How To Make A Lithium Battery Pack With 18650 Cells | Practical Skills For Makers
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 19 พ.ค. 2024
- In this video I show you how to make your own custom lithium battery pack using the common 18650 lithium cell. I talk about how to connect the cells in series to get the desired voltage you need, and how to connect the cells in parallel to increase the capacity of the battery pack. Then I go over how to arrange them in the plastic spacers, and how to use nickel strip to spot weld the cells together. Finally I talk about using a battery management system (BMS) to add protection and properly balance the cells as you charge them. I wrap the whole battery in a protective insulating layer and shrink wrap.
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Materials:
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18650 batteries - liionwholesale.com/
2 cell battery brackets - amzn.to/3J17T2R (Amazon affiliate)
4x4 cell battery bracket - amzn.to/3H31bYB (Amazon affiliate)
Parallel nickel strip - amzn.to/32k6VxH (Amazon affiliate)
Individual nickel strip - amzn.to/3FrX3Rz (Amazon affiliate)
Battery Management System - amzn.to/32iOIR8 (Amazon affiliate)
Spot Welder - amzn.to/3WlnwaN (Amazon affiliate)
PVC Heat Shrink Wrap - amzn.to/3yFvJwg (Amazon affiliate)
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How about the huge battery pack?
Hello , I am making a 84v 23s or 24s that is 40 amp hour with 8 wide 21700 50s samsung . I am having a hard time figuring the total amps and watts ? What size BMS do I need ? Thanks
Do you know what the maximum mAH 18650 battery you can get?
Can you use these to power a solar generator ?
Werlke lassen apparaat gebruik je om te lassen?
270$ homemade vs 340$ store bought. thank me later :D
You have to make sure the voltage is all the same before connecting batteries. Surprised he didn't mention something so important!
ikr and not even some thin gloves while soldering and spot wielding. Like if he touches it the wrong way he could get a up to 48V 48mA shock, assuming the skin has around 800 ohms resistance + up to 200 ohms for potential inner-body current flow. This is a bit away from the lethal area of 100mA-200mA but 48 volts with a good nice current can damage a lot depending on what it travels through(hope you dont have it travel from one finger to the opposite hand finger because every current flow near the heart is always reallllllllllly bad.
Anyways, the batteries are able to do up to 30.000mA continous depending on brand and cell and should not be taken lightly especially when increasing the voltage and the watts like that.
Can't you build it all the batteries at 0% and charge them to 100%?
@@FBI_Agent_ They are never at 0%. Normally you should stop using Lithium batteries when they reach 2.5V. Anything less damages the battery inside because there needs to be a certain voltage to prevent the charge carrier from reacting chemically with each other. This is what you get then if something happens: the battery's insides react with each toher and produce heat, water, co2 and so on and might explode if the pressure gets too high. Also when charging you charge with 4.2V outer voltage up to 3.7V inner battery voltage. Anything over that has similiar effect as if you under-charge. So theoretically your 0% to 100% scale for batteries is jsut an area of volatge where it is safe to operate the battery and that is somewhere between 2.5 - 3.7V if you wanna be good to your batteries you make it narrower like 3.0 - 3.6V which also cuts away some capacitiy but prolongs the battery's life
@@xXx-un3ie Oh okay thank you that explains a lot.
Actually each cell has to be charged individually and balanced so if there's no BMS with multiple 18650s I don't think you're going to achieve the very good set up
the beat with the spot welding is a nice touch
When selecting battery cells, AH specification is important but it should be mentioned that continuous discharge current is equally important. Some cells can discharge at 20 amps rate while others will allow discharging at less than 3 amp rate. The current capacity of the nickel strips should also be considered. I also found out that not all BMS will balance batteries. Some are battery controllers that will protect from over discharge or charge and will not do the balance function at the end of the charge. I do like your videos.
Just came across your channel while trying to learn how to make my own board for a prototype of a product I want to make. Loving your videos so far!
Loved this video. I went to school for electrical engineering and I never made the connection that building this sort of thing was this simple
thank you so much for doing the wire management around the bms. underrated step.
Love the spot welding to the beat of the music. Excellent stuff.
Great editing getting the wels sparks to line up with the tunes. Informative fast and concise. Suscribed thanks!
Cool video, I've seen a few others about building a battery with BMS but your knowledge and background helped explain in more detail.
Man watching you spot weld those pink lithium ion cells together was so satisfying to watch!
Great video, first time viewer. I liked your production quality and how you went over the build and emphasized safety when appropriate.
