and so
will also try the best it can to drain your 52V below what it can safely deliver, which leads
to BMSes being what this thing is really relying on. Likely the same on charging also.
 
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I wouldn't trust anything from that site. One of those links for one that says it supports different voltage batteries also claims connecting two 60A max discharge capable batteries with this gives you a 120A capable system. Nothing could be further from the truth.

In my experience the device measures the voltage of the batteries, which is iffy due to voltage sag under use anyway, then selects a battery to use via MOSFETs. So there's always either one battery connected or the other. The type of circuit is called an ideal diode.

If you set your controller to draw more than a single battery can provide, the BMS on whatever single battery is getting used gets tripped as soon as you go full throttle and you have to turn the bike and packs off and back on again.

Ones that support charging then have a duplicate set of circuits going the other direction from the charging plug. You need a common port BMS on the battery packs because a separate port BMS is only capable of disabling charging from one of its plugs and only capable of disabling discharging from the other. Using battery packs with common port BMS protects you better, but is worse in some situations like when you don't want some brief regenerative braking current to be blocked. I know my controller will turn off and force me to clear fault flags via software before it runs again in that case, for example.

I wouldn't recommend adapters for connectors either. Cut off the ends and solder on new ones. If you aren't decent at soldering, you can also buy pigtails and heat gun solder seals for joining wires. The fewer connectors and adapters in any ebike I setup, they more reliable it is. If you really have to, you can buy a thermal camera and check where the hot spots are, but that doesn't even work for connectors which can loosen due to vibration later.

Anyway, descriptions on that site show it is just a bunch of scammers trying to burn down your house and vehicle to make sales. Not a good choice. You can design a system to run two batteries of similar voltage and capacity at once to net double the max discharge OR you can use one of these blenders to choose one or the other battery to use one at a time based on voltage. They are just lying to you that you can do both at once to make sales, though.
 
Claiming safe charging and what not. Well, those things when used with wrong batterys
like that can _not_ be safe w/o knowing the receiving end(==controller) "knows" about
this via deliberate programming/configuring, and even then, is betting STRONG on BMS
to do things correctly.
I'm hoping the Phaserunner_L10 can programmed to the correct combined power. Can it not?
I don't see why anyone would go for such a narrow battery - as in you can't charge 52V
to full, nor use the 48V to low voltage limit, so you're going to be left only a few volts in
the end with this scheme unless charging separately.
I never charge batteries on the bike so charging doesn't seem an issue. Is usage?
edit: i can't tell that their product would be any different from any other "blender" except
3d-printed case on it. looks to me like the cheapest(99usd) would easily be matched with
one priced at 17usd from pswpower.com - just lacking that fugly 3d-printed case that is.
Are you speaking from experience? DateX heavily promotes less loss and low temps compared to unbranded versions and on-shore distribution at least acknowledges the legal safety restrictions, and offers a three year warranty unlike others.
edit2:
If it was acting safely, it would have either buttons/switches for selecting what is or isn't
attached at any port, or be "hardwired" to have the 52V battery only on input1 and 48V
only on input2 or w/e. As is it can't know when to switch from higher voltage battery to
using _only_ the lower voltage battery - so it is simply working on voltages alone, and so
will also try the best it can to drain your 52V below what it can safely deliver, which leads
to BMSes being what this thing is really relying on. Likely the same on charging also.
So is it the BMS programming, the hardware or both that need to be studied and what might I be looking for in a battery management system? Buttons/switches on which piece? 52V is proposed for more power than I'll get out of a second 48V/15Ah. As well it happens to fit better than anything else but I'm open to under-saddle suggestions and BMS options.

Am I gathering from your lack of attention to the question of amps that if I were nearing 90 Amps combined battery output it doesn't matter if I'm at 90A or under 120A?
 
I wouldn't trust anything from that site. One of those links for one that says it supports different voltage batteries also claims connecting two 60A max discharge capable batteries with this gives you a 120A capable system. Nothing could be further from the truth.

In my experience the device measures the voltage of the batteries, which is iffy due to voltage sag under use anyway, then selects a battery to use via MOSFETs. So there's always either one battery connected or the other. The type of circuit is called an ideal diode.

If you set your controller to draw more than a single battery can provide, the BMS on whatever single battery is getting used gets tripped as soon as you go full throttle and you have to turn the bike and packs off and back on again.

