Battery Cell / Module / Pack Test Solutions

Overview

REXGEAR’s Complete Battery Solutions provide from benchtop to full turnkey testing solution ranging from Single Cell Testing to Battery Packs. During Charge-Discharge cycle testing, it can simulate real working conditions such as driving cycle, current pulse and user-defined waveforms to have a comprehensive evaluation of the battery life, energy and endurance. These systems are suitable for new product development, R&D, quality analysis, incoming inspection, production test, etc. REXGEAR’s Modular design provides great flexibility for the test system configuration.

These systems have been engineered to meet the demand of end-of line (EOL) testing in large quantities, they can simultaneously test the performance of hundreds of independent battery modules, cells or packs thus improving the testing efficiency. It’s regenerative design with its industry leading efficiency (up to 95%) allows customers to reduce their carbon footprint as well as reducing high electricity costs and over time, the equipment will pay for itself by energy savings.

On top of these features, the test system provides comprehensive protection functions: Hardware-based protections include over-voltage, over-current, over-temperature and anti-islanding protections; but also, the system has optional functions such as emergency power-off, power-off memory function, anti-spark and reverse connection protection, under voltage protection, etc. thus effectively ensuring the reliability of a long-time operation of the system.

The ITS5300 battery test system offers a wealth of test steps such as CC Charge, CV Charge, CP Charge, CC Discharge, CV Discharge, CR Discharge, CP Discharge, DCIR, ACIR, Test Reset, External I/O Control, Auxiliary Power Supply Setting, CAN Message Control, Loop, Wait, Delay, Temperature Wait, Scaling and Auxiliary Channel Setting as well as powerful statistical analysis capabilities such as Basic Reporting, Waveform Analysis, Test Data Reporting, Statistical Information from Charge Energy (Wh), Discharge Energy (Wh), Charge and Discharge Energy, Charge Capacity (Ah), Charge and Discharge Capacity, Total Distance (KM), Charge Time (S), Discharge Time (S) and CAN Messaging.

All channels can be operated synchronously/independently without affecting each other and support third-party device control such as Temperature Boxes or Water-Cooling Systems. Test Engineers do not need any programming language background and can quickly master the test program editing and running functions. With its powerful statistical analysis functions, it allows to quickly filter data, efficiently completing battery performance and parameters analysis.

Battery Pack Test Solutions

REXGEAR’s Battery Pack Test Systems can not only meet basic charge and discharge testing setups but also complex testing applications for high-power batteries, such as Battery Packs for EV, Aerospace, Military, Defense, Energy Storage, etc. The system is able to simulate vehicle driving conditions, cold crank test and other user-defined waveforms, etc. For on-vehicle battery pack test these systems can simulate a standard charging process between the DC Charging Station and the BMS, providing an advanced energy-saving / bi-directional regenerative solution.

Battery Pack Test System Specifications

• Voltage: Up to 2,250V
• Current: Up to 2040A
• Power: Up to 1152kW
• Sampling Rate: 1ms
• Voltage Measurement Accuracy: ≤0.02% + 0.02% Full Scale
• Current Measurement Accuracy: ≤0.1% + 0.1% Full Scale

Features of battery pack test system

• High-power density, up to 18kW in 3U
• High energy regenerative efficiency up to 95%
• Patented Fiber Optic parallel technology
• Seamless switching between sourcing and sinking.
• Simulation of Driving Conditions of up to 10,000,000 data points.
• BMS message receiving and transmitting
• Auxiliary power supply and parameters measurement.
• Supports integration of 3rd party equipment such as a Thermal Chamber or Water-Cooling System
• Synchronous / Independent control of each channel
• DC charging station simulation
• HPPC Simulation (Hybrid Pulse Power Characteristic)
• Cold Cranking current
• Quick data checking and statistics analyzing functions.

BMS communication function

The message transmitting and receiving can be communicated between the battery test system and BMS, recording all messages so as for further analysis. The test system can adjust charging and discharging parameters per the BMS requests or setup cut-off conditions, provide warning messages based on the data collected, as well as supporting DBC files

Dynamic working conditions simulation

REXGEAR’s battery pack test systems provide complex dynamic working conditions simulation for EV battery application. The software supports .csv file import and the user may import up to 10,000,000 points of current waveform data, simulate electric vehicle starting, braking, accelerating, reducing under different road conditions in cities or suburbs from the process of charging from battery power or regenerative charging when braking. The system can also calculate vehicle mileage to reflect the performance of the electric vehicle.

