Battery Banks
A bank represents batteries working together as one electrical source.
When to create a bank
Create a bank when multiple batteries are intentionally connected together to supply the same system. Common examples are parallel 12 V batteries forming a larger 12 V house bank or a group of batteries dedicated to a propulsion, starter, or auxiliary system.
How VoltSyncra summarizes a bank
- Voltage: shown as a representative/average bank voltage when individual battery telemetry is available.
- Current: individual battery currents can be combined to estimate total current flowing into or out of the group.
- State of charge: individual SOC values can be averaged when the batteries have comparable capacity.
- Capacity: amp-hour capacity can be summed when each battery reports a trustworthy capacity value.
What differences are normal?
Small differences in voltage, current, and BMS-reported SOC can occur because of cable resistance, BMS calibration, temperature, battery age, and connection topology. A large or rapidly increasing difference deserves investigation.
If one battery consistently carries much more or much less current than its neighbors, inspect cabling, terminations, fuses/breakers, BMS behavior, and the physical bank topology.
Use a shunt as an independent reference
A properly configured shunt measures current entering and leaving the entire bank and can provide an independent estimate of state of charge. Comparing the shunt with individual battery BMS data is useful for detecting drift or imbalance.