Hey man, I just watched your video. Some quick remarks from an electrical engineer - don't confuse Wh (Watt hours) with Ah (Ampere hours). What you need to do is to multiply the voltages and the amperes (technically for each operating point of the cells respective discharge curve) and sum them up over time to get the Wh or kWh. You said you had around 30 kWh at 48 Volts, which would mean (as you said) 60 kWh at 24 Volts - that's not how you do it. The kWh stay the same, as the voltage drops to half it's value and the amps go up accordingly. The 'h' in kWh actually matters btw. - draw 5 kW for 30 minutes and 15 kW for another 30, you have one hour of 10 kW in average - 10 kWh so to say. Which means that it's the same for the battery, no matter if you draw 1 kW for 10 hours or 100 kW for 6 minutes (apart from losses due to heating of the battery at such loads). So the capacity of 30 kWh means that you could supply a 3 kW load for 10 hours, which would be sufficient for most nights, where your solar panels are kind of useless :) Secondly, regarding the cells with different capacity - don't connect cells with different capacity in series, better have them in parallel to stronger cells in the other packs. When you drain your batteries in series, the smaller capacity ones will drain completely and irreversibly (!), while the other packs are still in good shape. As the other packs still have enough voltage so the resulting series connected voltage is high enough to keep the powerwall in it's operating range, the powerwall will draw as much current as necessary to power your loads. If this happens once, your smaller capacity packs fail and you will loose overall capacity. If you connect them in parallel to stronger cells, the voltage across the pack will balance automatically and the smaller capacity batteries will be discharched less in apsolute amp hours, but equally in percentage to the stronger ones in parallel. This will most likely boost your battery pack's robustness to heavy discharge tremendously. Apart from that - great work! If you don't have a bms, you should check your respective pack's voltages regularly and somehow try to balance them. Don't use bare wire for balancing, as they might burn again. Connect a resistor in series (dimensioned correctly to stand the load!) to equalize slowly.
Phasedragon what do you mean? I use lipos for quadcopter, heli's and planes. but don't get your comment. how can you use amps but not volts? unless you are referring to the way manufacturers display the battery's capacity? (which is by the way useless information without knowing the voltage or cell count since power is watts and displaying the ah is only half the picture) anyway I'm not sure I get what you meant?
Tight spot for that much energy density. Of course you know that. I used to work in the battery well of a submarine battery which is huge. 2.0V per cell with a 125 cells in series to get 250DC volts. roughly 2000 amps for an hour or so. The cells were 3 to 4 feet tall so huge power.
Yeh the space isn't perfect, what's worse is I have almost 20kwh more that won't fit :) Big things happening in the background at the moment. The old cashola is the only thing slowing progress.
Brilliant well done...I was nodding like a dog at you agreeing that at the capacity you have the lower capacity cells will work just as well because of the minimal load spread across the system... Re balanced module 100% agree no need
+1bigsyd never work well with single pack but larger packs it does seem like it will work with out issue. Other than I guess lower cells might have a tendency to completely fail faster perhaps.
wait....are you going to power your house on double AA batteries. wow... dude the internet was made with you primarly in mind...your the man you have restored my faith in mankind... i dont know anything about electric ... but im with you ...LOCK LOAD AND GO FOR IT i wish i lived next door to you prop
I'm unsure if your genuine or having a go. However, they aren't AA Batteries they are the same type of cells in a Tesla Powerwall & Telsa motor car (you know the kinda fast one) 18650's
HBPowerwall ...Thanks for that info...im not aware of tesla battaries...from my phone they looked like AA batteries i have to say... im sad there not AA batteries... that would have been just utterly amazing
Hahahaha...fucken love it mate...you made me smile on the inside....great bloody effort...great to see aussie backyard experimental shit is alive and kickin....a big thumbs up from the Northern Rivers
MWB Gaming You sir know nothing of electricty. Let me school you a little. 10ah x 24v = 240wh 10ah x 48v is 480wh. To understand this you need to understand series and parallel curcuit. Next time before you type this kind of utter nonsence, educate yourself a little. Otherwise you make people dumber.
you are the one who should take an electronics course i never referred to amp hours i was referring to watts (V x A = W) i will take the liberty of schooling you today 30KWh at 48V = 625AH 30KWh at 24V = 1250AH same number of cells = same watt hours regardless of voltage even if you change the voltage 30KWh is still 30KWh heres an example two 12V 10AH batteries contain 240WH of energy so regardless of the configuration they will have the same energy level (assuming they are fully charged) in parallel you will have 20AH at 12V = 240WH in series you will have 10AH at 24V = 240WH the benefit of higher voltage comes in the form of efficiency you can use more of that energy at high wattage levels because the amp draw on the battery will be lower higher amps = more voltage sag (that is why the power grid uses about 150KV for interstate power lines) my solar system uses 12V and i get about 0.83V loss in the cables that means under 1500W of load only 11.17V is reaching the inverter if the battery voltage is 12V when the inverter shuts down due to low voltage at 10V there is still energy in the battery (not much but still a usable amount of energy) lower voltage loss grants you more runtime (to a point) that voltage loss means i cant use all the batterys power at that high wattage with a 24V system i would get a lower voltage loss for the same load wattage (as a percentage of system voltage) thus i can use more of the batterys power at the higher wattage the other benefit of higher voltages is cost at 12V i needed eight 00AWG cables due to the amps needed to run at higher wattages at 48V i would only need two 00AWG cables to run the same number of watts making the installation easier and cheaper
MWB Gaming 20ah 1s 3.7v= 74wh 20ah 2s 7.4= 148wh 20ah 3s 11.1= 222wh. 33 kwh at 24v requires 1375ah and at 48v 33kwh requires 687.5ah. This is were i got confused. If you change series and parallel it does not matter, if same qty of cells are present. You are correct and i eat humble pie. What do you know i just got a tiny bit smarter. cheers for the correction.
Don't worry. BMS was not a bad investment. One good thing about making cell banks with all those cells in parallel, is that you get closer and closer to an average. That makes the whole closer to a true sum of its parts. I like that you have fused each individual cell, so of one fails, you don't have dozens of others supplying energy to the one. Another thing that averages, with many cells in parallel, is self discharge rate. Differences in self discharge rate, is what throws batteries out of voltage balance. You will find, that you won't have to apply much current at all, to keep the cells balanced, compared to the capacity of the battery. 1/2 amps at the most. The same balancer that works for a single string of cells, can serve dozens of paralleled cells, because of that averaging. As far as safety, if you limit your finishing voltage to 4.15 volts(ish), that will get you nearly all the capacity, as well as a decent safety margin, lest the battery becomes slightly unbalanced over time. Self discharge rate is more time sensitive than cycle sensitive. Just like determining when to check water in lead acid batteries, experience will tell you how often to check cell balance. I would only run cell balancing during the top of the charge, not during bulk charging, and not at all during discharging. You may find a difference in cell voltage after running off 80% of its capacity, but near the end of the charge, they should return to pretty close balance. For this reason, do only a top balance, but discharge and recharge coulombically. You want each set of cells to experience the exact same amp hours, and balancing during those times can actually throw them out of balance.
I was a little vocal with the popsies! I assure you hahaha worst part that's the second time I've done the same thing DOH! (hence the spaces I HAD in there lol)
I know right, can you imagine the 'told you so's' would echo across the old interwebs.. fortunately with new bms and all the other steps i've taken to make this as safe as practically possible fire is about as likely as me winning lotto..
Isn't it going to matter when you look at cost over lifespan? The ROI of having to determine which battery is dead in the giant blocks is low. You could create much smaller and thus easily replaceable packs. Then join those packs together. I can't see how this is going to work two years down the road when the batteries stop charging.
I guess I went totally out of the box with my design. I made a wall of tubes, put C cell batteries in them with a loaded spring at the top and a screw on end cap with the + contact in it. 11 cells at 1.2 volts each (13.4v potential) in surplus full size C NiCads. A temp switch in each one disconnecting charge on each one based on temp and seemed to last 5+ years of constant use. Was only 118 amps total though. 1-1/4" pvc pipe, threaded caps with a spacer wrap on the batteries works great. Used a Diode and a LED on each tube to assure contacts were working good.
