I love this channel, it shows in a very practical way what happens when you start operating anything 'at scale'. The quantities of cells you are using and the various interconnect options, their advantages and drawbacks all come to life in a way that no theoretical article could ever cover. I have done quite a bit of technology over the last 4 decades and have learned a lot of that 'the hard way', including converting an existing residence to being totally off-grid with a homebrew windmill and solar installation. But compared to what you are doing that was small potatoes and I'm quite happy to hitch hike along on your store of knowledge. Consider doing a write-up of all the information in your videos in book form, I'd be more than happy to buy it.
Good to see a maintenance update, reminds every one that you do have to maintain this stuff. Also it really highlights the great use thermal camera's in this sort of field of electronics.
I'm going to pull my whole battery and so a bunch of tests - summery will be filmed but bulk will be because it REALLY needs to be done. No more excuses i must complete this task asap
@@HBPowerwall Im sure youl get it done, and given how closely you watch your system i recon there probably wont be any issues ow though its great to check it like you would a gas boiler for safty each year.
I have always wondered about using so many cells spot welded together and only way to tell which cell is bad is to completely disassemble the pack. It seems there is so much labor involved in building and testing these little 18650 cells . Thinking of all the time saved by building packs with inexpensive Prismatic LIFePO4 cells that can be bought at 100 to 400 amps each. and so much easier to build battery banks. Even if these 18650's are less expensive one's time is worth something. Heck I can work some jobs that pay alot more than the money I am saving testing and building these tedious packs and they would last a lot longer too. I can still see using these cells for light weight batteries for bikes but not for home use. The camera worked great for find the bad cell.
You're absolutely correct to beat the safety drum. There are too many people around who treat 18650 Li cells too casually. They just don't realise the difference in risk compared to the 1.5V AA (or C & D) cells that they have casually abused in the past. To really highlight the risk factor, I have an intentionally scary comparison. With typical 10Wh 18650 Li cells, approximately 28 of them have rated energy (which is less than total energy) equivalent to 1 stick of dynamite; 1 MJ. Sure, they can't release their energy quite as fast as dynamite, but they can release it very quickly under some failure modes. That's not to suggest that they can't be used safely. It's just to help people treat them with a more appropriate level of respect and better understand the level of energy they are handling.
Goes to show that a high current IR SD cell will never blow the fuse, but still bring the pack down. Nicely done Pete. Too bad heat IR cameras are so dang expensive, I'd love to have one.
Brings them down fast too - if i go back to the farm today i'll check log files and i'll be able to see how much energy has been used to keep that one cell alive!
@@korishan At least in ebay.co.uk, there have been used FLIRs for iPhone for less than 100$. The SEEK thermal camera can be had new for less than 200$. Any of those is sufficient enough for detecting bad cells like in this video. I imagine some smartphones with integrated thermal camera (and an ancient Android version) can be had for less than the examples.
disconnecting one bad cell is easy enough....replacing that cell with another good one, is a whole lot of work! Those interlocking 18650 cell holders require that side of battery to be disassembled to replace one cell. I made a template of the cell spacing, and made two cell holder ends out of plywood with 18 mm holes. When I find a bad cell, I can unsolder both ends of the bad cell, and simply slide it out, without entire pack disassembly. Slide in the new cell, solder it up, and BOOM, back in business, in a fraction of the time. Use this method on my ebike, too, with 40152 LiFePO4 cells, with screw terminals and buss bars. Good for easy, long term maintenance
under two min to replace a bad cell - break four little tabs on one end usually the negative side push the cell out - thicker wire on the negative side holds that side in - positive has a fuse ... done takes more time to heat the iron than to replace cells
Good thinking - least your taking out half the heat. Might even get away with one solid piece of nickel strip rather than three small.That would make it even faster again.. Good thinking!
Yes that's most effective. You only need a fuse on one side and that makes it easier to check. Plus, the positive has so little thermal mass you can solder quickly and only need the tiniest blob of solder for it.
@4:26 your looking at the cells visually, well ive done many packs in this manner and just because it looks nicely soldered doesnt mean it is..you can always check each of the cell voltages, of course they should be the same ( in Parallel) and if theyre not then that cell is not connected and will have to be resoldered. The other thing is that one cell may have an internal short, if you have an accurate temp gun you can tell which one it is, and then remove it from the pack...
