I build odd shaped packs mostly. So far, 30 packs and only 1 was a nice rectangle shape. All the rest take cleverness and rearranging to get the cell groups right. I'm 75% done with a 20S14P pack.
I used cardboard with black on it it at first and was very confused when I went to double check for voltage before welding and found some. 😕 At first I thought cells were touching and spent ages looking for a short before eventually realising what the issue was. I use these cell holders ebay.us/POV3ap so I could confirm the shape and size of the pack, then draw it on the sheet (several times) before committing to welding.
I do my series connections at the same time as making the cell grouping connections. I use long runs of nickel that span the series connections between cell groupings right from the start. I'm making both the cell grouping connections and series connections at the same time. It makes for lower resistance over all. In a typical 20S pack welded from .3mm nickel, I see a max of 20 watts of heat at 100 amps discharge in the nickel or about .2v drop or about 2 milliohms of resistance. That's acceptable to me. Looks like you needed Mr Snippy for this pack!
Nice project 👍 Last spring I installed the same kit on a crusty old mountain bike that sat out in the rain for 12 years. It worked fine but like you said the controller is crap so by November I was upgrading the controller for one with all the bells and whistles. Definitely a worthwhile upgrade. The worse part about the original controller was that worthless peddle assist that only went to full throttle when you peddle. The new controller has programmable LCD display, adjustable peddle assist, regen breaking I wanted mostly for the breaking assist. And lots of other settings that can be adjusted. If you do upgrade the controller one with the KT LCD8H Color Display seems to be a good one so far anyway.
I believe these kits can be bought with a LCD display that gives some control over the PAS and I think the display is available separately too but I plan to have a go at building my own PAS using an Arduino. I already have a prototype working for cruise control, it needs a lot of fine tuning before adding the PAS option to it but that is the goal.
i have been looking at a kit with the kt lcd3 and that has crusise control on it comes with the lcd and controller nice upgrade for me as i only have the 1000w motor but the kt controllers are alot better then the factory ones and alot more responsive i think that and a nice 52v 20ah battery will be nice only problem is heat here in australia
Your nickel coverage is epic! Looks like nice deep spot welds that will last. I use .3mm almost exclusively. I don't cover every cross connect this much ever. What spot welder do you have? I use a KWELD/KCAP.
I had pretty bad voltage sag with the previous pack and was determined this one would be better. It is all 8mm x 0.15mm pure solid nickel. I have a 12V malectrics welder that is easy to use and very consistent.
That's a nice looking battery pack Ali. You'll be setting an electric bicycle speed record next. ;) I'm liking the BMS. I think I'll look out one for my Lipo packs in future projects. Thanks for sharing your E Bike exploits. ;)
Thanks John, The pack is working well but as the cells are not ideal I need to be careful not to push it too hard. Having said that I was surprised how cool they were after the last ride where I was flat out (only 15mph, honest ocifer 😉)for a lot of the time.
@@alibro7512 Im not expert but that is way low distance for that battery pack. Maybe cells are bad (some) - I think you have use second hand cells ? Did you solve this or it is still the same situation ? And verynice build too ! Im on my project - starting with alternator as motor (Bosch 120 A) and soon I need to get controller and battery cels...
@@urospetrovic133 I'm not sure what you are referring to for distance. I can get over 70 miles between charges if I pedal and probably 25 to 30 if I don't which I think is pretty good. The cells are fake Panasonics from China which are around 3500mAh but a very high internal impedience around 120mR. That's why I used so much nickel when building the pack.
@@alibro7512 I tought you wrote that battery was empty after 18 miles - or I got it all wrong :) And what you think about making alternator to be used on bike ? Is it a waist of time ... Thanks
@@urospetrovic133 Not a waste of time if you want a project that is cheap and fun but it's better to drive the rear wheel directly with a large pulley.
If the current drawn is too high for the cells or there are not enough cells in parallel their voltage will drop but also if the connections between cells are insufficient it will restrict the current so the voltage at the controller will be less.
I’ve always wondered why do batteries have fuses on the discharge wires is it the same principle as a circuit breaker? And what happens if you dont use a fuse on the discharge wire?
For the power on/off couldn't you have connected the negative to the first string negative, and then ran an extra wire from the first string positive to a push switch in-between the power on wire positive? Just wondering, because I would tried that and possibly turn it into a fireball..
Your idea would be OK but all the current would flow through your switch so it would need to be heavy duty. Mine is on all the time which is not ideal.