I used cells below 1700mAh for the cells in my 2kWh Powerwall pack. Seems to be going fine. 1500mAh is my low threshold. I'm so jealous of that EV West Powerwall though - drooling over all those real Tesla modules.
Do you know how long will your cells last?? m.reddit.com/r/electronic_cigarette/comments/2wrfpp/what_is_the_life_cycle_of_an_18650_battery_about/?compact=false
I would suggest arranging your cells in a balanced fashion so that you have approximately the same kWH per pack/bank. If you have one pack that has quite a few kWH less than the others, you run the risk of depleting it before the others in the array and reversing the voltage on that smaller pack, which probably won't do it any good.
WOW! Love you man and your can-do-ness but better have the fire department on speed dial! More energy in that lot than a bunch of hand grenades. Good luck mate.
You seem to have batteries from different manufacterers, ...if so that will negatively impact performance; you undoubtedly know that. Neat looking build. Interested the cost? Of course it sounds like you are down-under, so some cost xlation needed. You'd indicated its 20 kWh, I presume at your 24V. On latest video on our battery and box build uses fork lift batteries 2x24V with over 40 kWh, it weighs 2500 lbs - fun to see me loading them into the battery box - LOL. Enjoy your channel. Its exciting stuff.
ofcourse all voltages are the same. All packs are in parallel. When you put them in series (when you go to 48V) you need to make sure that 2 packs that are in series have the same (or as close to eachother as possible) capacities. If your last pack is worse and has considerable less capacity than the first, don't put those 2 together in series. In series similar capacities are most inportant. In parallel Internal Resistance is most important. Because you have so many cells in parallel, the effects of variation in IR is small, but in series you can't allow much variation in capacity. In series your battery is only going to last as long as the lowest capacity can handle.
48 volts, If you have put so much work into building your powerwall 24 volts why are you changing it to 48V. You will get slightly higher efficiency, ( lower loss on cables and inverter) the only reason I see is increasing solar input into your PCM60x. or maybe bigger power inverter to run more of your home? Anyway I think its going to happen, I looking at going to 48 volts for mine, I just want to find inverters. (I want to use old UPSs) Its great seeing your progress and look forwards to the next video.
both reasons PCM60X can double the panels with out any extra cabling just plug and go and MORE power lol i'll be able to run more with less effort from the inverter. IE microwave and toaster (plus rest of house) at once rather than constantly thinking about what else is running at the same time.
Hey I wish I could get cells like that .I made me a ebike and cant even get anuff cells to make me a battery for it. Hard to get around here . Good work dude
@@HBPowerwall hey dude you doing ok . Hey I don't know if u have time or not but if u do and dont mind .I got a hold of 60 lg cells and I need to build a 24 volt 250 watt. Battery for my ebike. I know u know more about this stuff then I do .can u tell me the best way to put them together to make that battery. O the cells are 1500. Ma. I through I would use that many so I can get more miles out of it .do I make sense . I mean how many in p. And how many in s. If u can help me out on that I would owe owe u one .sorry if u have time and don't mind .thank dude I like your work .I know that keeps u busy. The powerwall and all .thanks
HBPowerwall not Narrow minded ,just from a forensic engineer, look at a Tesla rack on fire. Your racks are approaching the same capabilities during uncontrolled discharge. Safety first, you don’t want to be the guy who regrets. What protection do you have in place for what events and what modes of failure. Cover ALL the bases. A wooden box is not appropriate for the risk.
4480 individual cell fuses, HRC fuses, 120 temp sensors anyone can trigger shunt trip to shut down ALL charging and discharging - Kick ass BMS said the wooden box is inside a tin shed - i've gone out of my way to build this thing the best possible way - this video was from years ago anot not close to what i have built today. (today it's larger soon to be 60kwh of storage) fire/smoke detectors, fire extinusers (that'll do nothing if it does catch fire) Shipping container is next :)
I wish someone could make this simpler, like a better holder, where you can easily just pop in and out the battery's. What a pain all that solder, not to mention how do you replace them. There you go, a challenge for all those printer guys out there.
Wow. I admire you voluntarily offering your house up as a Guinea Pig for testing your thrifty ideas for the rest of us. But I have to say (even though I have a feeling that you've heard this already) that this is going to make any home insurance claim involving a fire a complete nightmare - and that will apply whether or not the fire had anything to with the large totally unshielded DIY lithium battery you have mounted within your house. Just something to think about, because claims adjusters (especially those in home insurance) are experts of finding reasons not to pay, or pay significantly less. This is an easy one tbh
Hello, thank you for the video's. I am having this idea for a while now. Trying to learn everthing :) I also leave the H sometimes it's all about the context.
I usually sell the smallest capacity cells with laser pointers and flashlights, headlamps, USB power banks, etc., and hoard the higher capacity cells for stuff like this.
That is what a lot seem to do, but I have a bunch of people that want the lower cells for cheaper built powerwalls. Once you go big they cells become more and more worth keeping! I'm starting to keep all my cells above 1700 for more 'reserve packs"
Your cycle life of each cell depends on how you discharge and charge them. If you want this thing to last then you should stick to the middle of the cells capacity or 20% to 80%. That is why you want big capacity cells and use a small amount. That won't work very well since you seemed to have mixed all kinds of cells together. So eventually the cells get out of balance you over charge one and achieve thermal runaway. Then you have a lot of material there to burn, or perhaps you have the really cheap cells like they discarded from hoverboards and they just start burning on their own. I am sure others have said the same thing, just tell your kids to run when dady's project catches on fire.
If you look at a single cells total capacity then you want to stay in the middle, 20 to 80%, which is hard to estimate based on voltage and impossible with mixed cells. Looking at a typical Panasonic datasheet you should definitely stay below 4 volts on a cell. Just keeping a cell stored above 80% promotes crystal formations in the cells (I think, search for the white papers) and that is what shortens it's life. This is one reason a Tesla doesn't charge they battery completely unless you over-ride the charge limit. Good times!
Thanks for your videos! Very informative and I am a new subscriber. I bet you have a ton of experience thus fare with what you have built and was hoping to pick your brain if possible. I have been planning a similar system for a while now to go off grid knowing the initial system is only going to power about 25% of our current usage, but I am a bit stuck on the inverter side of things. I have a 10,000 watt peak (12v) inverter I was planning to use but the way this one breaks down is 4 channels of DC input and four outlets on the other side at 2500 peak watts each over 110v (and if I understand correctly that's only 22amps), and I'm struggling to figure out how to provide multiple channels into the "house grid" at the same time. Maybe swap this one for a grid tie inverter, so that I can connect one 50 AMP 220v line from the inverter to a 220v breaker on the main and start to grow the battery bank as needed until I get close to the 50 AMP breaker tie into the house grid, and then add another grid tie to a different breaker until we hit our daily usage, but I dont know how to do that with multiple inverters given that the system is supposed to shut down automatically in the event of a grid power outage while i am growing it, and that begs the question similar to what you mentioned in this video upgrading your inverter for two bigger ones for a total of 8k, how are you connecting both 4,000 watt inverters at the same time to get 8,000 watts going into the same house grid at the same time? DO you jsut plan and assum you will sell and swap the smaller ones as you grow it? Are you using grid tie sensing inverters and trying to match each other? Thanks Mike.
Unfortunately can't help with the power side of things as well i'm a youtube baby - All i know comes from here lol - that said maybe www.secondlifestorage.com is a really good group of people in the forum that could help out, or even DIYPoweralls on fb facebook.com/groups/diypowerwalls/ more replies means better change of getting info that'll help! Thanks for the extra sub :) Pete
lower mAh = higher instantaneous output if you were to use 2 batteries in a side by side test, the one with the lower mAh will "die" faster, but operate cooler. higher mAh = high power density = heats up quicker and anyone who's seen these things explode knows not to forget to install temperature cut-off switches
Patience my friend I'm getting there.. Stay tuned or watch the last video I released. Taken longer than it should but the time has come to up my game BIG TIME
Any chance of a surface mount super cap board. For those times you really need full current arcs. huge arrays of them would be as equally impressive and dangerous. But with your array of Samsung batteries, could you potentially arc current into those acrylic glass art. perhaps wood burn art also with those?