This is a great video! Very clear and informative. Thank you! 😁
excellent job, I especially like adding combustion fuel rubber insulation. it will make overloading more exciting
Spot welds on beat! I dig it.
Wow great tutorial on how to make battery pack from 18650 battery cells. Very professional work.
Congrats on the sponsorship…. …and the community loves the support Altium! I know where I’m going for my electrical design now👍🏻
Thanks! They have been a great sponsor of the channel
That was really fun to watch. Thanks for the info, I think I'll give it a go
Looks great. The only problem with the insulating packaging you installed, is tho it insulates currents well, it also locks in the heat dissipation from each battery, thereby creating a tremendous amount of heat over time, which I'm sure you know how that effects longevity of the cells and changes in voltage output. Instead, I suggest coating the exterior of any exposed nickel plating, soldier joint and exposed wire ends with some non-conductive clear enamel paint, then when completely dry, install it into a non-conductive polymer/plastic electrical box, with a cooling fan on one side and a vent with a dust filter on the other side of the box to allow airflow to cooling the ambient air inside the box and to circulate the cooling air around each battery, then be vented out of the box, to help keep them cool and stable.
The best thing about a boat is that it keeps water out. The worst thing about a boat is that it keeps the water in. Well said.
I hope it doesn't rain.
@@bluestraveler2980hahaha big time plot hole right here!
Wouldn’t it depend on the application and how it’s used, Example: an ebike ridden in winter or rainy weather, versus, a casual bike rider who rides in pleasant or sunny weather.
As an amateur bike builder I only ride my ebike build in good weather and my pedal bike in inclement weather.
I bought one of those exact same battery welders. Works like a charm once you learn how to use it. I would suggest either attaching the two leads together by the heat shrink or printing a bracket to hold them together because it gets really cumbersome with the leads all loose
Name of welder?
Thanks for this video. My ebike battery needs to be replaced and finding a 48v ebike battery with the right form factor and output connection type at a reasonable price point is basically impossible. I took my ebike battery apart and discovered that it is a 13s5p battery made up of NCR18650GA cells. After watching your video, I feel like it is a realistic goal for me to replace the cells rather than paying for a whole new battery/charger/bike-mount combo.
I have wanted to build my own battery. Thanks for posting.
I like that does make it look very professional I like the double bridges you got there for your series and parallel connection kind of a two and one good job
Great video. Re: Affordability, it turns out that those 18650 cells can very often be found in old tool/laptop/etc battery packs, and very often, the pack itself is only bad because 1 of the 18650 cells in that pack is bad (parasitic). In those cases, people will throw away the whole pack, and you can dissect it to recover free, healthy (albeit used) 18650 cells. The downside there is that you need to test all your recovered 18650 cells individually, or suffer increased risk of fire/failure. Another youtube channel, "DIY Powerwall", has information on this.
Also, tip: You can often use a Flir IR camera to identify which cell in your pack is bad, if/when that happens.
These are some awesome tips! Thanks for sharing! I've seen lots of videos of people recovering cells from used battery packs and that's a great way to reuse them instead of ending up in a landfill. It does require a lot of testing and making sure everything is balanced. Some of the cells may have lost their capacity over time and so you want to make sure everything is matched up.
I rebuild packs with the ones that test 2.0Ah or more and if you have some that are 2.2Ah spread them out, like 1 in each group of 5. @@bytesizedengineering
Thank you we need more videos like this hats off to you
Safer design is, after checking all the batteries for same voltage and grouped internal resistance, solder suitable fuse wire to thicker nickel strip bus bar and to thinner small squares of nickel, then spot weld the nickel squares to the batteries.
7:49 i love how you made the tacs sync to the beat
Got here from the ILTMS discord, awesome project, that nickel plate made everything look super clean!
Thanks! Maker Alliance FTW!
Thank you very much sir I have learned a lot from your video the spot welding method of nickel stick using 18650 cell is very well explained thank you sir
Soo satisfying that the beat of the song matches up with the ticking of the spot welder
I spent more time editing that than I would like to admit 😂
Thank you for sharing this. I know this is pretty basic stuff -- no Nobel Prizes here -- but still I appreciate being shown what this looks like in the flesh.
Thanks excellent, just bought a spot welding
Thank you appreciate the information DIY circuit boards convene all in one approach to that that’s really good thanks And I like the strip used for connecting those in the series parallel very nice.. I missed how many amps charge you’re battery balancer is limited to as well as how much the battery balancer is limit to on continuous output I know you can charge those batteries quite hard as well as you can discharge him rather hard also easily pulling out more than 20 A and easy to charge them at close to 10 A Each
You may point out that grid that you using is not just for holding him but spacing him to allow heat dissipation
beautifully done and explained! thanks!
