Battery Cell Monitor (Bcm); Main Features Of The Bcm - Rectifier RT9- 24V Installation, Operation And Technical Manual

Installation, Operation and Technical Manual

4.9 Battery Cell Monitor (BCM)

The Battery Cell Monitor (BCM) is an add-on module for the MCSU-4. It is used to monitor
individual cells of a battery during float or equalisation operation, or during a discharge.
Each BCM unit is capable of monitoring up to 24 cells. A total of four BCM units can be
used to monitor 4 battery strings of 24 cells each.
Using the ability of the MCSU-4 to communicate to a remote or local PC, cell voltage data
accumulated during a discharge can be transferred to a PC and saved. The cell voltages
can also be viewed in real time when the MCSU-4 is connected to a PC. The WinCSU-2
software that is running on the PC can display the cell voltage data in various convenient
formats to ascertain the state of health of batteries.
In the event that the battery behaves in a way which is less than ideal during a test or
actual discharge, a number of pre-programmed parameter levels are used to generate
alarms which are annunciated on the MCSU-4 front panel by a LED and display message.
Remote alarm is available via voltage free relay or via a communications port to a PC
(locally or remotely).

4.9.1 Main Features of the BCM

The principle features of the BCM are as follows:
 Up to 24 cells can be monitored by a single BCM module. Cell voltage
setting can be 2V, 4V, 6V and 12V.
 Up to four BCM board can be connected to a single MCSU-4.
 Individual cell voltages of a battery can be viewed on the MCSU-4 display
in real time. The cell voltage rounded to the nearest 5mV (applies only to
2V range) is displayed together with the cell number and its percentage
deviation from the average cell voltage of the battery.
 All the cell voltages can be displayed in a "Histogram" format on a local or
remote PC using WinCSU-2 software.
 The PC can display the real time cell voltages or cell voltages stored
during a previous discharge.
 A line graph of cell voltage versus time can be selected as the PC display
to observe the manner in which the cell voltages as a whole decreased
during a discharge. It is also possible to select for all the cell voltages to
be displayed (in different colours) or for a particular cell voltage to be
displayed together with the average cell voltage as a function of time.
 As the BCM is permanently connected to the batteries, an automatic,
daily down-loading of the steady state cell voltages for the different
batteries in a system can be made to a remote monitoring PC.
 A discharge test can be initiated either locally or remotely from WinCSU-2
software. The test can be performed with constant, user programmable
current (recommended) or under full load connected to the system. This
test can be programmed to occur periodically in non critical times and
results can be used to monitor the condition of the battery strings. For
details refer to MCSU-4 section.
158-1872-01 32
Rectifier Technologies
19-Feb-14