Okay, from time to time I see people asking me about Bms's and what they could use for something other than the traditional voltages like 12 or 24 48 volts right? Sometimes they want to use like bigger battery packs and stuff and so they're always asking what is out there as a BMS that is configurable and they could be used for a large battery system. And this is the one that I'm currently using right now for the vehicles right? This is Uh is called the Lithium and is developed by a company called Thunderstruck Motors Uh, but it is also sold by a bunch of other dealers like EV West right? So this is the master unit and then this is a satellite unit right? And so this each one of these will handle 24 cells. Uh, it's got two of these Uh chips that can handle Uh 12. uh cells right? So there's got two. This is 24 so there's another. So this this right here. system can uh do 48 cells right? But you can keep adding more satellites and you daisy chain them on these little connectors. Uh and the only thing so it's highly configurable. You can, you can pick all your parameters of stuff. uh that's the good stuff right? and I think this is like almost four hundred dollars 450 or something? These are 275. so it's it. Gets to be on the expensive side, but if you have to manage a battery pack uh, a large battery pack and you need a lot of configuration, a lot of uh, this one also speaks can and so you can Uh, connect it to other uh devices that can control this and can deactivate it and it can trigger stuff. uh. also it can. you can monitor it. They have a little screen for this one also. it comes with all this little pre-made connectors um, pigtails right that you can use to uh, connect to your bet to your cells. It also has thermistors so that you can do uh, monitor temperature and stuff right. So the only downside is that you'd have to use a terminal application to be able to use it right. And so if you're not too familiar with computer stuff and a terminal screen and a terminal program, whatever. uh, it could be a little bit confusing. That was the case for me at the beginning I Found this to be just a bit too hard to use for the average person or someone I meet right? But uh, once you get it, then it becomes kinda easy. So let me show you an application where I already have this install in a vehicle and then uh, how the terminal screen looks like All right? So here is a vehicle that has a net gain motor the low voltage right which is an I6 volts nominal but 111 uh nominal battery pack. So it's 30s. So five of these modules. Uh, the Tesla modules. Uh, Tesla Model S modules that are 6s right? So 30s and what happened is that two of the modules Uh during the build the way that that happened, two of the modules were ruined. Um the connect. The BMS that we had in here was connected. You know someone disconnected it that didn't know and then connected it and they didn't connect it the right way and so as a result of that they killed the BMS and then that also killed two modules. And so now we have to replace two modules. So now two are from one pack and then three are from another one. So now we installed a new BMS system. It's in here and now I'm checking this is the terminal screen right? You use a a bunch of applications, one of them that they suggest use is called putty and right now I have it on and I have it charging and so what you do on the terminal screen is you just type uh um uh is it help? Let's see here. Yeah So you type the command help and then it shows you all the possible commands that you can use. and first is it shows you the show commands. So anything you want to see right, show the version of the of the program, the configuration, the map, the cells, the Ltcs which are those little chips stats and then thermistors right? and so you can those are all the show commands. Then there's also set commands and that's where you set everything in there. Uh, from voltages to limits, right? LDC low voltage cutoff high voltage cutoff low voltage cutoff delay. Uh, high voltage cutoff delay. All that stuff right? and then you reset config and stats and you enable sort of stuff like balance. Um, Thermistor's Loop it has a loop. uh thing that you set it so that if any event of high voltage or low voltage event happens, then it opens. Uh, it closes a loop right and so that's what I'm using I have a little external relay and then what I'm gonna do is I have it connected now to the another a loop on the charger. and so the the way the reason why I have that is because what I want to do uh in test right now is the feature where if any of the cells over charge right Sell Groups over charge, then it's supposed to stop charging. supposed to tell the charger to stop right so that if you don't run into a condition where you overcharge a cell, uh, to the point where maybe there's a fire or you know, whatever damage or whatever. Yes, so so that's what we're going to do. So right now I'm going to put show uh I