Thank you so much!
Sliding an additional piece of heat shrink of the two wires and the connector at the end will help reinforce the wire connections for when you connect and disconnect them it’s best they feel as one solid piece
Good build 👍
20% is not a lot of savings unless you are getting much better cells and BMS.
Cheers
Agreed. I can repair a 20 volt B&D 1.5 AH to 2.1 AH for $ 8.50 . Cheapest no name is $16 each if you buy two of them. Cost Matters !
I understand how you're putting them in series but the way you use that nickel strip to connect those 4 in parallel after that boggles the mind, it just looks like they are all connected together ??
thanks for making its really cool, like for your stuff
Great job - professional and secure when you make it yourself - simply because you know what kind of batteries you used and what is the TRUE capacity of each, not the claimed one by someone in China :) in voltage or in AH.
I totally understand how batteries feel because I'm rarely ever included in things either.
Nice the cost compare, as you said, it makes sense to buy one because you have to calculate also your time / work / equipment and saving just 20% is not much... Thanks for your video
If your sole reason is cost, it doesn't make sense for most people to build your own. There are other reasons for building your own, like learning new skills and buying new tools.
Unless you just love DIYing, yes, it isn’t worth it. I’m personally obsessed with electronics and engineering and DIYing and learning so for me this would make sense.
@@bytesizedengineering absolutely u are right bro.
IMO, while cost is important to me, building the pack gives you a tremendous amount of hands on, practical knowledge while just watching the video and then buying a pre-made pack, not so much.
This may not be important today but down the road when you need to troubleshoot and repair the battery pack, the build experience is invaluable.
Doubly important post zombie apocalypse!
good work, my only advice is to cover the cells you aren't actively working on with Kapton or something else. Coming from experience, it only takes a single drop of something metallic too short. that looks like the exact same spot welder I have, which has been working great for years, albeit it is slow as leads heat up fast.
Even though I was being extremely cautious, I was unwinding some solder from the spool and it shorted out on some of the contacts. I didn't get it on camera unfortunately. That's a good suggestion to cover the other cells with tape.
Great video. Just what I needed.
Have you tried repairing a 'broken' battery pack? I have a friend who's wheel has died. It's the same as mine but mine has done more than 10 times the distance!
It's battery pack running at 126v. Two of the cells show that they have died in the BMS software.
I couldn't find any 'repair' videos.
Keep up the good work 👍
Man in 15 min video did the job that need at least one day
Really nice video, thank you for your work. I realize work itself takes time then cut video and edit it additional time so I do appreciate that, cheers
I'm so glad that it was helpful for you!
Cool. I want to pack the bottom of a sealed plastic toolbox with 18650s but use a different BMS. It's got to keep my work campsite powered for a week. I figure I can weld plastic dividers using the same kind of plastic in places like for a true wave inverter, and a solar charge controller. I sell 18650 batteries for electronics that I sell so I have a trusted vendor I buy from. I have built a lot of small power banks for cell phones but this will be the first toolbox-sized 2000-watt bank. I also have a diesel heater that it has to power.
Pretty sure you could cut those strips with the safety scissors we used in kindergarten, those massive ones look a bit overkill 🤣
Nice job spot welding those cells. Just a heads up on your next build, you should keep the balance leads all the same length so the resistance to the BMS is equal from each cell. Thanks
Hi I am collecting the small 3.7v 2.04wh 550 mah batteries from the new throw away vape sticks. I need 182 of them and is it possible to make a 48v battery for an ebike with them?
13 will make the 48v as you know. If I have 18 strips of 13 will I be able to wire them together?
I still have a lot to learn how to wire them together properly but just want to know if it is possible to do.
Didn't think about this, thanks for the tip!
@@MasterBlaster3545 it's possible, but not very practical.
Hi current Mosfet transistors are really expensive with a resistance of .012 ohms between the source in the drain Very little heat is generated but a good heat sink is always recommended
Great video! God bless!
hello dear sir frist thanks for this education video my question is , can we using three of this kind battery parallel together without BMS extra between them ?
Nice info, thanks for sharing :)
Can you upload a circuit diagram for the battery pack you have made? I didn't understand the connection among the batteries. Thanks.
Is it best practice to use fully charged batteries or charged at certain percentage? Also, what is best practice for margin of charge difference between cells before placed in battery pack?
Very nice job done
I came for the tech.