Ones that support charging then have a duplicate set of circuits going the other direction from the charging plug. You need a common port BMS on the battery packs because a separate port BMS is only capable of disabling charging from one of its plugs and only capable of disabling discharging from the other. Using battery packs with common port BMS protects you better, but is worse in some situations like when you don't want some brief regenerative braking current to be blocked. I know my controller will turn off and force me to clear fault flags via software before it runs again in that case, for example.

I wouldn't recommend adapters for connectors either. Cut off the ends and solder on new ones. If you aren't decent at soldering, you can also buy pigtails and heat gun solder seals for joining wires. The fewer connectors and adapters in any ebike I setup, they more reliable it is. If you really have to, you can buy a thermal camera and check where the hot spots are, but that doesn't even work for connectors which can loosen due to vibration later.

Anyway, descriptions on that site show it is just a bunch of scammers trying to burn down your house and vehicle to make sales. Not a good choice. You can design a system to run two batteries of similar voltage and capacity at once to net double the max discharge OR you can use one of these blenders to choose one or the other battery to use one at a time based on voltage. They are just lying to you that you can do both at once to make sales, though.
Thank you! I'll study this and be back with questions. Very helpful.
 
You can design a system to run two batteries of similar voltage and capacity at once to net double the max discharge OR you can use one of these blenders to choose one or the other battery to use one at a time based on voltage. They are just lying to you that you can do both at once to make sales, though.
This is likely the way I'll go. Should I choose to switch between differing voltage batteries can the Phaserunner_L10 do so without the need to change inputs while on the road or is that a necessary process? I'd rather not add another display with more wires (like the CycleAnalyst) if I can avoid it. Another 48V does seem easiest given that I'd be contributing nothing new to preserving my battery life if manually switching between the two and I'd rather not have to adjust the system while riding. In total I'm hoping for some added torque that another 48V doesn't seem to provide. Am I on the right path to torque or is my 52V quest just unreasonable?
 
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The Phaserunner and CycleAnalyst will have no problem switching between 48v and 52v. The only issue will be the low voltage cutoff on the Phaserunner, which you would set for a 48v battery will be a bit low for the 52v battery, but the BMS on the pack will cut off if the pack runs too low.
 
The Phaserunner and CycleAnalyst will have no problem switching between 48v and 52v. The only issue will be the low voltage cutoff on the Phaserunner, which you would set for a 48v battery will be a bit low for the 52v battery, but the BMS on the pack will cut off if the pack runs too low.
Thanks, and by cut off you refer to Inanek's instance of the "controller will turn off and force me to clear fault flags via software before it runs again", not simply switching sources but shutting down? Sounding like same voltage is the only reliablly hassle free solution.
 
Low voltage cutoff usually just means the controller won't drive the motor any more until you charge the battery. Realistically, turning off and back on does sometimes let you go again since the voltage sag due to load is no longer present. Programmable controllers often allow setting a trigger and recovery voltage separately to avoid that. So you can set the recovery voltage higher than the trigger voltage. There's often a delay setting too you can use to delay how quickly it's willing to reset.

That said, I've limped home that way a couple times going very gentle on the throttle, which prevents voltage sag, and can avoid triggering LVC even if you hit it at full throttle. Never had to clear fault codes due to LVC, only over voltage/over current faults due to the controller trying to feed surges and regen back into the batteries and failing due to things like battery blenders/DC-DC voltage converters in the way.

Running the 52V battery down to the 48V controller LVC probably will trip the BMS LVC and require turning that pack off and back on again if it has a separate switch (my packs have separate key switches for that) before it works again. In a battery blender situation, having one pack with a tripped BMS LVC generally just means the blender will always choose the other battery now until you stop and charge.
 
One of those links for one that says it supports different voltage batteries also claims connecting two 60A max discharge capable batteries with this gives you a 120A capable system. Nothing could be further from the truth.
Clarification for readers that don't know electrical principles:

Paralleling two batteries does, in principle, allow for providing twice as much current (A).

In reality, you would never want to use a system capable of higher current draw than the lowest-current-delivery-capable battery in the system, because if any of the other paralleled batteries fails or disconnects for any reason, you don't want to overload the lower-capability battery(ies).

And, of course, if you have a system with different voltage batteries, they can't both be connected directly in parallel and thus can't both supply current to the system at the same time. Only one of them will supply current at a time, until the higher voltage unit has drained enough to equal the lower voltage unit, and then both will be able to supply current *if* the "blender" device works in a way that allows this.

