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I had a thought.
At 14.4v peak, a balancing circuit isn't needed, and here's why I say this:
With a maximum safe voltage per cell of 2.7 volts, equilibrium *should* ideally be around 2.4 volts, or 88% of maximum charge (with listed max safe actually being 2.85 per cell or a hair over 17v). Let's say that one cell is charged to only 2 volts while the other hits 2.8..that would be a variance of 29%, which is huge.
Bearing that in mind, what happens to charge rate as the capacitor bank comes up on fully charged? The charging rate drops off.
Thus, my argument is that a cap bank of identical condition/make/model capacitors will always self balance to a degree; what that degree is, I'm not sure, but the variance on my bank was only 5.186% from most charged to least charged. I'd wager that over time, that number would likely reduce slightly, and that the most charged capacitor(s) could likely hold more voltage before having an issue anyway.
I am hoping that moving to copper interconnects/connectors will help reduce some of this variance as well, as I know aluminum has a higher innate resistance and may be forcing more into the capacitors closer to the negative side of things. I may wind up testing this out after a while, but don't hold your breath.
Thoughts? Concerns?
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