I know this is an old video, but where did you get the bag for that battery? I'm about to build my first triangle battery pack this weekend. (And how is that bag when in the rain?) I been looking for a plastic triangle case with ZERO luck besides prebuilt battery packs. My problem is water proofing my batteries, I've lost like 3 in the past 2 years from getting caught in storms. Actually my oldest ebike just died (after 4 years of use) last week from rain. Nice job on this battery, I need the exact one for my newest 1200w road bike.. I hit 40MPH and let off the throttle because my front rim needs a spoke replaced and trued, but I feel like it would have kept going faster. Nice work though, I'll be back later to watch this again as I'm building my next pack.
The welds and connections looks super clean! How many amp hours is it? Are you considering upgrading the controller? Should be able to hit 40+ with a Sabvoton controller.
LOL, thanks but the welds are only clean on the neg ends of the cells. They are button top cells which are very hard to weld to cleanly without blowing holes in. Having a great welder makes all the difference. Each cell is 3400mAh and there are 9 in parallel by 14 in series so 126 cells x 3400mAh = 42840mAh. I think that's right isn't it. Funny you mention Sabvoton I did buy a 3kW Sabvoton controller last year but never got around to installing it.
@@alibro7512 Are they mj1's? I bought ninety from a chinese seller, and sixty eight of them arrived below a voltage of 2.0, some as low as 0.5v. I charged them back up at 500mah, and will wait for a month to see what kind of self discharge they give.
@@IrishFuryan Unfortunately you cannot buy genuine branded batteries from China. They will ALWAYS be fake. I bought these Panasonic from Liitokalla and although they were fake like most things from China they were actually really good quality fakes. Check out the links in the description.
Do you have any idea how much in length of nickel strip you used? I'm going building this exact battery. I've taken screen shots of your connections and will use that. Also i notice you're using connectors for the cells. Are they usable to such unusual cell configurations? I've also noticed the cells are paralleled in groups of 'nine'. Is that correct?
Thanks for your questions. I used around 11m of strip but not sure exactly. I'm not sure what you mean by "connectors for the cells" but yes there are 9 cells in parallel by 14 series groups so it is 14S x 9P
@@alibro7512 found them on Aliexpress, I bought two hundred of the ones that connect solely in a square formation. These (the ones you used) are better for 'offset' configurations, and cheaper too.
@@IrishFuryan the only issue with aliexpress is the delivery time. It can be up to 60 days. The link I listed above are sold by me so will come in a couple of days.
@@andrzejkot8941 Mine are fake Panasonic NCR18650B's. I tested them when I first got them and they had 3400mAh so similar to genuine but a much higher internal resistance. They still are working well for me.
If your controller is OK with 14S then yes. It's not the motor that you need to be concerned about but the controller. I believe that all 48V controllers can handle 14S without issue but can't be 100% certain
@@alibro7512 Thank you, brother Good bless you A question I am now using a 13s battery Get54 volts max And 39 volts off But 14s how much the voltage becomes when the battery is full How much will the voltage be when powering off
@@mohamadsafaya7406 full voltage will be 14 x 4.2 so around 58.8v. I don't know if the cut off will stay at 39V. It depends on your controller. If it does stay at 39V you would need to be very careful as it could harm the battery.
@@alibro7512 с чего оно повредит акамулятор?, Если 14s разрядить до 39вольт это будет 2,8в на ячейку разряд в допусках!!, Минимально допустимое напряжение разряда на ячейку это 2,5вольта!
The free App was some dodgy Chinese knock off possibly riddled with viruses so I didn't fancy installing it on my phone. Tony from Vortecks wrote the app himself so I trust him.
@@revparsons3tl If it's an ANT BMS or indeed any intelligent BMS that links to your smart phone via bluetooth it probably will. I wasn't sure either but the cost of the software is so low it was silly not to try.
I just remembered I think some Chinese resellers supply an old version of the VBMS App so you can try it and if it looks like VBMS then ditch it and buy the real thing.
I build odd shaped packs mostly. So far, 30 packs and only 1 was a nice rectangle shape. All the rest take cleverness and rearranging to get the cell groups right. I'm 75% done with a 20S14P pack.
"Don't use black cardboard" - got it.
Good video and an impressive configuration of cells.
I used cardboard with black on it it at first and was very confused when I went to double check for voltage before welding and found some. 😕
At first I thought cells were touching and spent ages looking for a short before eventually realising what the issue was.
I use these cell holders ebay.us/POV3ap so I could confirm the shape and size of the pack, then draw it on the sheet (several times) before committing to welding.
