# bms battle - orion vs elithion?



## tony.moore (Dec 28, 2013)

hi all,

i'm getting very close to 'wiring up' our beetle conversion and am wisely being advised to install a bms to manage the lifepo4's (180ah x 30).

i've been reading thru the forums and elsewhere and see much on the orion bms, but not as much on the elithion bms (who has been around longer).

would anyone care to share their thoughts or experiences?

thanks!

tony


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## glyndwr1998 (Apr 27, 2013)

I don't know which one is better to the other.

I don't use a bms, rather a battery monitoring system, something that can read cell voltages and set charge cut off settings, and manually balance myself.

I took the decision after a load of reading from here and other ev forums where the bms sometimes causes more harm than good, so I decided to save that expense and put in a basic monitoring with cell loggers and. 
Been working for well and relatively trouble free for 18 months, haven't lost any cells, and don't really spend much time looking after them as they don't drift a great deal.

And I was an ev Virgin, never dealt with batteries before let alone lifepo4 so it was a steep learning curve and a lot of reading and youtubing,


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## jeffcoat (Apr 16, 2012)

Having installed both an Orion BMS and a Lithiumate Lite, I can say each has its pros and cons. The Elithion is far easier to install (although you have to be really careful not to accidentally short out a cell board - order an extra or 2). The Orion, on the other hand, is much more flexible and adaptable. If you ever change from prismatic cells to, say, Nissan Leaf cells, the Orion will swap right over with a few settings changes, but the Elithion will not. Also, Orion communicates via CAN Bus, allowing use of the Torque app for gauges, while Elithion uses wifi and a website for its gauges.

Basically, Orion is more complex to install but more adaptable. Both work brilliantly and reliably.


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## frodus (Apr 12, 2008)

Elithion also communicates via CAN bus and allows use of Torque. I helped them implement and test that functionality.


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## evmetro (Apr 9, 2012)

I do not have the technical knowledge that the engineers around here have, but I do have Orions in all of my conversions. On my first conversion and my first time installing an Orion, it was a bit overwhelming since I had no prior experience with EVs. Frodus held my hand through the install and everything worked out fine, but I had to learn a lot of stuff. I am finishing my 3rd and fourth conversions now, and I have a very solid understanding of what the Orion is, how to take advantage of its features, and how to install it. I have lots of real world experience with it, and am very happy with it. The Elithion may be a great choice, but I don't know much about it since I have never had one. There may be other choices that would be good for your needs as well. From what I have read, the guy behind the Elithion has a fantastic BMS comparison chart on the Elithion website, and he has provided a lot of excellent information to the DIY EV industry, and has been a great resource. I would say that you are looking at top notch BMS units either way you go.


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## madderscience (Jun 28, 2008)

I have an elithion pro in my xB. I haven't worked directly with Orion but know people who have them.

The elithion works well, and does have CAN output (the pro model has detailed per-cell output which the standard model does not, hence that being the one I chose). My main complaints about it are the aforementioned fragility of the cell boards, and the very delicate wiring and crimps that need to be assembled to make it all work. I know tradeoffs have to be made to keep things compact and inexpensive, but the wiring assembly was very slow and time consuming even with the "right" tools. It also seems like they could find a way to not need 4 wires going to each cell bank. Even my homemade BMS in my prior car didn't need that.

In fact, in this day I would think they could have a bluetooth transceiver on one end of each cell bank and do away with virtually all BMS to cell bank wiring and in place have one or two receiver antennas in the battery box lid.  I had some success with a primitive version of this with my first homebuilt BMS, which used multiple garage door transceivers on each battery to relay to a single receiver.

The main thing about the orion I don't like is the fact that a wire has to be run from every cell back to the base unit. Yes it allows for not needing cell boards but it means every battery pack voltage point is hauled back to one small box, making the probability of a short circuit or other mistake acute. If nothing else, a million little fuses should be present, or else very fine wire that will burn up quickly before damaging anything else. This also means any damage caused by miswiring is more likely to damage the main BMS unit.


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## jeffcoat (Apr 16, 2012)

When wiring up our Orion BMS we used 22 AWG wire. Any short circuit would likely vaporize the wire immediately, ending the short.


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