Simulate DC charging station

When the power battery pack is placed in the vehicle for testing, REXGEAR’s battery pack test systems can simulate the DC charging station to interact with the BMS, and dynamically adjust charging parameters according to the request of the BMS; or when receiving an error message, our system will stop charging in time. The system supports DBC files and all CAN messages will be recorded when the tests end.

Integration of other devices

Because the battery characteristics are affected by the temperature, our systems are designed for R&D in order to fully verify the temperature characteristics of the battery, a Thermal Chamber is required. Our systems can integrate a Thermal Chamber or Water-Cooling System depending on the user needs. The software will automatically control the temperature of the Thermal Chamber or starts the Water-Cooling system.

Auxiliary channel measurement function

REXGEAR’s battery pack test systems supports auxiliary measurement functions, where it can monitor the battery pack for additional temperature and voltage with optional temperature dataloggers. The system supports various types of thermocouples such as T, K, B, E, J, N, S, R and C with measuring accuracy of ±0.01% of reading + 0.5 Full Scale

Battery Module Test Solutions

REXGEAR’s Battery module test system provides users with non-regenerative and regenerative solutions where both can synchronously monitor the voltage and temperature of each cell in the module while testing the

performance of the module. For smart 3C battery testing, our systems can directly obtain module parameters by supporting communication between SMBus and the battery modules.

For power battery module testing, our systems can provide complex road conditions simulation, cold-start current pulse test and HPPC test, etc. The ITS5300 battery test software offers a wealth of test steps such as CC Charge, CV Charge, CP Charge, CC Discharge, CV Discharge, CR Discharge, CP Discharge, DCIR, ACIR, Test Reset, External I/O Control, Auxiliary Power Supply Setting, CAN Message Control, Loop, Wait, Delay, Temperature Wait, Scaling and Auxiliary Channel Setting as well as powerful statistical analysis capabilities such as Basic Reporting, Waveform Analysis, Test Data Reporting, Statistical Information from Charge Energy (Wh), Discharge Energy (Wh), Charge and Discharge Energy, Charge Capacity (Ah), Charge and Discharge Capacity, Total Distance (KM), Charge Time (S), Discharge Time (S) and CAN Messaging.

Battery Module Test System Specifications

• Voltage: Up to 1,000V
• Current: Up to 1200A
• Sampling Rate: 10ms
• Voltage Measurement Accuracy: ≤0.025% + 0.025% Full Scale
• Current Measurement Accuracy: ≤0.05% + 0.1% Full Scale

Battery Module System Features

• ACIR Test
• DCIR Test
• HPCE test
• Life Cycle test
• Charging and discharging test at different temperatures (room temperature / high temperature / low temperature)
• Charging and discharging test at different rate
• Charge retention test
• BMS communication supporting CANBus or SMBus protocol
• HPPC
• Cell temperature / voltage monitoring function inside the battery module

Cell voltage / temperature monitoring inside the battery module

REXGEAR’s battery pack test systems supports auxiliary measurement functions, where it can monitor the battery cells inside the battery module for additional temperature and voltage with optional temperature dataloggers. The system supports various types of thermocouples such as T, K, B, E, J, N, S, R and C with measuring accuracy of ±0.01% of reading + 0.5 Full Scale

Multi-channel Online Operation / Parallel Extension Power

REXGEAR’s battery module test systems support hundreds of channels Synchronously and Independent control of each one. The channels can be paralleled as Primary / Secondary where the PC only needs to communicate with the Primary Unit. Different test programs can be executed on each channel, which improves the flexibility of the system.

Cell Test Solution

Battery Module Test System Specifications

• Voltage: Up to 10V
• Current: 500mA / 10A / 100A / 200A / 400A / 500A / 600A
• Voltage Measurement Accuracy: <0.1% FS
• Current Measurement Accuracy: <0.1% FS

Battery Cell System Features

• Bidirectional energy-feedback test solution
• ACIR Test
• DCIR Test
• Life Cycle test
• Charging and discharging characteristics test at different temperatures (normal temperature / high temperature / low temperature)
• Charge-discharge ability test at different rates
• Self-discharge characteristic test
• Other devices can be integrated: Thermal Chamber / Water-Cooling System / Data Logger
• Fast data query and analysis functions

Cell resistance / Capacitance test

A Battery Cell is the smallest unit of any battery type, a battery cell with a higher capacity and consistent internal resistance ensures performance stability and greater output capacity of the battery module or battery pack after series and parallel connection. Therefore, when testing a battery cell, resistance and capacitance testing becomes particularly important. REXGEAR’s Cell Test Systems support hundreds of channels Synchronously and Independent control of each one. Different test programs can be executed on each channel, which improves the flexibility of the system. The most important tests besides charging and discharging are to measure the internal resistance and capacity of each cell. The internal resistance measurement accuracy is up to ± 0.5% ± 0.05% Full Scale