Hello and very nice work I see you are making 3.7v bundles and wiring them in series is this better then making 48v bundles and wiring them parrallel. Second tell me about the term fuse? is that the small wires tying the battery to the buss?THANKS
Please follow through on your test of using all lower range 1500-2000 mah li-ion batteries in a separate powerwall to compare load and cost characteristics for your home.
I just had a thought that if current technology would allow the cross-platforming of batteries, then I think we would be onto something big. For example, if lithium ion batteries would become compatible with say nife, or other chemical-compositioned cells. Then, the long-term cost of either battery type comes to a simple intersection of the supply-demand curve and the cost of each battery type becomes more affordable to a wider population across the world.
really nice setup... no doubt ! I've been trying to find answers in your older videos just when you started using those 18650 batteries and I have a couple questions (or maybe point to the specific video instead of explaining...) -how did you test each and everyone of them, then sort ALL of those batteries, I see you mixed low powered batteries with better ones too, why ? aint this affecting the overall performance of the battery pack ? -how do you keep EACH cell balanced in your battery packs ? -how about temperature monitoring of the battery cell during charging and drain ? does it matter ? Anyway, again, really nice job you've done there... I don't know how much did all this equipement cost you but it's nice to see it run. I don't know if it will be (and when) profitable one day with all this investment but I am really impressed ! Good work !
- A new/updated video for the battery charge and discharge will be done in the coming days as more parts arrive. - For now, I havn't just balanced once when putting into service and so far they are pretty good! - Temp isn't an issue as load per cell is something like 0.3a per "individual 18650 cell" at 2400watts (max inverter draw) Price... lets just say there isn't change from .....ummm just say it's still cheaper than a powerwall.
HBPowerwall Thanks for taking time to reply ! One last question, what happens if you have a single cell that will fail in one of your pack ? My laptop battery pack is totally dead because of a single cell out of 6... I mean with the quantity of cell you have there, this is going to be a nightmare to find that defective battery no ? This is why I asked how you manage to balance and control each cell... Or maybe I am not understanding correctly how a battery pack with multiple cells works...
when you series up 80 cells they all balance, when you parallel up 7 cells (to make 29.4v bank) the 7 cells will undoubtedly slowly unbalance naturally. how ever if one "18650 Cell" in one Cell goes bad it'll either blow the cell fuze (this is the hope) or will drain the packs power leading to a much lower voltage of that cell. Then you just removed it and replace with a spare. Pull it down and test each cell voltage and retest hole pack again thru the dischargers.. It's a lot of work yes but not the end of the world.
HBPowerwall thanks for the precisions ! I'm watching your videos from the oldest one and see you progress in building the battery packs... I think I'm missing on the technical parts though so thanks for replying again ! Now I know why you have all nice blue battery packs ! I was under the impression that you scraped your idea of using used laptop cells and bought new blue cells ! I get this part at least ! Good work !!! Watching the soldering of the buss bars right now !
Power-wise and price-wise, just about anything can beat the power wall. So why compare to the powerwall pack. The heck, I can put together a battery pack with a few hundred dollars that has the same capacity than the $3,000 dollar powerwall.
Great work Brizzy mate. Any more hand held videos -- please move slowly. I've bought samples of Chinese Ultrafire branded batts claiming to be 9800mAh and seem 60% the weight of others claiming to be 6800mAh. I reckon you'd be suggesting testing?
Get a refund and stop supporting ripoff merchants. Sorry feel quite strongly on that one. As for moving slower.. i'll see what i can do but i bet it never improves.. lol
your system is ok but it would be best if you adopt 48 volts or over system voltage instead of 24 volts one. current losses Plus hard to manage such huge current flow's. but any how.
Hey there! I have a question... I'm getting some LiFePO4 cells for a new solar project and I'm planing on using a EPever/EPsolar tracer charge controller and I want to know what setting to use to charge the pack... The charge controller has 4 "modes" that I can choose from: flooded, gel, sealed and "User" the EV power website says that you can simply set the mode to gel and it will be fine, but the charge curve of gel lead acid batteries are very different from LiFePO4 or any Lithium battery. Specifically, bulk Charging, constant Charging then float Charging for lead acids vs just the simple CC-CV charge method of lithium. So would it be better if I just set the mode to user, and set a constant 28.4v for all "stages" of the charge? What would you do?
You really need a BMS for something like this. It may work now but as those cells age the balance of the cells will go off. You dont want these cells discharged to far and running in reverse.
Was just going by the battery wall shown in the video which doesn't have one on it. if you've put one on since then great. just concerned . that much energy unmonitored can lead to a bad day.
Awesome vid! I am considering building a small 12v battery bank from a few laptop batteries. Ebay sell a little 3A Li-ion 12v controller, but how do you charge all those batteries? You also made mention of fuses, but I didn't spot any - do you have a walk through video perhaps?
I'm charging with PCM60X From MPP Solar Inc there is a bunch of videos - check out "busbar complete process' video will have heaps of info you can use .
More info on the cells and packs plz. Like how many cells, what are they made of, how much can they store How expensive are they. I heard 2 out of 4. ^^
Cells - used laptop cells 18650's Cells NOW 4440 back then half that. How expensive ? All prices are here www.diypowerwalls.com/showthread.php?tid=176&pid=866#pid866
kws stay the same regarding voltage difference so only 33kw still. at 48v your closer to your target 220v that ev west were pushing out for the car charger. so efficiency goes up as you close the voltage gap
With the new BMS it data logs so much info it can show me the bad cells. I just pull the cell ( 80 pack of batteries) and replace with a spare. Then retest the 80 cells and rebuild :) Bit of time involved but hey, it's what i signed up for.
Fantastic and congrats , I'm just finalising my 7th pack ( cap test and ir ) 5 packs have 2400mah bats x100 - pack 6 is 2200mah and pack 7 is made up of 2000~2100 man cells .. Now my thoughts are should I keep each pack as they are or should I mix the batts to create equal capacity packs ??🤔🤔 thoughts about this . Cheers from sunny Perth wa
When seeing you crawling between the wall of the shed and the right two battery packs with absolutely no way to jump away from the cells in case of problems, i cross my fingers all the cells will keep functioning safely.... Nice monitoring system on your computer b.t.w. Can you tell me where you bought this intellygent battery voltage communication modules (and do they top balance a bit?)?
This is great stuff! Liked and subscribed! Sorry if these questions have already been asked - I've only just found your channel - I'll make my way through all your other vids next...! I've been looking into building something like this for my 2kW solar array here in the sunny old UK (har har) but I can't stretch to 20kWh of 18650s just at the moment... Looking at starting at 5-6kWh from 15 packs of 48x2200mAh 18650s. I've been planning to do a 24V rig, but should I go straight to 48V? I've not come across the PCM60X controller but it looks ideal, can it balance-charge the 18650s? Have you put together any wiring diagrams? (what DC voltage are you feeding into your charge controller from your solar panels?) I've got a grid-tied inverter that needs at least 170V DC to switch on, how do you get your 48V up to 170V for the inverter?
going straight to 48 is a great idea if you can afford it cerntally something i would do differently if i started over. PCM60X is only a MPPT Charge controler doesn't do any balancing. Voltage from panels is about 90v into PCM60X max charge voltage for a 14S pack is 57.4v then the PIP4048 Inverter (NOT GRID TIE) converts they '48v' to 230v then into the house.
Would you not be able to get greater capacity if you would use Mallory ultra capacitors ??? Please let me know if that would be true. How big are you going to build your power wall ??? What would consider the best make and power size battery ??/ Thanks
You don't need Battery Management System, you only need Battery *Monitoring* System, so you won't need to run with multimetr every day. Some of them can have signal output, so you can plug them to emergency cut off and then they cut off your battery pack when batteries will be unbalanced or over/under charged for some reason (eg malfunction)
I'm working on monitoring with my sparky atm, it would already be attached if it wasn't for me not wanting to see any extra cables. He's really good with that so working on it. Also ordered a few more celllogs to use with packs. I've been checking cell voltage 3-5 times a day for the past month. Thinking it should be good isn't really enough. Interwebs has scared me into checking constantly but end of the day it doesn't take long and I sleep well.