I'm now thinking i'm going to pull every battery and capacity test, thermal test & self discharge test everyone.. Need to rebuild my shed battery to 24v so I can run the iCharger X6 for a few weeks solid charging & regen discharging
heya yes you have to check you batteries as specily in the begining just to make sure it is safe, but wen you have bilt something cool like that you want to see it every day
Just doing my yearly check up, upon how you are doing... Looks like you are rolling along smoothly, which I am glad to see... The Thermal cam is a great and clever idea, Dru
@@HBPowerwall Did you find any useful info? A zero cross relay circuit causes the relay to always close at the zero volt part of the AC sinewave so there's no spark or big current surge to fuse the relay. Let me know if you don't find anything and I'll link some stuff.
@toysareforboys not sure if a zero crossing circuit would work out with a standard relay cause there is inherent delay in the relay contacts opening and it would not be simple to time it right. @hbpowerwall the idea of switching at zero crossing is basically to engage or disengage a switch at zero voltage (and therefore zero current) in an ac circuit. Works great for solid state relays and often you can buy them with all the circuitry required inside the solid state relay for not much more.
It won't be long before thermal imaging cameras become an integral part of your mobile phone. Perhaps also an "Edge Camera" on the mobile phone, for looking into slim or narrow dark spaces and filming.
I love the drive out there BUT i've never seen it rain or the creeks flowing out there - can't wait for that i'll be out there on the deck in a hammock - will be amazing!
I’m in the process of collecting my 18650 batteries and was curious yes they were charged during the day via solar then utilizing either some sort of grid tie inverter etc. discharge the power back into the grid? Is this something you can do, something that you do actually do yourself and if so roughly how long would one of those packs last? Also roughly what could it run? I’d be looking to placing them in my shop what does temperatures that fluctuate from very hot to very cold. I try to keep the AC running out there but it’s a 30 x 40 shop with 13 foot tall rafters which tells you how tall it is so it’s not cheap to keep cool lol
Thanks going to watch all your videos. I have a bike shop and have tons of batteries with blown bms and dead cells etc I want to recycle. I will copy what you have done and make 1s packs maybe of about 30-p. :) thanks @@HBPowerwall
Hi Pete, still building my 18650 powerwall. Your videos have been an inspiration. Just a question from your video. How big is the 18650 portable recycled powerpack (and bms) that you use to charge discharge with your icharger X6. Have you made a video building the recycled powerpack? What do you charge the powerpack with? Cheers, Paul
uummmmmm errrr, I made a build video on it, th-cam.com/video/1NG6L41yQkk/w-d-xo.html - i hope that is the one you were referring too as I don't have the time to rewatch it hehe
@@HBPowerwall One other question I had that you may or may not have mentioned in the video. Is there a particular brand or type of charger that you use for the sales prior to building them? I think you may have mentioned that you had bought a couple and was wondering if you had tried various chargers and found one that worked better than the other. I appreciate the input as I’m looking to purchase one myself today hopefully so I can get started on my wall project. Thank you
lately i been wanting to learn how do do this and been wanting to build something. im JUST starting. helped clean a hoarders house which had 2 kobalt 80V lawn mower batteries which never saw use and degraded just sitting in that rate hole. of the 40 cells i got 20 in good "physical" condition. before i even bother testing charger discharging ( and buying all the relevant equipment) i need to start stocking up to make it worth my time. any suggestions for where i can acquire sources? this weekend im going to ask around at local Lowes/Home depots and see if they are willing to allow me to give some of these battery packs a second life.
Great patience here ... I notice that computer server-room Li-Ion batteries are moving away from these cylinder cells and moving toward square-shaped EV cells - most recently at 310 amp hour (went from 100ah, to 220, to 280, now at 310 etc.). What does this mean for power walls; wouldn't it make more sense to go with a Gyll battery format at this point? Yes you get "free" used batteries here, but it seems like you are using oceans of time building - and then keeping these old batteries operating safely.
I started this process YEARS back when access to cost-effective large format lithium cells was near impossible, NOW there is access but there is SO many issue/fakes/dead shit sellers flogging off b/c grade cells it's still hardly not worth the money yet. That said I would NEVER do it this way again.. BUT there are many all over the world that have my issues from back in the day - they just can't afford better. Using what you have with the spare time you can afford is an easy way to store energy. Thanks for your feedback its good to hear points of view.