Some of the combiners / blenders / incorrectly-named-balancers use simple diodes, and those will allow that to happen. However, those by necessity don't allow regen, so you cannot use them on a system that has regen or you can blow up your controller.

Some are "smart" and thus unpredictable (by the user) for how they will work, because they never say how they are designed inside, either electrically or software-wise, and thus we can't know (without testing each possible variation) what is going to happen in any of the many variations of battery states and system current draws or current directions.

But...virtually none of the devices actually say what they are inside, so without testing of all the possible situations, you won't know how the one you buy performs in any of those situations, or what it will do to your batteries.



In general, I would not recommend using any form of prebuilt device like this, unless you know *for sure* how it works, and what it will do in all the situations you will be using it in.


It is much more predictable to simply directly connect your batteries' discharge ports in parallel, *after* ensuring you have charged them both to the same voltage.

If the batteries are different full-charge voltages, you will only ever be able to charge them to the lowest-voltage-unit's full voltage.


If the batteries all have common-port BMSes, meaning that they charge and discharge thru the same pads on the BMS, then youc an leave them connected while charging.

If they have separate-port BMSes, or you don't know *for sure* what kind they have, you must disconnect them from each other while charging, and only reconnect after charging is complete and charger is disconnected.

Don't leave the charge ports connected to each other, when not charging, either.

Reasons for the above are clarified in detail in other posts about this sort of thing around the forum.
 
So if I give in and go with a second 48V/15Ah (assumedly 40A+40A) to dodge some of these avoidable issues, should a combiner be used or is there a better solution? I met a guy running four 48V batteries with simple split cables but he seem more proficient than I. The black-box nature of these parts is indeed a pain.
 
So if I give in and go with a second 48V/15Ah (assumedly 40A+40A) to dodge some of these avoidable issues, should a combiner be used or is there a better solution?
The better (predictable) solution is already stated in the second (last) section of the post I made. ;)

Regarding which batteries to use...as long as you don't need any more current than a single battery can provide, then you can just use two of the same battery.

If you need more current than your present battery can provide, you would be safest to replace that battery with a single larger one that does both jobs--more capacity and more current, but at the least you'd need to use a pair that can each supply the full current, by itself.
 
You can design a system to run two batteries of similar voltage and capacity at once to net double the max discharge [current]
Am trying to think how you would do that....?

Even if you get a second identical battery and combine them with diodes or direct connection, if their age or use differs their capacities will differ, and possibly their resistances, resulting in unequal current sharing. That in turn wears the two batteries differently making the current sharing more unpredictable.

Maybe you'd need to buy two new batteries, parallel all the P-groups (perfectly) and replace the two BMS with a suitably sized one.
 
Even if you get a second identical battery and combine them with diodes or direct connection, if their age or use differs their capacities will differ, and possibly their resistances, resulting in unequal current sharing. That in turn wears the two batteries differently making the current sharing more unpredictable.
If the batteries are chosen so they have more than the required capabilities, so taht even as they age they will still be capable enough, it's not usually an issue, unless they are badly made (in which case they probably dont' really have the required capabilities to start with, and don't qualify for this paragraph).
 
Thank you all. To conclude, I probably shouldn't be trying to run two batteries simultaneously without possessing your higher level of understanding in this case.. sound about right? Harder to reconcile as I was expecting an (advertised) upgrade in battery life but I'll focus on using a 48v & 52v one at a time.
 
The Phaserunner and CycleAnalyst will have no problem switching between 48v and 52v. The only issue will be the low voltage cutoff on the Phaserunner, which you would set for a 48v battery will be a bit low for the 52v battery, but the BMS on the pack will cut off if the pack runs too low.
Does that mean the Phaserunner will switch automatically when I switch batteries or do I need to use the display, and is that a simple process? I don't always have my glasses on so reading fine text can be problematic, but not a deal breaker.

Aside and instead of these combiners, is there a Grin offering made to use two batteries (XT60 & XT90) with the Phaserunner so I can leave the main plugged in but turned off with other plug running out of the frame? I see base plates but thats not what I need and can't determine if the other plug products are what I need. (I assume this forum is monitored by Grin folk =)
 
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"Accurate State Of Charge (SOC) estimator based on your cell chemistry and voltage. Configure up to two batteries each with their own details and Low Voltage Cutoffs."
(This refers to using them one at a time)
 
I have a cycle analyst too, but I think you'd have to hit some buttons to change the battery settings, I don't think it's automatic.