It's just a bar of copper I got from the local metal place... That's the OLD way and not cost effective at all NEW way is sooo much cheaper and faster - ruclips.net/video/XPdJRD57T7A/видео.html
that's cool wish I had one too, I have a 48 volt Inverter but I have 8 - 6 volt batteries @ 420Ah witch is about 20,160 KWH I know I can use half of that but I want around 1500 Ah batteries in something like 3 strings of 500 but I'm looking around for something new.
It is that you know the requirements for charging lithium batteries unlike other types of batteries, so I wonder how many do to recharge batteries at once, or charges one by one, how to recharge?
20KWh battery bank contains the same amount of energy as approximately 16Kg of TNT. Admittedly the TNT unleashes that energy a lot faster (a few milliseconds) than the battery bank gone thermal (a [very] few seconds with cells tightly packed together like you have). So rather than a true explosion you'd have a deflagration that would look something like a rapidly expanding fireball. I guess I should have said "incendiary device" instead of "bomb".
One thing on you assumption all batteries have to be the highest mili amp rating. In basic electronics you,ll find that voltage is the muscle required to push the amps through a circuit. the Amp rating is liken to a river and if one of your banks has all the best milli am rating and the next one has a few that are half the rating, the effect will be like a narrowing in the river. You would be better if you scatter the poor cells evenly through out the 24 v section. It would be best to keep out poor quality in the first place.
Hey, lets say I have 20Kw worth of power wall and it is all charged up and know i come home from work and I start using power at my house and I'm working in my garage and want to use my mig welder to weld some exhaust pipe and run a few other power tools. would this still give me any trouble? Can you run your A/C system and cool the house? Are there any Limitations to using a Powerwall?
all this info is in these two videos descriptions ruclips.net/video/zYl14AIyaV0/видео.html ruclips.net/video/akRmSibJyTM/видео.html Hope they help :) chuck us a few likes if it helps :)
Watt is a measure of power, watt = joule/sec Joule is a measure of energy. So wattage x time (H) = energy again, because time/time cancels out. wh = (Joules/sec)*hours Basically its the wattage times the hours you've used that wattage, basically the area under the curve of a graph measuring watts. So 6kw for 2 hours = 12kwh 6kw for 2 hours and 10kw for 4 hours = 54kwh.
Hey, a packs capacity in kW/hr is the same regardless of the voltage. Going 48v to 24v would double the Amp/Hours. But the energy capacity would remain the same.
great vid, thanks. may I ask a question? How do I know how much amps a battery pack can handle. if I have a motor that draws 40 amps and I am using a 18685 battery pack that has 40 cells, does that mean that each cell is using a 1 amp draw?
Good information, thanks. I need to make a 48 volt pack for my riding lawn mower. The dc motor will draw about 42 amps. Can you help? I am sure there are many people wanting to do the same thing. Thanks
Hey man, I just watched your video. Some quick remarks from an electrical engineer - don't confuse Wh (Watt hours) with Ah (Ampere hours). What you need to do is to multiply the voltages and the amperes (technically for each operating point of the cells respective discharge curve) and sum them up over time to get the Wh or kWh. You said you had around 30 kWh at 48 Volts, which would mean (as you said) 60 kWh at 24 Volts - that's not how you do it. The kWh stay the same, as the voltage drops to half it's value and the amps go up accordingly. The 'h' in kWh actually matters btw. - draw 5 kW for 30 minutes and 15 kW for another 30, you have one hour of 10 kW in average - 10 kWh so to say. Which means that it's the same for the battery, no matter if you draw 1 kW for 10 hours or 100 kW for 6 minutes (apart from losses due to heating of the battery at such loads). So the capacity of 30 kWh means that you could supply a 3 kW load for 10 hours, which would be sufficient for most nights, where your solar panels are kind of useless :)
Secondly, regarding the cells with different capacity - don't connect cells with different capacity in series, better have them in parallel to stronger cells in the other packs. When you drain your batteries in series, the smaller capacity ones will drain completely and irreversibly (!), while the other packs are still in good shape. As the other packs still have enough voltage so the resulting series connected voltage is high enough to keep the powerwall in it's operating range, the powerwall will draw as much current as necessary to power your loads. If this happens once, your smaller capacity packs fail and you will loose overall capacity. If you connect them in parallel to stronger cells, the voltage across the pack will balance automatically and the smaller capacity batteries will be discharched less in apsolute amp hours, but equally in percentage to the stronger ones in parallel. This will most likely boost your battery pack's robustness to heavy discharge tremendously.
Apart from that - great work! If you don't have a bms, you should check your respective pack's voltages regularly and somehow try to balance them. Don't use bare wire for balancing, as they might burn again. Connect a resistor in series (dimensioned correctly to stand the load!) to equalize slowly.
Why does anyone talk in Amps?
Try talking to someone that fiddles with smartphones all day, MiliAmps is all they know.
Well - it's a power system. To calculate power (watts) you have to multiply amps by volts.
Also any hobby that uses Li-pos. Watts are never used, it's always amps.
Phasedragon what do you mean? I use lipos for quadcopter, heli's and planes. but don't get your comment. how can you use amps but not volts? unless you are referring to the way manufacturers display the battery's capacity? (which is by the way useless information without knowing the voltage or cell count since power is watts and displaying the ah is only half the picture) anyway I'm not sure I get what you meant?
Tight spot for that much energy density. Of course you know that. I used to work in the battery well of a submarine battery which is huge. 2.0V per cell with a 125 cells in series to get 250DC volts. roughly 2000 amps for an hour or so. The cells were 3 to 4 feet tall so huge power.
Yeh the space isn't perfect, what's worse is I have almost 20kwh more that won't fit :) Big things happening in the background at the moment. The old cashola is the only thing slowing progress.
how many deep cycles can it do ?
I really don't want it doing any deep cycles in fact most night it's lucky to draw .2 of a volt per pack :)
Why the 18650 form factor, would say stacked 7S flat packs or 14S flat packs be better?
He is using recycled cells from laptops.
Brilliant well done...I was nodding like a dog at you agreeing that at the capacity you have the lower capacity cells will work just as well because of the minimal load spread across the system... Re balanced module 100% agree no need
+1bigsyd never work well with single pack but larger packs it does seem like it will work with out issue. Other than I guess lower cells might have a tendency to completely fail faster perhaps.
That is quite the good-looking project! I definitely need a spot welder for Christmas now, even if I have to build it myself.
Dam! Thats one huge ass pack!......bravo for your work
+carl marcelin thanks :)
A real trail blazer! Dude this will inspire more people to do this! Thumbs up!
+carl marcelin hope so
wait....are you going to power your house on double AA batteries.
wow... dude the internet was made with you primarly in mind...your the man
you have restored my faith in mankind...
i dont know anything about electric ... but im with you ...LOCK LOAD AND GO FOR IT
i wish i lived next door to you
prop
I'm unsure if your genuine or having a go. However, they aren't AA Batteries they are the same type of cells in a Tesla Powerwall & Telsa motor car (you know the kinda fast one) 18650's
HBPowerwall ...Thanks for that info...im not aware of tesla battaries...from my phone they looked like AA batteries
i have to say... im sad there not AA batteries... that would have been just utterly amazing
Hahahaha...fucken love it mate...you made me smile on the inside....great bloody effort...great to see aussie backyard experimental shit is alive and kickin....a big thumbs up from the Northern Rivers
Thanks Joe :)
kwh doesnt change with voltage
30kwh at 48V is still 30kwh at 24V as long as the number and capacity of the cells is the same
MWB Gaming You sir know nothing of electricty. Let me school you a little. 10ah x 24v = 240wh 10ah x 48v is 480wh. To understand this you need to understand series and parallel curcuit. Next time before you type this kind of utter nonsence, educate yourself a little. Otherwise you make people dumber.