@@HBPowerwall I notice that Will Prowse has a channel that sifts through a lot of those B-rated battery and cell vendors FYI th-cam.com/video/ZqkTLojOUGg/w-d-xo.html
Yes, for that particular sale.. Unfortunately sellers don't care and sell Agrade first sale, second is B/C grade... same story over and over unfortunately.. I would make 10k a month in commissions if I went that direction, but just can't do it responsibly.. don't want to be blamed for receiving poor cells
@@HBPowerwall This is where the server rack guys really add value I think; their volume allows them to ensure cells are A-Grades, not swollen, and properly matched and charge-balanced as well. It's worth giving the pervasive headache you refer to - to them... Also, the square cells recommend compression to maximum long-term performance, so its worth someone else warranteeing the flexible battery terminal connection designs too. Al lot goes into a supportable battery as you too well realize :)
Hello; I'm looking for a video about BMS for powerwall. Did you done that? I am building a power wall and I don't know which BMS to buy. Do I really need a BMS for a power wall?
Yes I have, search for Batrium on every one of my videos basically lol www.batrium.com is my go to for BMS, it's the right price for the right product that does the right job!
Hello Peter, I am French, could you please tell me what is your IR camera for température. About the X6, the X6 specification said 7 to 32V DC for input. but you are charging at 4,15 V. May be I dont understand something. Can you help ?
www.diypowerwalls.com/flir is the camera I'm using (one for my iPhone) it is about three years old now but what a tool to own!!! input voltage is 7-32v output it will charge like any other charger depending on settings
I notice that you use Heat Shrink identifying Positive and Negative colors respectively. Assume this is so, that you can at a glance to ensure to put the pack in the right way. I got caught out with this once. I seen this just before I screwed up to bolt. Had I used Heat Shrink identifying polarity I would not of made this mistake.
Back in the very early days with my Holden Combo van it's negative wire from battery to earth is RED! Positive was black - was 4000km away from home and got a flat battery - jump started it based off colour of the wires not the - + on the battery terminal and huge CRACk (electrical crack that makes you wet your pants) lucky all i did was blow up the radio and drive home 4000km with no radio to disguise the rattles in the back of the van.. WAS HELL..
takes seconds, just cut fuse on both ends, snap off 4 little plastic tabs on the negitive side and tap it out.. push in new cell new fuses 5 min later it's done. NOW ask how to FIND that bad cell lol
Flir one for iphone - like this one but it's for samsung I paid $100 for mine rover.ebay.com/rover/1/705-53470-19255-0/1?mpre=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.ebay.com.au%2Fitm%2FFlir-One-435-0003-01-00-Thermal-Camera-for-Android%2F133379511544%3Fhash%3Ditem1f0e09d4f8%3Ag%3AR2YAAOSwqOxeiXks&campid=5338074967&toolid=20008
Have you come across any cells which have blown the fuses yet? I was thinking with such large 80p packs you might not notice one which has self-disconnected and you might even need to run around with a meter to spot it (broken fuse wires can be pretty tricky to spot sometimes).
I can say i don't think i've ever had a 'blown' fuse - i've had broken fuses but i feel they are from poor handling as opposed to electrical issue. THAT said i have stuffed up preaty bad and shorted a 24v pack (7S) and blew all 80 fuses on the first cell to the short. But that was my fault not a cell level fault.
@@HBPowerwall Would you be able to spot one in amongst an 80p pack tho? If you had a failure with lower resistance internal short than the ones in the video, it'd just blow and you might never know.
Hey Pete, if you were starting again, would you stick with 80p or the 160p or a different size pack for your home set up ? Cheers and thanks for all the experience you've shared.
HBPowerwall I have to know... how many Kwatts do you now have in service and a rough cost for it all. Amazing storage, I just love it. But I’m thinking you’re going to need a larger plot of land as there is no end in sight for the expansion 😂
Great Videos and channel. I've a question about cells which shows a kind of rust between inner and outside. It looks like a liquid but the cells a really good. do you know what that is? thanks in advance. Dieter from germany
I've been watching your vids to learn more and I think they're great. Do you use 5amp fuse wire to solder the batteries to the bus bars? Thanks for all you do
@@HBPowerwall why the change? As I understand each cell will peak at 5amps and a bad one would short internally and go above that but be self isolating as it burned out the 5amp fuse wire. Or do I have that soooo wrong?