I do my series connections at the same time as making the cell grouping connections. I use long runs of nickel that span the series connections between cell groupings right from the start. I'm making both the cell grouping connections and series connections at the same time. It makes for lower resistance over all. In a typical 20S pack welded from .3mm nickel, I see a max of 20 watts of heat at 100 amps discharge in the nickel or about .2v drop or about 2 milliohms of resistance. That's acceptable to me. Looks like you needed Mr Snippy for this pack!
Nice project 👍 Last spring I installed the same kit on a crusty old mountain bike that sat out in the rain for 12 years. It worked fine but like you said the controller is crap so by November I was upgrading the controller for one with all the bells and whistles. Definitely a worthwhile upgrade. The worse part about the original controller was that worthless peddle assist that only went to full throttle when you peddle. The new controller has programmable LCD display, adjustable peddle assist, regen breaking I wanted mostly for the breaking assist. And lots of other settings that can be adjusted. If you do upgrade the controller one with the KT LCD8H Color Display seems to be a good one so far anyway.
I believe these kits can be bought with a LCD display that gives some control over the PAS and I think the display is available separately too but I plan to have a go at building my own PAS using an Arduino. I already have a prototype working for cruise control, it needs a lot of fine tuning before adding the PAS option to it but that is the goal.
i have been looking at a kit with the kt lcd3 and that has crusise control on it comes with the lcd and controller nice upgrade for me as i only have the 1000w motor but the kt controllers are alot better then the factory ones and alot more responsive i think that and a nice 52v 20ah battery will be nice only problem is heat here in australia
Your nickel coverage is epic! Looks like nice deep spot welds that will last. I use .3mm almost exclusively. I don't cover every cross connect this much ever. What spot welder do you have? I use a KWELD/KCAP.
I had pretty bad voltage sag with the previous pack and was determined this one would be better. It is all 8mm x 0.15mm pure solid nickel.
I have a 12V malectrics welder that is easy to use and very consistent.
That's a nice looking battery pack Ali.
You'll be setting an electric bicycle speed record next. ;)
I'm liking the BMS. I think I'll look out one for my Lipo packs in future projects.
Thanks for sharing your E Bike exploits. ;)
Thanks John, The pack is working well but as the cells are not ideal I need to be careful not to push it too hard. Having said that I was surprised how cool they were after the last ride where I was flat out (only 15mph, honest ocifer 😉)for a lot of the time.
@@alibro7512 Im not expert but that is way low distance for that battery pack. Maybe cells are bad (some) - I think you have use second hand cells ? Did you solve this or it is still the same situation ? And verynice build too ! Im on my project - starting with alternator as motor (Bosch 120 A) and soon I need to get controller and battery cels...
@@urospetrovic133 I'm not sure what you are referring to for distance. I can get over 70 miles between charges if I pedal and probably 25 to 30 if I don't which I think is pretty good.
The cells are fake Panasonics from China which are around 3500mAh but a very high internal impedience around 120mR. That's why I used so much nickel when building the pack.
@@alibro7512 I tought you wrote that battery was empty after 18 miles - or I got it all wrong :) And what you think about making alternator to be used on bike ? Is it a waist of time ... Thanks
@@urospetrovic133 Not a waste of time if you want a project that is cheap and fun but it's better to drive the rear wheel directly with a large pulley.
Hey, very interesting video! What do you think caused the battery sag you mentioned at 10:10 ?
If the current drawn is too high for the cells or there are not enough cells in parallel their voltage will drop but also if the connections between cells are insufficient it will restrict the current so the voltage at the controller will be less.
I’ve always wondered why do batteries have fuses on the discharge wires is it the same principle as a circuit breaker? And what happens if you dont use a fuse on the discharge wire?
Good question. I suspect there is no reason to have two fuses except to be sure to be sure. 🙂
For the power on/off couldn't you have connected the negative to the first string negative, and then ran an extra wire from the first string positive to a push switch in-between the power on wire positive? Just wondering, because I would tried that and possibly turn it into a fireball..
Your idea would be OK but all the current would flow through your switch so it would need to be heavy duty. Mine is on all the time which is not ideal.
I know this is an old video, but where did you get the bag for that battery? I'm about to build my first triangle battery pack this weekend. (And how is that bag when in the rain?) I been looking for a plastic triangle case with ZERO luck besides prebuilt battery packs. My problem is water proofing my batteries, I've lost like 3 in the past 2 years from getting caught in storms. Actually my oldest ebike just died (after 4 years of use) last week from rain. Nice job on this battery, I need the exact one for my newest 1200w road bike.. I hit 40MPH and let off the throttle because my front rim needs a spoke replaced and trued, but I feel like it would have kept going faster. Nice work though, I'll be back later to watch this again as I'm building my next pack.