you are the one who should take an electronics course
i never referred to amp hours i was referring to watts (V x A = W)
i will take the liberty of schooling you today
30KWh at 48V = 625AH
30KWh at 24V = 1250AH
same number of cells = same watt hours regardless of voltage
even if you change the voltage 30KWh is still 30KWh
heres an example
two 12V 10AH batteries contain 240WH of energy so regardless of the configuration they will have the same energy level (assuming they are fully charged)
in parallel you will have 20AH at 12V = 240WH
in series you will have 10AH at 24V = 240WH
the benefit of higher voltage comes in the form of efficiency
you can use more of that energy at high wattage levels because the amp draw on the battery will be lower
higher amps = more voltage sag (that is why the power grid uses about 150KV for interstate power lines)
my solar system uses 12V and i get about 0.83V loss in the cables
that means under 1500W of load only 11.17V is reaching the inverter if the battery voltage is 12V
when the inverter shuts down due to low voltage at 10V there is still energy in the battery
(not much but still a usable amount of energy) lower voltage loss grants you more runtime (to a point)
that voltage loss means i cant use all the batterys power at that high wattage
with a 24V system i would get a lower voltage loss for the same load wattage
(as a percentage of system voltage)
thus i can use more of the batterys power at the higher wattage
the other benefit of higher voltages is cost
at 12V i needed eight 00AWG cables due to the amps needed to run at higher wattages
at 48V i would only need two 00AWG cables to run the same number of watts
making the installation easier and cheaper
MWB Gaming 20ah 1s 3.7v= 74wh 20ah 2s 7.4= 148wh 20ah 3s 11.1= 222wh. 33 kwh at 24v requires 1375ah and at 48v 33kwh requires 687.5ah. This is were i got confused. If you change series and parallel it does not matter, if same qty of cells are present. You are correct and i eat humble pie. What do you know i just got a tiny bit smarter. cheers for the correction.
not a problem
knowledge is power and the more people know the better
I forgot to thank you as well for taking the time to add all the extra info. Cheers
Don't worry. BMS was not a bad investment. One good thing about making cell banks with all those cells in parallel, is that you get closer and closer to an average. That makes the whole closer to a true sum of its parts. I like that you have fused each individual cell, so of one fails, you don't have dozens of others supplying energy to the one. Another thing that averages, with many cells in parallel, is self discharge rate. Differences in self discharge rate, is what throws batteries out of voltage balance. You will find, that you won't have to apply much current at all, to keep the cells balanced, compared to the capacity of the battery. 1/2 amps at the most. The same balancer that works for a single string of cells, can serve dozens of paralleled cells, because of that averaging. As far as safety, if you limit your finishing voltage to 4.15 volts(ish), that will get you nearly all the capacity, as well as a decent safety margin, lest the battery becomes slightly unbalanced over time. Self discharge rate is more time sensitive than cycle sensitive. Just like determining when to check water in lead acid batteries, experience will tell you how often to check cell balance. I would only run cell balancing during the top of the charge, not during bulk charging, and not at all during discharging. You may find a difference in cell voltage after running off 80% of its capacity, but near the end of the charge, they should return to pretty close balance. For this reason, do only a top balance, but discharge and recharge coulombically. You want each set of cells to experience the exact same amp hours, and balancing during those times can actually throw them out of balance.
You let out the magic smoke, great video
ooh lots - man my workshop smelt for days after
Wow looks like a really professional build!
it could be done better but i like it :)
That's some nice levitating unicorn farts you showed by shorting out the packs.
I was literaly sitting here going "ops-ie!"
I was a little vocal with the popsies! I assure you hahaha worst part that's the second time I've done the same thing DOH! (hence the spaces I HAD in there lol)
that is probably the biggest collection of 18650s that i have ever seen... whoa!
+danz409 not even close :) some much larger out there.
If that place ever goes up, that would be a good video.
I know right, can you imagine the 'told you so's' would echo across the old interwebs.. fortunately with new bms and all the other steps i've taken to make this as safe as practically possible fire is about as likely as me winning lotto..
Isn't it going to matter when you look at cost over lifespan? The ROI of having to determine which battery is dead in the giant blocks is low. You could create much smaller and thus easily replaceable packs. Then join those packs together. I can't see how this is going to work two years down the road when the batteries stop charging.
I guess I went totally out of the box with my design. I made a wall of tubes, put C cell batteries in them with a loaded spring at the top and a screw on end cap with the + contact in it. 11 cells at 1.2 volts each (13.4v potential) in surplus full size C NiCads. A temp switch in each one disconnecting charge on each one based on temp and seemed to last 5+ years of constant use. Was only 118 amps total though. 1-1/4" pvc pipe, threaded caps with a spacer wrap on the batteries works great. Used a Diode and a LED on each tube to assure contacts were working good.
Any videos up of your project sounds interesting
HBPowerwall No, but if I build another I will. Such a battery system is the best to put in a RV.
Jehu is the GURU of 18650's LOL!
That might have been true back then :) Many have surpassed since!
I used cells below 1700mAh for the cells in my 2kWh Powerwall pack. Seems to be going fine. 1500mAh is my low threshold.
I'm so jealous of that EV West Powerwall though - drooling over all those real Tesla modules.
+Paul Kennett yeh awesome. Will build a big pack to test theory for my self. :)
Do you know how long will your cells last??
m.reddit.com/r/electronic_cigarette/comments/2wrfpp/what_is_the_life_cycle_of_an_18650_battery_about/?compact=false
Forever ? :)
I would suggest arranging your cells in a balanced fashion so that you have approximately the same kWH per pack/bank. If you have one pack that has quite a few kWH less than the others, you run the risk of depleting it before the others in the array and reversing the voltage on that smaller pack, which probably won't do it any good.
Yep been there done that..lol early days the learning curve was steep. Thanks for your comment !
WOW! Love you man and your can-do-ness but better have the fire department on speed dial! More energy in that lot than a bunch of hand grenades. Good luck mate.
Hey NASA still goes to space & Samsung made more phones.. might as well keep going as well - starting the 60th kWh pack now :)
Good man! Go for it mate
Very cool! I want to give it a shot in the future for sure!
you should :)
LOL... cut to smoke... :) You let out the blue smoke that makes things work!
It has to fix something...
I'm one of your big fan. I also have powerwall based on your design.
Newbie here. DIY lover. Need some support
hard is it to find the batteries the ones you use and what a awesome idea and fun videos i am looking forward to building one myself
Glad i could inspire..
Oh no! You let the magic smoke out!
Magic smoke must be free
Your rig absolutely amazes me...well fricken' done! Keep these videos coming!
+Chris DIYer trust me it amazes me constantly. Who would have thought this was even workable in the real world.
@@HBPowerwall How does the battery work without bms?
You seem to have batteries from different manufacterers, ...if so that will negatively impact performance; you undoubtedly know that. Neat looking build. Interested the cost? Of course it sounds like you are down-under, so some cost xlation needed. You'd indicated its 20 kWh, I presume at your 24V. On latest video on our battery and box build uses fork lift batteries 2x24V with over 40 kWh, it weighs 2500 lbs - fun to see me loading them into the battery box - LOL. Enjoy your channel. Its exciting stuff.
ofcourse all voltages are the same. All packs are in parallel. When you put them in series (when you go to 48V) you need to make sure that 2 packs that are in series have the same (or as close to eachother as possible) capacities. If your last pack is worse and has considerable less capacity than the first, don't put those 2 together in series.
In series similar capacities are most inportant. In parallel Internal Resistance is most important.
Because you have so many cells in parallel, the effects of variation in IR is small, but in series you can't allow much variation in capacity.
In series your battery is only going to last as long as the lowest capacity can handle.
Nice update. So jealous of how many cells you have. I've been struggling to find good deals.
I'm hitting a brick wall at the moment with people not calling back. But the hunt will continue.
Update on this project??
only my whole channel lol sill going but defiantly loosing capacity.
@@HBPowerwall hahah I meant as in how long did these cells last :P
They are still in daily service.@@Gamen4Bros
@@HBPowerwall awesome
Time to start a powerwall. Good video :)
make sure you check out some of the newer videos... :)
@2:21 Dr Frankenstein would be proud of you.
kewl will watch more of your Videos, and don't let the magic Smoke Escape..