@@HBPowerwall ok.. I built a spot welder from a microwave to build my first 7s3p 18650 battery pack for my ebike,. The whole thing cost me about £20. It worked well. Your twisted wire bus bars looked cool though
Its dangerous to mix different current batteries as the higher current batteries will try and dump more into the lower current batteries. Not a good thing to do!! And you have a bloody lot in one space! That's a Very big hazardous setup! Each battery bank should all be the same mah! And you will notice also they will work more efficient. Love your setup but not sure about the battery banks. Thumbs up
Hi, since these are parallel packs in series and you remove one, the voltage for the battery will drop respectively 3,7v until you put it back in service, is that correct?
@@HBPowerwall So please correct since i am new to this, you have let's say 14s80p for example and you remove one of those 80p pack right ? Each pach is 3,7v and in series all 14 give 51,8v and you remove one of the pack doesn't it drop the voltage of the battery to 48,1v ? What am i missing ?
I won't do the glass fuses personally don't like the idea but it does work well for others - cost is a big factor - small piece of nickel plated copper wire is so much cheaper and more accessible to the larger community. The draw each cell was taking was much less than the fusible current of my fuse wire *around 2-3 amps. if you had fuse wire or glass fuses of 250ma they might have blown but would have added considerable amount of resistance to the batteries
@@HBPowerwall very true, and another thing I note is that medical certified packs even have parallel cells, so I don't worry, proper use and maintenance is more important to me.
Yes, BUT they are my Gen1 batteries, poorly built for youtube content if i was to be honest. Also batteries are probably 14 years of use - 10 in an old laptop four on my wall..
I'm determining if I'm going to continue building a powerwall. It's a lot of work for only a 4 year service life, if that's what I can realistically anticipate. Do you expect a longer usage life from your new 200p battery cells? (At configured capacity.) If so, please, what's the expectation based on?
Great video once again Pete. What is the thermal camera that you use? It looks like an App on your phone.🤔. Also is it safe to say that as the pack gets bigger there is less heat, in turn harder to spot faulty cells. But for this to be an issue it would have to be about 1000p upwards?
I use www.diypowerwalls.com/flir for my iPhone works great! I think the bigger the packs the hotter the cell would get and faster just because there is more potential amps due to the pigger parallel pack
@@HBPowerwall Not really, the voltage over the cell is still just one cell's worth, and adding more cell's in parallel doesn't raise the voltage, so doesn't raise the current (it's not blowing the fuse, so it's not so low-resistance that the internal resistance of the rest of the cell's would start to matter much.
Hi Dave. I love to watch your channel. I have been doing solar since 2014. 24 volt batteries SLA. I'm tearing apart Tesla Model 3 batteries for 13 28.8 volt out of the entire 403 volt battery. The Tesla uses Panasonic's 21700 battery. 4416 total cell count with 46 cells per 3.7 volt battery. Anyhow trying to figure out how to spot weld to the top of the cell which is aluminum. Any ideas or tricks to get a wire to stick without blowing whole in the aluminum top? Best regards. Lou Little in SLC, Utah.
@@HBPowerwall thanks for the reply. I have seen those in caps on the China networking but I am not aware of how to attach the cap to the battery. Do they use some sort of silver solder epoxy or something to connect to the top?
@@w.loulittle130 I’d kind of like to know about that myself. If there is an epoxy based system with enough conductivity, it would sure eliminate some major problems that arise when heat is applied to cells. I also think that maintaining an efficient soldering iron is a major drawback.
I think you might be looking at the thicker wires? If that is the case if you saw the opposite side to it - that is fused. It's because i wanted to hold the busbars down at each end for extra strength - it's offset on both ends/sides
@@HBPowerwall thicker wires side 3:39 min. there is nothing to connect the battery or maybe am wrong or maybe you don't using these cells. P.S. by the way nice videos lot of useful information from real life experience.
Why solder and not spot welds? I mean i get being cheep, but you're having capacity loses(due to soldering) and probably resistance losses. Plus getting a cheap spot welder is!ct that expensive when you do 10kwh(actually anything over 2kwh justifies that purchase for me).
I started this process broke, alone & inexperienced - with time you do things better - You'd hope - I do like spotwelding these days, back in the day soldering was cost effective and accessible to me
HBPowerwall ha that’s no good. Have you ever gone through how you got to the size your channel is, would love to know how you promoted yourself other than the website and YT. I stumbled on your channel and subbed straight away. Your channel gave me a push into transferring job roles. Dealing with solar, batteries and power quality for a distributor down in Victoria. I actually enjoy the work now. Thankyou.
