How can you tell it's balancing the cells?

[dwcraig1]

Does the battery icon have the charge symbol when it's balancing, does it show any amperage? How long does it take? Should I keep it on charge for a couple of days?
It was similar to this so I changed the battery. I tried to balance this battery and the original battery with the cheap charger that comes with the Hotcig mod, all it does is overcharge the "good" cells.
   
It stops charging when 1 and 2 reach 4.20 volts, or I think it does.

[DannyK9]

  dwcraig1 said:

Does the battery icon have the charge symbol when it's balancing, does it show any amperage? How long does it take? Should I keep it on charge for a couple of days?
It was similar to this so I changed the battery. I tried to balance this battery and the original battery with the cheap charger that comes with the Hotcig mod, all it does is overcharge the "good" cells.
   
It stops charging when 1 and 2 reach 4.20 volts, or I think it does.

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As far as i'm aware it always balance charges, lipos are supposed to be balanced charged. 

If you hook it up to escribe you can trace the charge amount of each battery and monitor, you can also change the DNA screen to show charging rate, voltage, pack voltage.

I think anyway, someone more clued up will be along soon no doubt to assist further.

[Spector NS5 RD]

is there any way you can multimeter each cell and post what they are. maybe escribe is a false number for cell 3

edit    i doubt two batteries would have the same problem in the same exact cell, which leads me to think a bad solder job on cell tap 3 on the board or the the charging portion of the dna is going kuh-blu-ee

[OSvaper]

Hi all. I hope someone could help me. So i left my mod for its first charge over the night. I came to it in the morning and cells were reading 4.20, 4.12, 4.20. No matter what i do now that middle cell wont go up. It only got to like 4.09V and than back to 4.12V. I tried everything. Please help me! Sorry for my bad english. Thank you all!

[VapingBad]

The balancing happens at the end of the charge cycle, it works by discharging the highest cell or cells then charging them all again until the highest reach the max voltage and should repeat until they are all close enough.  This happens at a very low current so it takes time and it is conceivable that if your USB supply switches off when the current drawn is low that it doesn't get to finish.   It is implemented like this as all 3 cells have to be charges together at the same rate.

[OSvaper]

Thank you for ur reply. I didnt get anythig from that... Can u explain to me what should i do please? Thank you very much!

[VapingBad]

Give it time and maybe try a different USB supply, if you have USB Current as one of the fields on the charge screen you can see when it stops charging it goes to almost 0.000 A.

[dwcraig1]

It's a slow process, slower than slow in fact.

[OSvaper]

It curent is now 0.80A

[VapingBad]

0.080 A is still charging, almost certainly balance charging if it stays around that level for long.  After you get it balanced if it continues to go out of balance a lot you either have a faulty battery, wiring or board, in that order of likelihood.

[OSvaper]

So my Device Monitor looks like this now. Is it okay? Should i leave device connected?

 

[VapingBad]

If Cell 2 is not changing from 4.12 after a time (sorry don't know how long, say an hour) then if you are confident to remove the battery and test on a multimeter I would do that.  On the white plug with 4 terminals test the voltage between the middle 2, if it is 4.12 V then the battery is faulty, if it is 4.2 V then the wiring/soldering is faulty or dirty.

[OSvaper]

I dont have that connector there. Its just balance wires as i understand. And it has been 4h no moving. It moved to 4.16 at the start when i tried to fire atty and it sad unbalanced battery. After that it was 4.16 and slowly dropped on 4.12 while on charger. Sorry for my bad Eng...

[lewisss]

I would use the mod to let the voltage drop on all the cells. From what I have seen on device monitor it looks to me like the balance process works throughout the charging cycle ie if you have two cells at 3.7 and one at 3.5 the 3.5 one will charge faster until it catches up. This is quicker at lower voltages as the device is demanding the full current charge. To do it when two cells are practically fully charged will take an age!

[OSvaper]

I cant use it... it say imbalanced battery

[lewisss]

Sorry. Did not realise that! But I think being 0.08v difference should not being up unbalanced battery message

[OSvaper]

I dont know what to do... Im stuck

[OSvaper]

After firing it a few times i jumped at 4.17. It was under constant pop up of the imbalanced battery and reducing my wattage

 

[OSvaper]

And its slowly droping... Its at 4.15V now

[dwcraig1]

Here's a screen of mine when the battery was unbalanced more than this one, there was no unbalanced message and the mod worked good.
https://forum.evolvapor.com/topic/67594-topic/?do=findComment&comment=908452
There must be considerable voltage drop when under load perhaps. Looking like a bad cell or connection between cells under the shrink wrap.
I'm just thinking out loud here.
(my situation above ended up not being a bad battery BTW )

[OSvaper]

I dont relly know what to do now... i will leave it connected to the pc ohe night. If that fails than i am hopeless. 

[OSvaper]

Its like this now. Hope it gets better over the night.

Thank you all for help such a great community.

 

[dwcraig1]

  OSvaper said:

Its like this now. Hope it gets better over the night.

Thank you all for help such a great community.

 

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It would be great if you could post a screen shot like above while firing to be able to see the voltage drop on the individual cells.

[OSvaper]

Here it is. After that it gets to the 4.15V and slowly drop to 4.12V-4.13V

[OSvaper]