48 volts, If you have put so much work into building your powerwall 24 volts why are you changing it to 48V. You will get slightly higher efficiency, ( lower loss on cables and inverter) the only reason I see is increasing solar input into your PCM60x. or maybe bigger power inverter to run more of your home?
Anyway I think its going to happen, I looking at going to 48 volts for mine, I just want to find inverters. (I want to use old UPSs)
Its great seeing your progress and look forwards to the next video.
both reasons PCM60X can double the panels with out any extra cabling just plug and go and MORE power lol i'll be able to run more with less effort from the inverter. IE microwave and toaster (plus rest of house) at once rather than constantly thinking about what else is running at the same time.
Aussie accent instant sub mate,
lol welcome
Great video... where can I get those plastic battery connectors
www.ebay.com.au/itm/252304899243?_trksid=p2057872.m2749.l2649&ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT
So nice how you stacked the "pretty" ones on top, to look nicer, and how that makes it look like a stack of fake money with a good bill on top ;)
I'm not proud of that, but I was out of blue cells at the time ..hahah great analogy
Superb project, nonetheless! And I do appreciate a keen aesthetic eye!
Stops it from looking quite so DIY :)
Hey I wish I could get cells like that .I made me a ebike and cant even get anuff cells to make me a battery for it. Hard to get around here . Good work dude
It's almost a full time job finding cells these days lol I've only made one or two eBike batteries - so much easier than home level storage lol
@@HBPowerwall hey dude you doing ok . Hey I don't know if u have time or not but if u do and dont mind .I got a hold of 60 lg cells and I need to build a 24 volt 250 watt. Battery for my ebike. I know u know more about this stuff then I do .can u tell me the best way to put them together to make that battery. O the cells are 1500. Ma. I through I would use that many so I can get more miles out of it .do I make sense . I mean how many in p. And how many in s. If u can help me out on that I would owe owe u one .sorry if u have time and don't mind .thank dude I like your work .I know that keeps u busy. The powerwall and all .thanks
Ooooo, there is a house fire 🔥 waiting to happen
Where? come on - don't be so narrow minded - take 12 hours of your life and take a look at all the improvements i've made go on i dare you!
HBPowerwall not Narrow minded ,just from a forensic engineer, look at a Tesla rack on fire. Your racks are approaching the same capabilities during uncontrolled discharge. Safety first, you don’t want to be the guy who regrets. What protection do you have in place for what events and what modes of failure. Cover ALL the bases. A wooden box is not appropriate for the risk.
4480 individual cell fuses, HRC fuses, 120 temp sensors anyone can trigger shunt trip to shut down ALL charging and discharging - Kick ass BMS said the wooden box is inside a tin shed - i've gone out of my way to build this thing the best possible way - this video was from years ago anot not close to what i have built today. (today it's larger soon to be 60kwh of storage) fire/smoke detectors, fire extinusers (that'll do nothing if it does catch fire) Shipping container is next :)
"120 temp sensors" for how many cells is one sensor? I think, You need 1 sensor for 4 cells. O:)
Very coooool powerbank!
Thank you
Ah yes, the good old wire fire. Haven't seen one of those since I worked at audio express.
I wish someone could make this simpler, like a better holder, where you can easily just pop in and out the battery's.
What a pain all that solder, not to mention how do you replace them. There you go, a challenge for all those printer guys out there.
Already being done (and has been for months) Pete
Wow. I admire you voluntarily offering your house up as a Guinea Pig for testing your thrifty ideas for the rest of us.
But I have to say (even though I have a feeling that you've heard this already) that this is going to make any home insurance claim involving a fire a complete nightmare - and that will apply whether or not the fire had anything to with the large totally unshielded DIY lithium battery you have mounted within your house.
Just something to think about, because claims adjusters (especially those in home insurance) are experts of finding reasons not to pay, or pay significantly less. This is an easy one tbh
Aware of that that's for sure. Currently taking steps forward to bring this idea to the next level
Good work bro
Thank-You Tino
Hello, thank you for the video's. I am having this idea for a while now. Trying to learn everthing :) I also leave the H sometimes it's all about the context.
H drives me crazy I get to the point it's not worth doing another take just to add it so I just add notes to the videos..lol
I usually sell the smallest capacity cells with laser pointers and flashlights, headlamps, USB power banks, etc., and hoard the higher capacity cells for stuff like this.
That is what a lot seem to do, but I have a bunch of people that want the lower cells for cheaper built powerwalls. Once you go big they cells become more and more worth keeping! I'm starting to keep all my cells above 1700 for more 'reserve packs"
Your cycle life of each cell depends on how you discharge and charge them. If you want this thing to last then you should stick to the middle of the cells capacity or 20% to 80%. That is why you want big capacity cells and use a small amount. That won't work very well since you seemed to have mixed all kinds of cells together. So eventually the cells get out of balance you over charge one and achieve thermal runaway. Then you have a lot of material there to burn, or perhaps you have the really cheap cells like they discarded from hoverboards and they just start burning on their own.
I am sure others have said the same thing, just tell your kids to run when dady's project catches on fire.
lol - addressing that as we speak with a kick ass BMS ohh they are discharged between 3.67v and 4.1 volts only
If you look at a single cells total capacity then you want to stay in the middle, 20 to 80%, which is hard to estimate based on voltage and impossible with mixed cells. Looking at a typical Panasonic datasheet you should definitely stay below 4 volts on a cell. Just keeping a cell stored above 80% promotes crystal formations in the cells (I think, search for the white papers) and that is what shortens it's life. This is one reason a Tesla doesn't charge they battery completely unless you over-ride the charge limit. Good times!
keep up the great work...looking good..
cheers ty
Thanks for your videos! Very informative and I am a new subscriber. I bet you have a ton of experience thus fare with what you have built and was hoping to pick your brain if possible. I have been planning a similar system for a while now to go off grid knowing the initial system is only going to power about 25% of our current usage, but I am a bit stuck on the inverter side of things. I have a 10,000 watt peak (12v) inverter I was planning to use but the way this one breaks down is 4 channels of DC input and four outlets on the other side at 2500 peak watts each over 110v (and if I understand correctly that's only 22amps), and I'm struggling to figure out how to provide multiple channels into the "house grid" at the same time. Maybe swap this one for a grid tie inverter, so that I can connect one 50 AMP 220v line from the inverter to a 220v breaker on the main and start to grow the battery bank as needed until I get close to the 50 AMP breaker tie into the house grid, and then add another grid tie to a different breaker until we hit our daily usage, but I dont know how to do that with multiple inverters given that the system is supposed to shut down automatically in the event of a grid power outage while i am growing it, and that begs the question similar to what you mentioned in this video upgrading your inverter for two bigger ones for a total of 8k, how are you connecting both 4,000 watt inverters at the same time to get 8,000 watts going into the same house grid at the same time? DO you jsut plan and assum you will sell and swap the smaller ones as you grow it? Are you using grid tie sensing inverters and trying to match each other? Thanks Mike.
Unfortunately can't help with the power side of things as well i'm a youtube baby - All i know comes from here lol - that said maybe www.secondlifestorage.com is a really good group of people in the forum that could help out, or even DIYPoweralls on fb facebook.com/groups/diypowerwalls/ more replies means better change of getting info that'll help! Thanks for the extra sub :) Pete
lower mAh = higher instantaneous output
if you were to use 2 batteries in a side by side test, the one with the lower mAh will "die" faster, but operate cooler.
higher mAh = high power density = heats up quicker
and anyone who's seen these things explode knows not to forget to install temperature cut-off switches
Patience my friend I'm getting there.. Stay tuned or watch the last video I released. Taken longer than it should but the time has come to up my game BIG TIME
Awesome job, very impressive. :)
Thank-You
you could consider dehumidifier with silica gel or similar products on those really rainy day's.
need a 44gal bucket of it ..hahah
HBPowerwall wise good sir. Very wise.