can't even spell show cells. That's one of the commands that you can and here we go. look So those are all the 30 cells and most of them are at 4.1 There's some at 4.09 so there's a little bit of scrimsy and you can see that's a couple of them are higher look 4.10 and then there's some that go at 4.11 for. So there's two modules that have 4.11 and then the other ones are 4.09 So there's a little bit of discrepancy there. And uh, that's probably because those are the new modules and they're slightly higher than the three older modules that were in the car already. And so the BMS has a a lot of work to do right now and balance all those cells. And it is right. It's discharging, discharging. Um, so it's so it's currently balancing. But what we can do right now is we can go and set the high voltage cutoff to something like just above where it's at right now. So let's say 4.12 12. Let's say nah, that's already I don't 4.1 Yeah, 4.12 Yeah, if we do 4.12 then we should be able to make the charger stop. Right now, the charger is currently charging and so you if you, if you do set, uh, high voltage cutoff, high voltage cutoff HV is C right and then you put four point one. um Q Boom. So that's set. Um then there's high voltage cutoff. Clear threshold. Uh, if you want to see what the I might not have to redo that one because it might conflict right? So show stats. Yeah, show stats and it should tell me what that's set at. Now Now that's that's show config. Okay, so there we go. So high voltage cutoff clear. it's 4.2 Um, I should put it at four. Four point One high voltage. So Hvcc set HV CC high voltage cutoff clear and I'm gonna put four point One zero. There we go. That way, it won't interfere. So show cells. So there we go. As soon as any of those cells hit 4.12 there's uh, there's some that are really close. 4.118 right? So that's like really close. Then the charger should stop and the light on this uh uh, relay should turn on right. And then this should tell me that there's an event. a high voltage cutoff event. So let's wait and see how long that takes. Oh, it literally happened seconds before after I stop recording. But look, it cleared again. So the uh, the cell I guess the cell group that reached that point. Uh, went back to the clear setting and then it started charging again. So let's see if it goes up once again. But here it is. It shows us Uh BMS 1 C17. So where is it at? C17 is right here. Can you guys see that? So it tells you right here, that one C17 is in high voltage cutoff. So here C17, it's 4.119 There it is. So as soon as it hits 2 1.2 it should do it again. Okay, there it is. It hit it. The thing turned on, the light started blinking and then the the light on The relay turned on. Which means it's activated so it's cutting power to the charger, right? It's it's opening the loop of the charger and so now this thing gives you a high voltage cutoff alert. It's okay. So all I'm doing is basically are creating this event so that I could make sure that everything's connected correctly and that it is actually working right now. I'm going to put this battery pack to balance and I'm going to put the charger and to charge all the way up. Um, so that it's completely balanced. it's probably going to take a couple days to balance and then after that, we set the uh the high voltage cutoff high like somewhere around 4.3 4.3 and a half. something like that so that, um, it only ever activates if the cells are really like out of balance and then one of the cells hits that voltage. Uh, but it doesn't hit it. you know, just on the on the normal uh event of charging. you know, the regular charging. Cycles Basically So so there you go. This is one of the ways that you can, uh, protect your battery packs right? If you got something that is large, more than 24 cells or up to, you know, 24 cells. Yeah, I think it can go up to like 200 cells or something. So so this is, you know, configurable and um, it's modular so you can keep adding more of these modules. um, I guess in the future I'll show you the little screen because this is not the most efficient way to do it right. Once your car has an event has a thing a trigger, then you have to pop up your laptop, connect and stuff. and so yeah, sometimes. oh there it is. it just it lowered the cell lower in voltage enough, right? it settled back down to activate the charger again. And the reason is because I set the uh, the high voltage cutoff clear very close to the high voltage cutoff threshold. Um, and so right now it's gonna start. So I think in real life I think that that clear is going to be a little bit below, it's going to be at 4.2 as opposed to four point, uh, three and a half right? So if those cells uh does lower than uh yeah, it's gonna, it's gonna start the charger again. but then once the threshold is hit again I don't know, maybe this is what I was gonna do on the top. uh just to prevent the batteries from all being. you know, overly overcharge.