I stayed for the chip tunes 🎶🎶
They make some very nice lithium iron cells
Is it safe to use my old BMS that runs 10s4p rated at 10Ah on a pack that will be rated at 14.4Ah?
Note my old pack used 40pcs LG rated 2.5Ah. I am planning to replace them with 40pcs Panasonic rated 3.6Ah each.
Thanks to or your patience and reply.
Very Interesting thanks
Hello dear friend I want watch you build that big battery 😊 thanks you sir
Would you suggest using a 3d printed case for the battery pack that holds everything neatly, or is it better to go with heat shrink option? Beyond thermal compatibility of the plastic used, do you see any downsides or warnings?
thank you
What exact welder are you using in this video.Thank you in advance.Also what nickle strips do you recommend for small projects like 8 AA battery packs
great video! thanks
Thanks Frank
Can u ful the tubular frame with the batterries to add extra power or switch over an even have a dynamo built in like an alternative to recharge them when using the alternative hidden batterries
Thank you
Hey do you make custom battery packs? I'm looking to have 2- 4 cell 14.4 packs running in parallel for 12 volt custom made heated gloves. If not can you recommend someone? I could do it myself but I'm not exactly sure what I need. Thanks
Thanks for this video. I understand now how to do 20S6P battery. I will go 6 wide and 20 in length. Samsung 50g 4850mah for my Kaabo mantis. Do you maybe have video with batteries in horizon position?
Hi, we are lithium batteries manufacturing, offer great batteries packs via cell matching, professional spotting and qualified assembly, ensure the best quality.
Your assembly and attention to details is absolutely tops. My only complaint is that there's no explanation of what you're doing and why. Someone like myself who isn't an electrical engineer and wants to do this type of project needs to understand what we're doing and why so I do it properly (and don't hurt myself)
He missed many safety items in this video. Honestly it’s a bad video to learn from.
@@HelloDonkey9 then maybe you do a video showing the right way?
Great video
How long does it take to charge the battery from empty to full? And how would one go about optimizing recharge time?
Can you please upload similar kind of video for pouch cells
what are the pros and cons of mah vs volts. also battery chemistry such as imr protected
Hi Zach. What if i wanted to build my battery pack upwards, and not a block? What i mean is i want to hide the batteries in a bike cylinder frame. Hard to explain... Would i have to use wires to connect each of the holders on the way up?
Hi, Love your channel. How about building a home-sized plasma waste processor?
(googles "what is a home sized plasma waste processor?")
can you give us the link to buy your spot welder? great video btw!
Thanks! I just pinned a comment with a link to a spot welder that is similar to mine.
Thengk you ser...
Hi. Thanks for this great tutorial video.
I was wondering if its easier to build what you did here using 9v batteries. What are the obstacles that you will come across with building a pack with 9v batteries?
Thanks again!
The main obstacles are capacity and physical space. A typical, alkaline 9V battery has a capacity of about 300mAh when discharged at 100mA. Which means that 10 in parallel can output 9v at 1 amp.
But we need 20A to match the current capacity of the battery that he made. So now we need 200 in parallel just to get to 9V at 20A.
But we need around 48V. The closest we can get is 54V (the full charge voltage of his battery is 54.6V). So now we need 6 of these 200 cell packs to series together giving you a total of 1,200 - 9V batteries.
1,200 - 9V batteries will take up a LOT of space, will be very heavy, and very expensive. Not to mention that they are not rechargeable. Going back to the 300mAh capacity at a 100mAh current draw, this large, heavy, expensive, battery pack will last you for about 3 hours of run time before you have to throw it away and start building your next one.
(Hey, did you detect any sarcasm in that? Because it was definitely in there. But every bit of the info is accurate)
@@michaelgasperik4319
Lol!
Thanks man!
I appreciate your feedback.
Cheers!
very good video .. but what is that blue shhrink wrap stuff called pse .
I'd be so scared working on that the whole time. You made it look easy though!
I was scared until I got the insulation put on. I may have shorted some solder wire and vaporized it in a spectacular fashion. That didn't make it into the video...
@@bytesizedengineering sounds like a Patreon clip! Haha I'd like to see that.
Thank you for the video. I am building the same arrangement pack but with SAMSUNG 40T 21700 4000MAH 30A batteries. Would I need to find a BMS with a higher current rating? If so can you recommend one? I see some on Amazon, but all seem to have questionable reviews. Thank you!
I think the one I used had a current rating of 20A continuous. It totally depends on what you'll use it for. If you need higher continuous current then you'll need a BMS that can handle more. For my Onewheel build the built in BMS inside the battery pack has a rating of 50A continuous. If you need something like that, you'll just have to do some searching for BMS boards that can handle more current.