Similarly, there's some cheap controllers that will try to determine an LVC to use based on the initial starting voltage. Not aware of a Grin controller doing that, though. It can guess wrong if you start the bike with less than a full charge too.

I think if your blender is dynamically picking the 52V or the 48V battery without any power interruption you wouldn't be able to trigger that automatic logic anyway. You'd have to use something like a manual battery selector rotary switch used on boats that can temporarily kill power in-between.

The BMS in the packs usually handles LVC fine for safety anyway. Only thing you are really missing by having the wrong one in the controller is it can't automatically enter limp home mode that limits throttle as you approach it (unless you give up capacity by using the 52V LVC instead of the 48V LVC). Controllers can limit their current draw to baby a dying battery which would drop below LVC via voltage sag if you drew max discharge amps, BMS can just turn the whole pack off.
 
OK, After saving up and learning more I’ve settled upon what seems the safest option that allows me charge each battery independently without checking for balanced voltage with a multimeter every ride. I’m hoping someone can proof my setup for me before I spend what seems an exorbitant amount, particularly on the blenders (combiners). I have two bikes that I’ll be switching a third battery between. Both paralleled with a blender.

Both systems are controlled with the Phaserunner_V6 and would utilize this blender, which is the only available option, (everything is sold out), from what seems a somewhat established seller which can handle the voltage range.

The interchangeable battery to be paralleled with each of the following is this 48V Samsung 50E option (XT60).

1st Battery: (unknown BMS settings) 48V / 15Ah - ( LG INR21700-M50LT - 21700 lithium-ion 13S3P ) Cell Balancing Cutoff: 4.2V per cell. Safety cutoff at around 39V. 30A continuous, 50-60A peak
1st Motor: Bafang G62 1000W
Proposed Phaserunner settings: Max Battery Current - 45A, Max Phase Current - 85A

2nd Battery: (unknown BMS settings) 48V / 15Ah - ( 18650 lithium-ion cells 13S6P ) Triggers and cuts off input current if any individual cell parallel group hits 4.25V. Safety cutoff at around 39V. 25A to 30A continuous, 35-40 peak
2st Motor: Bafang G62 750W 6.5
Proposed Phaserunner settings: Max Battery Current - 32A, Max Phase Current - 65A

Should my interchangeable battery choice parallel well with the others? Are those safe ranges for me to set? Are there better or equal blender options for my voltage ranges and the greater amp output of the interchangeable battery that don’t cost an extra $69 for an output I’ll likely never use?
 
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Sorry, I only quickly skimmed the thread ... seems like you're chasing extended capacity rather than current, and intend to charge the two batteries independently. If I gathered that correctly, what's the purpose of the battery blender?

If the only function is as a SPDT switch, why not use an analog manually activated switch? I'd guess two reasons. 1. Convenience. 2. To deplete each battery equally on shorter journeys, to minimise depth of discharge and thus prolong battery life.

Fair enough if so, but personally I'd prefer a handlebar voltage display, and a switch within reach, likely on seat tube. I'm confident I could make sensible decisions based on the voltage reading about when to switch, and master the technique of switching without diverting eyes from road or missing a single pedal stroke. I'm sure you could too.
 
seems like you're chasing extended capacity rather than current, and intend to charge the two batteries independently. If I gathered that correctly, what's the purpose of the battery blender? ...personally I'd prefer a handlebar voltage display, and a switch.
Correct. I abandoned trying to get more current as the smallest waterproof switches I'd found suitable are gigantic and just won't fit anywhere. Also the two proprietary batteries that came with my bikes have unknown BMS settings (which I've edited for clarity above), so the blender is intended to protect against cross-charging current or one shutting down causing a surge to the other, allowing me to raise my Max Battery Current settings on the Phaserunner. I chose this blender because it seems to be able to cover any surges from the 48V Samsung 50E while staying cool. Fire and ease-of-use are my ultimate concerns and the blenders scare me, but seem safer that just using a Y-combiner cable not knowing the true BMS cut-offs of my original batteries.
 
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Ok, so how about an even more rudimentary switch then ... unplugging one battery when it's emptyish then plugging in the other?

It's the safest, simplest, cheapest, and most robust option. What's not to like?
 
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