Drop-in Internal Balancing

[Jman]

Dinky bleeder resistors are only good for very slow charge rates and well matched batteries, and then only for a couple minutes before THAT cell is overcharged and the rest of the pack still low.

Are you going to be home all day and watch for when you should run a load ?

But is that cell really going to be overcharged if only down once in a while? Many people are using these dropins with off shelf chargers at 14.6V & so it can't be that bad.
Normally I charge at just 13.8-14V , when needing balance I fully charge at those low V. Then set charger high to 14.6V and let it float with a controlled load (few light bulbs).
So I can be sure just a few amps is going into battery. Unless I'm wrong here?

[Jman]

Jman which dropin battery are you using? Does this dropin allow you to see what is happening (SOC, VPC, Temp per cell) by phone app? You realize that the dropins require you to periodically charge to 14.4v +/- (depending on manufacturer) for the cells to automatically balance.

Yes one of my dropins does have SOC & vpc from phone app.
With all I have read dropins are top balanced, and if the battery is well looked after imbalance may not even be a problem. So no I don't see why you would do any active balancing at all.

[Ampster]

..........
I don't see how the dinky bleeder capacity is a problem, like your charging at 10A, and you have just 1A bleed off, still leaving 9A into the cell. Wouldn't it be for just a very short time and doing this only once in a while?
Even so, why not set charger's rate low & then run a load so only a few amp is flowing into the battery?

It all depends on where you set the voltage for the BMS to start balancing. If you set it for the Constant Voltage phase when the Amps are tapering off then the bleeder can be more effective. If that is what you mean by setting the rate of the charger low then that is it. However by running a load you could introduce voltage sag which will make readings less accurate.