Good video., very good editing for the spot weld section
As I see you have a hot glue gun why didn't you glue your batteries together with it instead of buying the black plastic connectors?
Id like to build a bunch of these little batteries to fit in the trunk (tire well) to power a car audio system. I need 12volt, up to 500 continous amps and as many amp hours as i can fit. Do you know of any reason this wouldnt work?
Hey, I love the build videos and trying to make my own board. I bought the same vesc as you but it says it can safely do 12s and I'm wondering about your 13s configuration. Forums seem to say say stay away from 13s with this vesc
Thanks Garrett! Read the datasheet for your vesc and see what the max supply voltage is. A fully charged 13S will be at 54.6V and that may exceed the rating of your vesc. I seem to remember the documentation saying up to 60V. I'll see if I can find a reference for that.
@@bytesizedengineering Thanks for the reply, and sorry I should have included that info as it is the same as yours and can handle up to 60V. The forums say that it's too close as there can be spikes. Regenerative braking seems to be a big no no as well if you are this close to the vesc upper limit. I guess I was asking more about your experience with your set up since you have been running it for a while now. I know you aren't doing regenerative braking but otherwise, how has the 13s setup held up with your current config.
In any of these balance applications you are automatically doing regenerative braking...
Thanks guys that's just a tip off the iceberg
I'm looking at making the same battery but I can't find any info on how to charge them. What sort of charger would I need to charge a DIY 18650 battery ?
Thanks
Mark
Awesome video dude! About your battery that is 20% expensive which is the vendor and where I can find, I really would like to try your project, but the time and risk make me think about look something more ready to go hahaha! Could you please tell me where I can find a few good manufactures which shipping to Brazil?
I would just search for lithium ion battery pack and see what you can find
When you were soldering the wires from the bms, why did you put two at either end of one cell and then one at each of the other following cells?
Ive never done anything like this, nor gone to school for it. Just on a youtube rabbit hole rn lol
Thank you😸
Do you have to use a BMS board?
do you have a circuit diagram of all battery connections?
I have never made one of these but I just copper plate the batteries with copper sulfate and it only takes a second to make a thin plating of copper and then you can solder wires onto the batteries. So easy to unsolder to remove a bad battery and put another one in.
Enjoyed your video,? If I build a pack like you did 48 v and 10 amp could I plug it into my 48 v 10 amp battery on the charging port to obtain the same voltage but longer use with the extra amps.
No, you can not safely connect two batteries through the charging port. The wires are way too small, and you would be feeding current the wrong way through the BMS.
nice work
please send link of spot welder
How much of those would a Tesla vehicle need to work? I’m seriously asking. And how much would you charge to build one for the size of a Tesla vehicle or even half the size?
Hi, how many 3.7 cells18650 I need to build a 12v 100am or 24v 100ah? thank you
Is there any need to cycle charge them? Before assembling in on single pack?
Hi, I’m an electronics engineer, and I’ve been meaning to build a battery pack. My only concern is sourcing the batteries. Most markets sell at an extremely high price. Do you know any manufactures that source at a reasonable price ?
Hi, I am a highschool student and for a fun project I decided to build an electric pit bike, as well as building a custom battery to fit the spacing required. I custom built a 52v 28.8ah (14s12p) battery with samsung cells and before I put the bms (50a 14s Daly BMS) on, I tested the pack with a voltmeter and it read around 58.6 volts, which was perfect. However, when I soldered the bms wires on, and put on the connector, it read 14.5 volts. That was around a month ago, and now when I test it the voltmeter reads around 9.5 volts. I checked all of the bms wires and they were fine, so I don’t understand how I am getting that voltage. I saw online that sometimes a BMS can be “asleep” and that you can wake it up by charging, so I tried that and it didn’t even charge. I am now feeling very frustrated and defeated, because everything went so well until the BMS part. Everything in terms of the nickel strips and batteries is good, but it is just something with the BMS. I wasn’t able to get a very good solder on the main positive wire, so that could be the issue. This is all for an electric pit bike project that I’m doing, and I just feel very defeated now, which is why I’m seeking external help. Sorry for the very long email, but this is just the problem that I am facing. Do you know a possible fix or any way I can contact you for you to provide further help. Thanks in advance.
weakness of this build - power cords should connected due whole P surface, soldering one point is weak, as your'e drawing power from cells by 4 P joints, and from whole battery from 1 joint
Noticed the same. Whole pack current goes through only one strip. Over 5A continuous is a risk of fire.