So, I am a luddite, and use non smart BMS. I remove the balance cables, and check each group manually, then subtract the number from the previous one. We do this also to check our hookup is right.
My question is, is there any risk to doing this unhooking of the balance connector when battery is charged?
No risk unless the battery is sitting on the charger.
Be very careful when measuring. If you slip while measuring that JST you might short out a cell for a split second until your balance cable burns up.
I have a 20 amp/10 amp charge DaLy dumb bms common port.
Directions say to hook the blue B- wire to battery , After seating the balance connector.
One might assume this means removing and returning balance connector while the B- is still connected to battery -, can potentially damage the bms.
I did not follow these directions, as i became aware of them after the fact.
I will put a connector on subsequent dumb daly BMS blue wire, so I can follow them.
I do not know if my BMS is operating properly, I’ve not checked cell balance yet.
I think once, I triggered the high voltage disconnect charging at a little over 1C to 4.2 volts per cell.
I was thinking about installing a 1 amp fuse on extra multimeter test leads in case i short probes when touching JST contacts
You could just measure the difference between two balance leads to get the voltage of one pgroup. Warning, this does increase the chance of a probe-short
Why not take this same idea a bit further, get a jst headder that you can plug into a balance connector
When im not feeling steady handed I just put my clamps on the leads and test voltage with this little jig moving from group to group
I only have 2.5 or 2.54mm two pins jst connector and the daly bms is 2.0, I believe.
I should defintely acquire 2.0mm spacin do that though.
Great idea…I do manually balance some 3s1p packs, injecting 4.19ish volts into the low dog cell via JST 2.54.
I kinda wish i could plug my balance connector into one, or two of these:
But it only reads 7 cells.
There is a blue version which does 8, and it might balance too.
I think that’s just so you don’t accidentally mess up the balance wire order. I don’t think you need to disconnect the b- every time you disconnect the balance wires.
Nor is it important which order you connect the balance wires / b-. The only important thing is that nothing gets connected where it doesn’t belong.
But of course it’s good practice to measure every balance cable on the jst before connecting it into the bms for the first time to make sure they are in the correct order
The probe goes on the neg terminal of bat, NOT in the tiny balance connector hole.
That’s a much better way to do it, I always plugged both in the balance connector jst and prayed that I don’t slip 
yup.
Of course, the correctness check when first hooking it up, is where I got the idea of how to test balance.
I saw that those values rose step by step, DUH, a little subtraction, and voila, accurate reading of the pgroups.
Even better, a jst passthrough connector, that feeds to a liquid crystal readout of say twenty spaces, for all types. The SMART BMSs are power hogs, somewhat. The bluetooth sucks juice, and can drain your battery faster than you had expected. I would like a box tied to the baseplate that only lights when the sparkless switch is triggered. With 20 spaces for readout. That automatically subtracted the reading from the preceding reading. Thus a zero vampire drain balance readout.
I will be doing this.
JST 2.0 PH Parts ordered. Male & female 2,6, and 11pin.
I already have 2 2.54mm 6 pin female
I have two of those 7cell lcd capacity checkers. If i get an 11pin header for my 10s bms connector, I should be able to feed cells 1 to 5 into one unit and 5 to 10 into a second, I think, and easily be able to scroll through the10 P groups.
