[interstate]

Been reading a little on top vs bottom charging, and also have hobby related battery experience where we top balance our lipo packs. It seems one must keep an accurate monitoring system on every cell in the battery bank. For top balancing this is done with bms bleeding or shunting devices, or this is done with a charger that can charge each cell individually.

How are the cell voltages monitored on your bottom balancing system?

Does the charger go through a discharge cycle to bring every cell down to a set voltage before it refills the cells with a complete charge?

In our hobby scenario, our speed controllers watch total pack voltage. We set a low end threshold that is high enough that even a weaker cell will not be damaged. The motor is shut down or at least reduced in output. We also then monitor the total battery bank capacity that is discharged. When we hit 80% consumption we recharge. The chargers will then top balance the packs, but we have balancing leads for every cell in the battery bank.