The charge-shunting cell balancing method selectively
shunts the charging current around each cell as they
become fully charged (Figure 1). This method is most
efficiently employed on systems with known charge rates.
The shunt resistor R is sized to shunt exactly the
charging current I when the fully charged cell voltage V is
reached. If the charging current decreases, resistor R will
discharge the shunted cell. To avoid extremely large
power dissipations due to R, this method is best used
with stepped-current chargers with a small end-of-charge
current.