I think it came from amazon. As for waterproofing I've no idea, I'm very much a fair weather cyclist.
The welds and connections looks super clean! How many amp hours is it? Are you considering upgrading the controller? Should be able to hit 40+ with a Sabvoton controller.
LOL, thanks but the welds are only clean on the neg ends of the cells. They are button top cells which are very hard to weld to cleanly without blowing holes in. Having a great welder makes all the difference.
Each cell is 3400mAh and there are 9 in parallel by 14 in series so 126 cells x 3400mAh = 42840mAh.
I think that's right isn't it.
Funny you mention Sabvoton I did buy a 3kW Sabvoton controller last year but never got around to installing it.
@@alibro7512 Are they mj1's? I bought ninety from a chinese seller, and sixty eight of them arrived below a voltage of 2.0, some as low as 0.5v. I charged them back up at 500mah, and will wait for a month to see what kind of self discharge they give.
@@IrishFuryan Unfortunately you cannot buy genuine branded batteries from China. They will ALWAYS be fake.
I bought these Panasonic from Liitokalla and although they were fake like most things from China they were actually really good quality fakes. Check out the links in the description.
Do you have any idea how much in length of nickel strip you used? I'm going building this exact battery. I've taken screen shots of your connections and will use that. Also i notice you're using connectors for the cells. Are they usable to such unusual cell configurations? I've also noticed the cells are paralleled in groups of 'nine'. Is that correct?
Thanks for your questions.
I used around 11m of strip but not sure exactly.
I'm not sure what you mean by "connectors for the cells" but yes there are 9 cells in parallel by 14 series groups so it is 14S x 9P
@@alibro7512 The plastic 'lego' housing around each cell, did you purchase them online, or print them yourself.
@@IrishFuryan I bought them from here. ebay.us/POV3ap
The only other place I have seen them is Aliexpress.
@@alibro7512 found them on Aliexpress, I bought two hundred of the ones that connect solely in a square formation. These (the ones you used) are better for 'offset' configurations, and cheaper too.
@@IrishFuryan the only issue with aliexpress is the delivery time. It can be up to 60 days. The link I listed above are sold by me so will come in a couple of days.
Hi, what range do you have on this battery on the throttle itself at the maximum speeds of 45-55kmh?
I've never tested it but probably 20 to 30 miles.
@@alibro7512 I have similar battery 14s9p on vct6 and my range is 25miles speed around 32mph
@@andrzejkot8941 That's good to know, I wasn't sure if my battery was any good or not. What make/model of cells do you have in your battery?
@@alibro7512 I have sony vct6 cells 28ah , after one year the capacity is 24.5ah
@@andrzejkot8941 Mine are fake Panasonic NCR18650B's. I tested them when I first got them and they had 3400mAh so similar to genuine but a much higher internal resistance.
They still are working well for me.
Hello
Please I have a thousand watt motor
48 volts
Can I do a 14s battery
Instead of 13s
If your controller is OK with 14S then yes. It's not the motor that you need to be concerned about but the controller. I believe that all 48V controllers can handle 14S without issue but can't be 100% certain
@@alibro7512 Thank you, brother
Good bless you
A question
I am now using a 13s battery
Get54 volts max
And 39 volts off
But
14s how much the voltage becomes when the battery is full
How much will the voltage be when powering off
@@mohamadsafaya7406 full voltage will be 14 x 4.2 so around 58.8v. I don't know if the cut off will stay at 39V. It depends on your controller. If it does stay at 39V you would need to be very careful as it could harm the battery.
@@alibro7512 Thank you, God bless you🙏🏼🙏🏼🌹❤
@@alibro7512 с чего оно повредит акамулятор?, Если 14s разрядить до 39вольт это будет 2,8в на ячейку разряд в допусках!!, Минимально допустимое напряжение разряда на ячейку это 2,5вольта!
Did you use to check the bms with the free app b4 you used vbms
The free App was some dodgy Chinese knock off possibly riddled with viruses so I didn't fancy installing it on my phone. Tony from Vortecks wrote the app himself so I trust him.
@@alibro7512 just I don't know if Tony's will work with my bms
@@revparsons3tl If it's an ANT BMS or indeed any intelligent BMS that links to your smart phone via bluetooth it probably will. I wasn't sure either but the cost of the software is so low it was silly not to try.
I just remembered I think some Chinese resellers supply an old version of the VBMS App so you can try it and if it looks like VBMS then ditch it and buy the real thing.
@@alibro7512 true but iam no good with bms settings or do thay come configurators already
Looking amazing m8