Reliability, Speed and Accuracy
The Orion BMS’s centralized design allows it to be more robust and faster than distributed style battery management systems. The BMS measures cell voltages in approximately 30mS, whereas other distributed style systems can take several seconds to measure all cell voltages. This fast speed increases cell life by allowing much faster response in protecting cells from damaging over-voltage or under-voltage conditions that may not even be caught by other slower BMS systems.
Some distributed systems suffer from a complete system communication failure if one cell’s voltage drops too low, even for a very brief time. The Orion BMS’s centralized design allows the system to continue operating even if multiple cells in the pack briefly dip too low in voltage or completely fail. The Orion BMS is designed to survive in conditions where as many as 65% of cells are at 0 volts.
The Orion BMS is also designed and tested to operate in electric vehicle applications where a very high level of immunity to electromagnetic noise is required.
Accuracy is also an important consideration. Cell voltages are provided with a resolution of approximately 1.5mV with an overall error of < 0.25% across the temperature range.