Any chance of a surface mount super cap board. For those times you really need full current arcs. huge arrays of them would be as equally impressive and dangerous. But with your array of Samsung batteries, could you potentially arc current into those acrylic glass art. perhaps wood burn art also with those?
I guess you could I have seen videos of it looks pretty cool
Lots of APC UPS's run on 48 VDC batteries and are discarded when the batteries fail. You might be able to pick up one on the cheap.
I have almost 100 SLA bateries from several symmertra 16kva systems. I got here trying to find out how to use them to make a powerwall :)
Thanks for honest information...cool video....thank you...
Thanks for tuning in
Hello and very nice work I see you are making 3.7v bundles and wiring them in series is this better then making 48v bundles and wiring them parrallel.
Second tell me about the term fuse? is that the small wires tying the battery to the buss?THANKS
this way seems to work for me, the fuse wire is 0.4mm wire found on amazon
Please follow through on your test of using all lower range 1500-2000 mah li-ion batteries in a separate powerwall to compare load and cost characteristics for your home.
Sorry, not a cost-effective test. But it will work, it just won't work as well
I just had a thought that if current technology would allow the cross-platforming of batteries, then I think we would be onto something big. For example, if lithium ion batteries would become compatible with say nife, or other chemical-compositioned cells. Then, the long-term cost of either battery type comes to a simple intersection of the supply-demand curve and the cost of each battery type becomes more affordable to a wider population across the world.
really nice setup... no doubt ! I've been trying to find answers in your older videos just when you started using those 18650 batteries and I have a couple questions (or maybe point to the specific video instead of explaining...)
-how did you test each and everyone of them, then sort ALL of those batteries, I see you mixed low powered batteries with better ones too, why ? aint this affecting the overall performance of the battery pack ?
-how do you keep EACH cell balanced in your battery packs ?
-how about temperature monitoring of the battery cell during charging and drain ? does it matter ?
Anyway, again, really nice job you've done there... I don't know how much did all this equipement cost you but it's nice to see it run. I don't know if it will be (and when) profitable one day with all this investment but I am really impressed !
Good work !
- A new/updated video for the battery charge and discharge will be done in the coming days as more parts arrive.
- For now, I havn't just balanced once when putting into service and so far they are pretty good!
- Temp isn't an issue as load per cell is something like 0.3a per "individual 18650 cell" at 2400watts (max inverter draw)
Price... lets just say there isn't change from .....ummm just say it's still cheaper than a powerwall.
HBPowerwall Thanks for taking time to reply !
One last question, what happens if you have a single cell that will fail in one of your pack ?
My laptop battery pack is totally dead because of a single cell out of 6...
I mean with the quantity of cell you have there, this is going to be a nightmare to find that defective battery no ?
This is why I asked how you manage to balance and control each cell...
Or maybe I am not understanding correctly how a battery pack with multiple cells works...
when you series up 80 cells they all balance, when you parallel up 7 cells (to make 29.4v bank) the 7 cells will undoubtedly slowly unbalance naturally. how ever if one "18650 Cell" in one Cell goes bad it'll either blow the cell fuze (this is the hope) or will drain the packs power leading to a much lower voltage of that cell. Then you just removed it and replace with a spare. Pull it down and test each cell voltage and retest hole pack again thru the dischargers.. It's a lot of work yes but not the end of the world.
HBPowerwall thanks for the precisions ! I'm watching your videos from the oldest one and see you progress in building the battery packs... I think I'm missing on the technical parts though so thanks for replying again !
Now I know why you have all nice blue battery packs ! I was under the impression that you scraped your idea of using used laptop cells and bought new blue cells ! I get this part at least ! Good work !!!
Watching the soldering of the buss bars right now !
Power-wise and price-wise, just about anything can beat the power wall.
So why compare to the powerwall pack.
The heck, I can put together a battery pack with a few hundred dollars that has the same capacity than the $3,000 dollar powerwall.
you should, make a great yt video :)
Schöner Speicher geil 👌👍 ich habe auch neu gebaut Lifepo4 27 kWh
Great work Brizzy mate. Any more hand held videos -- please move slowly. I've bought samples of Chinese Ultrafire branded batts claiming to be 9800mAh and seem 60% the weight of others claiming to be 6800mAh. I reckon you'd be suggesting testing?
Get a refund and stop supporting ripoff merchants. Sorry feel quite strongly on that one. As for moving slower.. i'll see what i can do but i bet it never improves.. lol
your system is ok but it would be best if you adopt 48 volts or over system voltage instead of 24 volts one. current losses Plus hard to manage such huge current flow's. but any how.
100amps isn't so huge :) and I am going 48v and will be pulling 150+ amps at 48v when i do :)
WHEN will you do?
already done :)
7.2kw
Great work !!!!!
Cheers TY
great work man! how many cicles do they would last? thanks
bout 500 "cycles" in so far and still massively impressed - that said i have a bunch more now :)
sorry, Cycles yes , but 500 cycles it would be less than one year, or with that amount of power you dont even use a cycle per day? thankz!
Hey there! I have a question... I'm getting some LiFePO4 cells for a new solar project and I'm planing on using a EPever/EPsolar tracer charge controller and I want to know what setting to use to charge the pack... The charge controller has 4 "modes" that I can choose from: flooded, gel, sealed and "User" the EV power website says that you can simply set the mode to gel and it will be fine, but the charge curve of gel lead acid batteries are very different from LiFePO4 or any Lithium battery. Specifically, bulk Charging, constant Charging then float Charging for lead acids vs just the simple CC-CV charge method of lithium. So would it be better if I just set the mode to user, and set a constant 28.4v for all "stages" of the charge? What would you do?
I would call EPsolar :) sorry I'm a googler not an expert hope you understand.
Haha! Alright, thank you though!
You really need a BMS for something like this. It may work now but as those cells age the balance of the cells will go off. You dont want these cells discharged to far and running in reverse.
Time for you too look at the description :) Have one of the best on the market installed :)
Was just going by the battery wall shown in the video which doesn't have one on it. if you've put one on since then great. just concerned . that much energy unmonitored can lead to a bad day.
Run it for MANY months without a BMS, now of cause I'm using the Batrium BMS and it's bloody magic.
Awesome vid! I am considering building a small 12v battery bank from a few laptop batteries. Ebay sell a little 3A Li-ion 12v controller, but how do you charge all those batteries? You also made mention of fuses, but I didn't spot any - do you have a walk through video perhaps?
I'm charging with PCM60X From MPP Solar Inc there is a bunch of videos - check out "busbar complete process' video will have heaps of info you can use .
good stuff!!! all updates and new videos are welcome, even if you talk about the weather
when will the whole house come from batterys?
+sven when my kids move out :)
lol
I have that exact same charge controller but haven't got around to using it much yet. How do you like it? Does it seem to be pretty decent?
More info on the cells and packs plz.
Like how many cells, what are they made of, how much can they store
How expensive are they.
I heard 2 out of 4. ^^
Cells - used laptop cells 18650's Cells NOW 4440 back then half that. How expensive ? All prices are here www.diypowerwalls.com/showthread.php?tid=176&pid=866#pid866
kws stay the same regarding voltage difference so only 33kw still. at 48v your closer to your target 220v that ev west were pushing out for the car charger. so efficiency goes up as you close the voltage gap
+One up the sleeve customs arrr yea amps halve doh
To much soldering mate ;)
Breathin - HOOOOOOOLLLLLD , exhale!
*Hey, where did you get all of the laptop batteries from?*
Local school after a mass warranty or recall claim for laptop batteries
@HBPowerwall *how did you find it at the school and what do you mean by mass warranty or recall claim?*
a recycler got them for me and just gave them to me ...
Good vid, thanks. What do you do about low capacity cells? diagnose, replace etc. Thanks!
With the new BMS it data logs so much info it can show me the bad cells. I just pull the cell ( 80 pack of batteries) and replace with a spare. Then retest the 80 cells and rebuild :) Bit of time involved but hey, it's what i signed up for.
what BMS are you using? What is the voltage? Thanks
I am using 10s bms from ebay with 90 batteries per pack. I have 4 packs used on my e-bikes
I am using this www.batrium.com/collections/starter-kit/products/starter-kit-watchmon-14s-blockmon-m8-sfp102mod with 28 extra longmons
OK, i get it. 14s, 80 batteries per cell. The bms price is kinda shocking. Thanks for the advice.
