Page 18 - Energize May 2022

NEWS

Advanced, rugged battery management

system for critical standby applications

S ilicon Engineering is offering its Silicon BMS battery management system for

applications which need an efficient and reliable energy back up system.
Silicon BMS was designed by people who understand batteries. The company has
consulted with the best international battery physicists and battery engineers for over 30
years, to provide the customer with the best charging system money can buy.
Their feedback on batteries and charging regimes has been implemented in the Silicon
BMS since the first unit was installed in 1989. Since then, the product has been developed
and improved from operational experience gained over the decades. Many specifications have
changed over the years, and it has been designed to include many features. It is a mature
product with many thousands in service. Many of its unique features were customer driven.
Silicon BMS has every alarm possible already built in. You can specify what you require
or leave it to our experts to include all those features which you need. But it is more than
just a multi-alarm module. It is a battery management system, designed to cater for all
battery technologies, even when new ones become available. Different settings and charging
requirements are built into the system. Simplicity and user-friendliness make changing
a battery type easy. A new battery type can be reconfigured in the system in under two
minutes - no wrong settings ever again. The unit is flexible. It can be
Silicon-BMS periodic load test has built-in testing of the test circuit so if the test is not configured as a single charger or two
carried out and the battery loaded, then an alarm is raised, and the faulty component chargers with one battery, with load
identified. Should this battery management system detect that the station standing load has control dropping diodes, for single or
increased, the unit would not apply an extra load but would use the station load to test the three-phase supply. This makes it a very
battery and thereby improve the reliability of the test system. economical purchase.
The device has built-in redundancy. It keeps the substation battery fully charged even The Silicon BMS battery management
with a system or power supply failure. These units use advanced microprocessor technology system is power thrifty. When the mains
which control rugged analogue circuits for reliable, dependable and efficient operation and supply is absent, it draws its power from
maximum battery life. the main battery. Power consumption is
The microprocessors provide the battery management system with the intelligence it only a few watts when the backlight is
needs to protect itself and the batteries in the event of a fault. The designers have ensured turned off to conserve power.
that electrical noise and electrical radiation are prevented by implementing special software The latest introduction of the
for the microprocessor device. company’s “Battery Intelligence Centre”
Silicon BMS is easy to use. Keypad entry is in plain English (or several other languages). gives you the power to make decisions on
The unit is easy to use even when the instruction manual is unavailable. Just press the the replacement of the battery or changes
“MENU” button and follow on-screen instructions. to extend service life by monitoring
Upgrades are released from time to time. The latest BMS-Elite is virtually pin-for-pin temperature, standing load current,
compatible with the 1989 chargers. This makes upgrading to the latest features fast, efficient discharges and boost cycles. These may
and affordable and extends the service life of the charging installation by many years, saving soon appear in mainstream charger
money by not having to replace the complete system. Upgrade kits are available, or our specifications in the near future.
technicians will do it for you and at the same time, retrain your operators, should this be These units are tough and reliable.
necessary. They were designed, developed and built
Silicon BMS uses serial RS232 and can communicate via Modbus RTU, which can be in Africa, and matured in the harshest
connected to a SCADA system. The company has also developed “BMS-Studio” which helps of environments: mining, iron and steel,
with communications between a laptop or Ethernet/VPN and the battery management petrochemical, power generation and
system. distribution, process instrumentation and
Facilities are available to send an SMS message to 5 mobile numbers should a major telecom where only the very best survive.
alarm be triggered. This SMS would describe the unit’s location, cause and time of the fault.
Silicon BMS stores a record of everything that happens at the unit including results of Contact Silicon Engineering,
periodic load tests. These can be downloaded and saved as a file on your computer using Phone 011 474-3423,
BMS Studio. This information can be submitted to your insurance company as proof of the clive.r@silicon-online.co.za,
health of the DC system in the event of an insurance claim. http://www.silicon-online.co.za

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