HBPowerwall I know nothing of what any of all of this is. You were a recommended video that seemed intriguing. Coming from a place of complete ignorance It looks like a bunch of raw scary batteries with exposed wires. Thanks for the personal jab though?
Man, if you're the safety nazi, then I shudder to think of how others do things. Nice diagnosis though, I didn't realise how obvious these soft-short cells would be in thermal camera view. Kind of assumed they would have enough surface area and enough colder cells around them to not be noticeable.
Just hard to follow a lot of what you say, very little explanations as to what your taking about and why. Maybe start with a summary of what your going to be talking about and what you will be explaining. Maybe give an overview schematic description and explain what each part does. Try to understand that people like me don’t know all the things you do and need some things explained as background.
![เปิดคำทำนาย นอสตราดามุส - บาบา วานก้า ปี 2025 คนทั่วโลกต้องเจออะไรบ้าง? | แฉ 11 ธ.ค. 67 [2/3] |GMM25](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/xmTIKWJUMPM/mqdefault.jpg)
Casually removes 10kwh, that's more than my property needs in a summers day
We average 50kwh usage per day if i get lots of jobs in that can easily double or triple
That's a considerable amount of energy!
i guess this lithium ion battery is more expensive to build than LiFePo4 battery
I love this channel, it shows in a very practical way what happens when you start operating anything 'at scale'. The quantities of cells you are using and the various interconnect options, their advantages and drawbacks all come to life in a way that no theoretical article could ever cover. I have done quite a bit of technology over the last 4 decades and have learned a lot of that 'the hard way', including converting an existing residence to being totally off-grid with a homebrew windmill and solar installation. But compared to what you are doing that was small potatoes and I'm quite happy to hitch hike along on your store of knowledge. Consider doing a write-up of all the information in your videos in book form, I'd be more than happy to buy it.
Good to see a maintenance update, reminds every one that you do have to maintain this stuff. Also it really highlights the great use thermal camera's in this sort of field of electronics.
I'm going to pull my whole battery and so a bunch of tests - summery will be filmed but bulk will be because it REALLY needs to be done. No more excuses i must complete this task asap
@@HBPowerwall Im sure youl get it done, and given how closely you watch your system i recon there probably wont be any issues ow though its great to check it like you would a gas boiler for safty each year.
Would you be kind enough to teach us how to install this monitor and software that is monitoring all cells, please?
I have always wondered about using so many cells spot welded together and only way to tell which cell is bad is to completely disassemble the pack. It seems there is so much labor involved in building and testing these little 18650 cells . Thinking of all the time saved by building packs with inexpensive Prismatic LIFePO4 cells that can be bought at 100 to 400 amps each. and so much easier to build battery banks. Even if these 18650's are less expensive one's time is worth something. Heck I can work some jobs that pay alot more than the money I am saving testing and building these tedious packs and they would last a lot longer too. I can still see using these cells for light weight batteries for bikes but not for home use. The camera worked great for find the bad cell.
Always enjoy watching your videos!
Miss your videos
@@dylanc9275 Was down workn on next video last night!🤘
Weeee need some BOOM @averagejoe !
You're absolutely correct to beat the safety drum. There are too many people around who treat 18650 Li cells too casually. They just don't realise the difference in risk compared to the 1.5V AA (or C & D) cells that they have casually abused in the past.
To really highlight the risk factor, I have an intentionally scary comparison. With typical 10Wh 18650 Li cells, approximately 28 of them have rated energy (which is less than total energy) equivalent to 1 stick of dynamite; 1 MJ. Sure, they can't release their energy quite as fast as dynamite, but they can release it very quickly under some failure modes.
That's not to suggest that they can't be used safely. It's just to help people treat them with a more appropriate level of respect and better understand the level of energy they are handling.
Trying to beat it with out being stupid - but it's crazy important with all the new members to the community
Goes to show that a high current IR SD cell will never blow the fuse, but still bring the pack down. Nicely done Pete. Too bad heat IR cameras are so dang expensive, I'd love to have one.
Brings them down fast too - if i go back to the farm today i'll check log files and i'll be able to see how much energy has been used to keep that one cell alive!
The phone cameras can be had for cheap used!