Ultra-high measurement accuracy

As it was mentioned before, Battery Cell capacity is an important indicator of the battery cell characteristics. Traditionally by other manufacturers, capacity is calculated by software sampling and integration, due to the communication bus speed limitations the maximum typical sampling rate can only be 20ms or longer. REXGEAR’s battery cell test systems use built-in capacity integration functions in the hardware to improve the V / I measurement accuracy and sampling rate, REXGEAR’s sampling rate is up to 400kHz. When the current waveform changes, it can still be accurately sampled and integrated in real time to obtain more accurate capacity parameters

Battery Cell, Module and Pack Test Systems Functions and Advantages

Battery DCIR/ACIR test

The internal resistance of the battery cell is related to the discharge capacity of the battery. The larger the internal resistance, the smaller the charge and discharge rate of the battery, which will easily cause the battery to generate heat. REXGEAR’s solutions include AC internal resistance and DC internal resistance measurement functions.

The AC internal resistance is matched with a special AC internal resistance tester to apply a 1KHz excitation signal to both ends of the battery to measure the internal resistance of the battery under static conditions. However, under real-life conditions, it also includes the polarization internal resistance, the impedance of the connection point, etc.

The DC resistance test reflects the resistance value of the battery in a continuous application rather than a one-shot test.

Battery capacity test

Because the battery capacity is affected by the ambient / working temperature and discharge rate, the capacity test is usually combined with a Thermal Chamber and various discharge rates. Therefore, the higher the temperature, the larger the capacity; the larger the discharge rate, the smaller the capacity. REXGEAR’s battery cell test systems can integrate and control Thermal Chambers while simulating the ambient temperature, and extreme high and low temperatures. The test system also provides the function of user-defined X-axis and Y-axis parameter categories. The user can set the Y-axis as the capacity and the X-axis as the time to obtain the corresponding curve.

Battery cycle life test

The battery cycle life test is one of the main test items for the battery cell. When the capacity declines to 80% or below of the original specifications, it is considered that the life of the battery cell is at its end of life; it can also be calculated by cyclic charging and discharging. The factors that affect battery life, in addition to temperature and frequency of use, dynamic operating conditions can also accelerate battery aging. REXGEAR’s battery cell test systems can test pulse charge and discharge modes and edit steps according to high charge or discharge curves based on ISO12405-4-2018 standard.

Coulombic efficiency test

Coulombic efficiency describes the efficiency with which charge (electrons) are transferred in a system facilitating an electrochemical reaction. The closer the discharge charge is to the charge, the higher the utilization rate of the battery cell. If the ratio is small, it indicates that the specifications or other aspects of the battery need to be improved. For a battery to be considered good, high-precision test equipment is necessary to tell the difference between the charge and discharge charges, REXGEAR’s test systems have ultra-high sampling rate and measurement accuracy to meet this purpose.

HPPC test

The HPPC test is a very important test in FreedomCar. It is used to test the performance of hybrid and pure electric vehicles. It is a common test item when evaluating battery systems / modules or single cells. The main test purpose of HPPC is to establish the relationship between discharge depth and power within the battery voltage range. The second is to use the voltage and current curve to establish a function of the discharge depth, conductive resistance and polarization resistance. Then it can evaluate power degradation during life testing by the resistance measurement results. It is a detection method for fully analyzing power batteries. REXGEAR’s test systems allow users to edit discharge pulses and feedback pulse values according to HPPC curve.

Battery overcharge / over discharge endurance test

For a sealed secondary battery, in the case of overcharging and over discharging, gas will quickly accumulate in the sealed container, and the internal pressure will rise rapidly, which will easily cause the battery to explode. So, overcharge and over discharge are important tests to test the safety performance of the battery.

Under a certain degree of overcharge, the shape of the battery should not change and catch fire. In order to ensure the safety of the battery, it should be specified of the battery's charging limit voltage, charging upper limit voltage, lower discharging limit voltage, maximum charging current and recommended charging current.

Equilibrium charge and discharge test

The differences in the manufacturing and use processes will cause inconsistencies in the cells inside the battery, which are manifested in terms of cell capacity, internal resistance, and charge and discharge efficiency. In order to avoid the life and capacity loss of the overall battery pack caused by degradation of individual performance, a BMS generally has a balancing function. Currently, the balancing strategy of each BMS is different. The individual cells can be balanced with each other or an energy-consuming method may also be adopted. A resistor is connected to the back end of each cell to consume the power of the cell with a higher power. Our test systems can accept the balanced start and stop signals of the BMS during the charging and discharging process. Adopting balancing operation of the BMS during the charging and discharging can prevent large differences in battery cells and extend battery life.