Fantastic and congrats , I'm just finalising my 7th pack ( cap test and ir ) 5 packs have 2400mah bats x100 - pack 6 is 2200mah and pack 7 is made up of 2000~2100 man cells .. Now my thoughts are should I keep each pack as they are or should I mix the batts to create equal capacity packs ??🤔🤔 thoughts about this . Cheers from sunny Perth wa
+Cryidis if u Haven't finalised them mix them up. That is defiantly something I do different if I did it again
+HBPowerwall - thanks for that , I've been leaning towards a mixed balanced pack and needed confirmation .. Appreciated 👍
anytime :)
When seeing you crawling between the wall of the shed and the right two battery packs with absolutely no way to jump away from the cells in case of problems, i cross my fingers all the cells will keep functioning safely....
Nice monitoring system on your computer b.t.w.
Can you tell me where you bought this intellygent battery voltage communication modules (and do they top balance a bit?)?
Poor design for sure, I actually hate it - so hard to work on but been like that for years so it can stay till it's retirement
This is great stuff! Liked and subscribed! Sorry if these questions have already been asked - I've only just found your channel - I'll make my way through all your other vids next...!
I've been looking into building something like this for my 2kW solar array here in the sunny old UK (har har) but I can't stretch to 20kWh of 18650s just at the moment... Looking at starting at 5-6kWh from 15 packs of 48x2200mAh 18650s. I've been planning to do a 24V rig, but should I go straight to 48V? I've not come across the PCM60X controller but it looks ideal, can it balance-charge the 18650s? Have you put together any wiring diagrams? (what DC voltage are you feeding into your charge controller from your solar panels?) I've got a grid-tied inverter that needs at least 170V DC to switch on, how do you get your 48V up to 170V for the inverter?
going straight to 48 is a great idea if you can afford it cerntally something i would do differently if i started over. PCM60X is only a MPPT Charge controler doesn't do any balancing. Voltage from panels is about 90v into PCM60X max charge voltage for a 14S pack is 57.4v then the PIP4048 Inverter (NOT GRID TIE) converts they '48v' to 230v then into the house.
Would you not be able to get greater capacity if you would use Mallory ultra capacitors ??? Please let me know if that would be true. How big are you going to build your power wall ??? What would consider the best make and power size battery ??/ Thanks
never used caps, i'm at 40kwh, best is the best one you can afford
Hey man nice video! Are you completly of grid with these battery packs?
No, and I don't think I ever will be there is something about having the grid as a fail safe that works for me..
I saw Jehu's vid also...you're right!
Yep that EVWest system has the cool factor that's for sure.
Low voltage requires high current. High voltage (series) is the answer.
Thank-you :)
You bloody legend!
Hope not loosing too much blood could be problematic
Good job. Do you plan to put out A grocery list with a plan how to do it?
+Jerome Castonguay already listed on www.diypowerwalls.com/t-HBPowerwall-Offical
You don't need Battery Management System, you only need Battery *Monitoring* System, so you won't need to run with multimetr every day.
Some of them can have signal output, so you can plug them to emergency cut off and then they cut off your battery pack when batteries will be unbalanced or over/under charged for some reason (eg malfunction)
I'm working on monitoring with my sparky atm, it would already be attached if it wasn't for me not wanting to see any extra cables. He's really good with that so working on it. Also ordered a few more celllogs to use with packs. I've been checking cell voltage 3-5 times a day for the past month. Thinking it should be good isn't really enough. Interwebs has scared me into checking constantly but end of the day it doesn't take long and I sleep well.
Hey peter,,what did you use for the spacer blocks in between each pack..was it square copper bar and cut to size, and where did you get it....thanks!
It's just a bar of copper I got from the local metal place... That's the OLD way and not cost effective at all NEW way is sooo much cheaper and faster - ruclips.net/video/XPdJRD57T7A/видео.html
that's cool wish I had one too, I have a 48 volt Inverter but I have 8 - 6 volt batteries @ 420Ah witch is about 20,160 KWH I know I can use half of that but I want around 1500 Ah batteries in something like 3 strings of 500 but I'm looking around for something new.
It is that you know the requirements for charging lithium batteries unlike other types of batteries, so I wonder how many do to recharge batteries at once, or charges one by one, how to recharge?
I charge 2240 at a time :) using PCM60X
G'day mate. How do balance charge those battery packs when they assembled?
+Hisashi Ke I use my bms
Nice bomb you've built there. Glad you aren't my neighbor.
Bomb would imply it would explode levelling a given area - come on at least do your research - goin thermal isn't a bomb.
20KWh battery bank contains the same amount of energy as approximately 16Kg of TNT. Admittedly the TNT unleashes that energy a lot faster (a few milliseconds) than the battery bank gone thermal (a [very] few seconds with cells tightly packed together like you have). So rather than a true explosion you'd have a deflagration that would look something like a rapidly expanding fireball. I guess I should have said "incendiary device" instead of "bomb".
Much better, now it's time to prove you wrong :) it's time to upgrade
HBPowerwall from your recomendation and what mwb gaming said, i will go 48v straight of the bat.
That said it does come down to the old $$$$ thast the reason i started with 12 v and used car batteries.
One thing on you assumption all batteries have to be the highest mili amp rating. In basic electronics you,ll find that voltage is the muscle required to push the amps through a circuit. the Amp rating is liken to a river and if one of your banks has all the best milli am rating and the next one has a few that are half the rating, the effect will be like a narrowing in the river. You would be better if you scatter the poor cells evenly through out the 24 v section. It would be best to keep out poor quality in the first place.
all packs are now plus 2400 mah and we are 48v too .. she's bloody awesome!
Hey, lets say I have 20Kw worth of power wall and it is all charged up and know i come home from work and I start using power at my house and I'm working in my garage and want to use my mig welder to weld some exhaust pipe and run a few other power tools. would this still give me any trouble? Can you run your A/C system and cool the house? Are there any Limitations to using a Powerwall?
thank you very much for your help
I watched this just for the awesome random music
It does seem like a good enough reason...lol
could you give me some links as to where you get all of the stuff you used to make these like the holders fuses and balance charger and such
all this info is in these two videos descriptions
ruclips.net/video/zYl14AIyaV0/видео.html
ruclips.net/video/akRmSibJyTM/видео.html
Hope they help :) chuck us a few likes if it helps :)
You're god damn right the H matters.
lol
Watt is a measure of power, watt = joule/sec
Joule is a measure of energy.
So wattage x time (H) = energy again, because time/time cancels out.
wh = (Joules/sec)*hours
Basically its the wattage times the hours you've used that wattage, basically the area under the curve of a graph measuring watts.
So 6kw for 2 hours = 12kwh
6kw for 2 hours and 10kw for 4 hours = 54kwh.
Man that was a lot of math! But thank you
that would be interesting to see how the lesser mah batteries perform. I was thinking resistance was maybe more important?thanks for the great video
+ww321 building lesser packs for just that test.
Hey, a packs capacity in kW/hr is the same regardless of the voltage. Going 48v to 24v would double the Amp/Hours. But the energy capacity would remain the same.
+gsxr1kmatt yep :)
Re-watch this at 6:10 when you have a second.
Sorry to harp on ya! Good stuff sir!
holy shit it light up that wire.
thats alot of fucking power.
wasn't fun and haven't done it three times :)
great vid, thanks. may I ask a question? How do I know how much amps a battery pack can handle. if I have a motor that draws 40 amps and I am using a 18685 battery pack that has 40 cells, does that mean that each cell is using a 1 amp draw?
I guess so, but wouldn't want to be pulling 1 amp for extended periods perhaps consider a lot more cells so they have an easier life i thinks
Good information, thanks. I need to make a 48 volt pack for my riding lawn mower. The dc motor will draw about 42 amps. Can you help? I am sure there are many people wanting to do the same thing. Thanks
not so much but it does sound like a fun project
thanks