BMS communication function

Simulate DC charging station

Dynamic working conditions simulation

Test System Protection

Acousto-optic emergency stop

REXGEAR’s battery cell / module / battery pack test systems provides an acousto-optic emergency stop protection device. When an abnormal situation occurs, the emergency stop button can be used to quickly cut off the output and ensure that the equipment is powered off reliably. The cabinet is equipped with three-color lights, which indicate different operating states through red / yellow / green lights, which is convenient to identify the status of the system from a long distance and provide audible alarm.

Power-off memory protection

Battery performance verification is often a long-term test process. The power-off memory protection module is designed and developed specifically for long-term testing. It can effectively ensure that the long-term test data is protected from abnormal power failures or computer crashes. After the system resumes normal operation, the program continues to execute the next steps, avoiding repeated testing and improving the safety and reliability of the experiment.

Anti-reverse/anti-spark protection

Anti-reverse anti-spark module is a functional module specially designed to improve safe wiring and reliable power-on. It prevents from the fire phenomenon caused by the suddenly battery charging to internal capacitor of the device during the wiring. And also prevent the battery from being reversely connected to both ends of the device and result in equipment damage.

Comprehensive charge and discharge protection

In a battery test, to avoid overcharging and over discharging of the battery, it is necessary to monitor the status of the single cell and the entire battery pack in real time, and when the certain conditions are reached, the circuit is cut off in time to protect the battery. REXGEAR’s test systems provide comprehensive protection, including over and under voltage of each channel and cell, pressure difference of cell, over temperature, over power, etc. Users can customize single or multiple protection settings based on the battery specifications.

Anti-islanding protection (for regenerative test systems)

For energy regenerative battery test systems, all instruments have an anti-islanding protection function to prevent themselves from keeping feeding back energy to the grid in the event of a mains power outage, causing unnecessary injury. The energy regenerative system provides pure AC Power (Harmonics <5%). The feedback energy can be used as power supply for other equipment in the plant, good for saving electricity costs, especially for high power applications where a battery pack or a large number of cells are tested simultaneously.

ITS5300 Test System Software

REXGEAR’s battery test systems developed a new software structure that allows users to quickly edit test programs without any language programming basics. The software provides comprehensive test steps, ultra-fast sampling rates and powerful report analysis functions, which not only meet various battery test requirements, but also help improve battery process and trace quality problems in the later stages of testing.

The ITS5300 test system software has strong scalability and allows integration of third-party devices such as thermal chambers and water-cooling systems.

Advantages

• No programming basics required
• User-friendly
• Simplified interface
• Charge and Discharge steps
• Comprehensive protection functions and cut-off conditions
• Ultra-fast sampling rate: 1ms
• Quick migration of tests between channels
• Independent or synchronous operation control between channels
• Powerful data query / statistical analysis function
• Fault alarm / fault information recording function
• BMS interaction & message recording function
• User rights management function

The ITS5300 battery test system offers a wealth of test steps such as CC Charge, CV Charge, CP Charge, CC Discharge, CV Discharge, CR Discharge, CP Discharge, DCIR, ACIR, Test Reset, External I/O Control, Auxiliary Power Supply Setting, CAN Message Control, Loop, Wait, Delay, Temperature Wait, Scaling and Auxiliary Channel Setting as well as powerful statistical analysis capabilities such as Basic Reporting, Waveform Analysis, Test Data Reporting, Statistical Information from Charge Energy (Wh), Discharge Energy (Wh), Charge and Discharge Energy, Charge Capacity (Ah), Charge and Discharge Capacity, Total Distance (KM), Charge Time (S), Discharge Time (S) and CAN Messaging. The software also allows unlimited loop cycle times, unlimited numbers of loop nesting, Go to steps, Reset / stand-by process and Battery pre-judgment

Data Analysis

The ITS5300 battery test system software provides users with data query and export functions, records battery information within the full test period, such as channel voltage / current / power / capacity / energy, etc. and can also display a certain process step or cell data.

• Data dump in .csv format
• Continuous Curve recording or a Curve subset
• Data screening
• Run time • Test Steps
• Cycle Times

Statistical analysis

Statistical analysis is a function designed to help engineers to quickly complete the analysis the performance of the battery and improve the performance analysis. Through flexible data screening and curve configuration, the software will automatically calculate a series of key data such as maximum and minimum capacity, etc. Users can also evaluate quickly the capacity attenuation ratio and voltage attenuation ratio of the battery.

Fault recording

Different from the traditional battery test software, the ITS5300 battery test system can not only complete safe and reliable automatic control with full protection, but also have a recording function of the faults

Multi-curve display

The ITS5300 battery test system software provides powerful curve editing functions. Users can customize the parameters of the horizontal and vertical axes to obtain different battery curves, such as C-t, CV, V-t and so on. More importantly, ITS5300 provides a vertical comparison and analysis function of battery performance curves, which can put the curves at different temperatures or different discharge depths in a chart, so that users can observe more directly how the battery performance is affected by external conditions.

Solid-State Battery Solutions

Overview

A solid-state battery is a battery technology that uses solid electrodes and a solid electrolyte, instead of the liquid or polymer gel electrolytes found in lithium-ion or lithium polymer batteries. It has many advantages, such as:
• Delivering higher energy densities by enabling lithium metal anodes
• Avoids the use of dangerous or toxic materials
• Lower risk of catching fire
• Generate only 20% to 30% heat compared with conventional batteries with liquid electrolyte under thermal runaway
• Allow for faster charging, higher voltage and longer life cycle

Challenges

Solid-state batteries are still under development and testing and they are facing many technical obstacles, such as the formation of lithium dendrites, low coulombic efficiency caused by interface impedance and side reactions between solid electrolytes and positive and negative electrodes. These can lead to bad performance of fast charging and cycle life of solid-state batteries.

A basic problem of solid-state batteries used in EV mainly include charging time (current density), life cycle, safety and operating temperature. Fortunately, solid-state batteries follow the same physical principles as traditional lithium-ion batteries and many battery management solutions and test solutions have been developed for traditional lithium-ion batteries and will continue to evolve and be applied.

Solution

REXGEAR’s Test Systems such as ITS5300-200 battery cell test system and ITECH ITS5300 battery charge and discharge test system allows users to perform life cycle testing in hundreds of channels and well as the ability to simulate road condition simulation of the EV battery pack
A basic problem of solid-state batteries used in EV mainly include charging time (current density), life cycle, safety and operating temperature. Fortunately, solid-state batteries follow the same physical principles as traditional lithium-ion batteries and many battery management solutions and test solutions have been developed for traditional lithium-ion batteries and will continue to evolve and be applied.

Advantages

Monitoring charging capacity during the battery cycle test helps to analyze the change of the battery capacity with different number of cycles. Then you can get the Coulomb efficiency, also known as the discharge efficiency (the ratio of the discharge and the charge capacity). Generally speaking, an increase in temperature helps lithium-ion diffusion and at the same time reduces migration resistance, so that the first coulombic efficiency becomes higher. Electrode materials with poor reversibility will increase the amount of lithium-ion inactivation, thereby reducing the coulombic efficiency.

With REXGEAR’s battery test systems you can carry out a long-term life cycle test of the battery, ensuring its safety and reliability. Any abnormality can easily lead to loss of test data and the overcharge and over discharge of the battery by an unattended operation may even cause damages. The ITS5300 battery charge and discharge test system not only have basic protection functions such as OVP, OCP and OTP but also has comprehensive alarm and protection for voltage fluctuation, current fluctuation, voltage difference protection of battery cells and so on.

The ITS5300 battery charge and discharge test system can use BMS messages as protection conditions to monitor the temperature and voltage difference changes of the cells in a battery pack in real time, making it a very safe operation. Test data can be uploaded to a server in real time and with any computer within the same LAN, you can remotely control the battery test system, query and access historical test data in real time, so as to quickly start battery characteristic analysis.

For battery cell testing, it can be equipped with low-power IT-M series, IT-M3600 regenerative system or IT-M3400 bidirectional DC power supply. In the size of only 1U half rack, they can achieve 800W battery charge and discharge test. For battery pack testing, it can be equipped with high-power bidirectional power supply IT6000C. A 3U unit can output 18 kW,and it can reach up to 1.152MW after parallel connection. In addition, it can also achieve seamless switching between charge and discharge. During the discharge test, up to 95% of the power can be regenerated, which helps to save cost and energy. Meanwhile, IT6000C supports arbitrary waveform generation with up to 10 million points. For complex waveform of road working conditions simulation, you only need to import the Excel file and the corresponding waveforms can be easily generated.

At present, from battery cells to MW-level energy storage systems, REXGEAR has been able to provide solutions for various battery testing and simulation, making it your best solution partner in the market

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