@@rkan2 What's considered "cheap" $200-300?? I havent' seen a decent one below $150. And for "my" wallet, cheap needs to be
@@korishan At least in ebay.co.uk, there have been used FLIRs for iPhone for less than 100$. The SEEK thermal camera can be had new for less than 200$. Any of those is sufficient enough for detecting bad cells like in this video. I imagine some smartphones with integrated thermal camera (and an ancient Android version) can be had for less than the examples.
disconnecting one bad cell is easy enough....replacing that cell with another good one, is a whole lot of work! Those interlocking 18650 cell holders require that side of battery to be disassembled to replace one cell. I made a template of the cell spacing, and made two cell holder ends out of plywood with 18 mm holes. When I find a bad cell, I can unsolder both ends of the bad cell, and simply slide it out, without entire pack disassembly. Slide in the new cell, solder it up, and BOOM, back in business, in a fraction of the time. Use this method on my ebike, too, with 40152 LiFePO4 cells, with screw terminals and buss bars. Good for easy, long term maintenance
under two min to replace a bad cell - break four little tabs on one end usually the negative side push the cell out - thicker wire on the negative side holds that side in - positive has a fuse ... done takes more time to heat the iron than to replace cells
HBPowerwall I see your trick, well played!
I also wanted to build a battery like yours but preferred LiFepo4.
Be sure to upload and send me links to videos!
@@HBPowerwall Yeah well
Spot weld the negatives together and solder fuse wires on the positives that solder easily. That how I (intend to) do it!
Good thinking - least your taking out half the heat. Might even get away with one solid piece of nickel strip rather than three small.That would make it even faster again.. Good thinking!
HBPowerwall the cells will get much less heat than half, since it’s SO much easier to solder the positive, it only takes a second.
Yes that's most effective. You only need a fuse on one side and that makes it easier to check.
Plus, the positive has so little thermal mass you can solder quickly and only need the tiniest blob of solder for it.
@@HBPowerwall Have you tried spot welding the leads on ceramic or glass axial fuses? 1000 fast blow 5A axials are under 10 USD...
Definitely a thermal imaging camera is a must
One tool you can use in the bedroom & the workshop! lol
@@HBPowerwall what for finding faulty lights and plug sockets?
'air leaks' lol
@@HBPowerwall as in 'gaps' where air can leak through such as a window
sure why not lol
@4:26 your looking at the cells visually, well ive done many packs in this manner and just because it looks nicely soldered doesnt mean it is..you can always check each of the cell voltages, of course they should be the same ( in Parallel) and if theyre not then that cell is not connected and will have to be resoldered. The other thing is that one cell may have an internal short, if you have an accurate temp gun you can tell which one it is, and then remove it from the pack...
I'm getting ready to do this with one of the packs in my powerwall! Good video!
I'm going to do it to every thing i have --- time to test it all
Good job on this one. Really illustrates how to do troubleshooting on your packs.
Glad it was helpful!
Beautiful setup you got there and caught on number of ' doing it the right way ' tips thanks.
Greetings from South Africa.
Thanks for tuning in buddy
it only take one cell to bring down a big pack good job Pete
I think i'm actually disappointed that i've had this issue already, but now i'm aware of the issues i'll be more proactive
there will have some cell failing but you guy have learn so must over the years failure is minimum
Flat black paint works great too if you need to bring the emissivity of the nickel strips up to what the thermal camera is expecting.
Yes i've heard this before but won't be paining my beautifly built packs lol
This video will get a lot of views, you are talented
Certainly hope so, it's coming up to the bills season and sure would help!
My flir camera is on route! Can't wait to check over my powerwalls
I'm now thinking i'm going to pull every battery and capacity test, thermal test & self discharge test everyone.. Need to rebuild my shed battery to 24v so I can run the iCharger X6 for a few weeks solid charging & regen discharging
I would recommend using the x6 balance leads even with a 1p to get an accurate charge and discharge
I keep forgetting - when i do the big test this week i'll be sure to do that... HANG ON - can i grab the icharger x6 back lol
HBPowerwall lol. You might need the charger for that.
HBPowerwall I’ve been trying for months to buy a icharger X6 anyone got them for sale up your way.
heya yes you have to check you batteries as specily in the begining just to make sure it is safe, but wen you have bilt something cool like that you want to see it every day
Just doing my yearly check up, upon how you are doing... Looks like you are rolling along smoothly, which I am glad to see... The Thermal cam is a great and clever idea, Dru
Thanks for checking in buddy - yep all going as smooth as expected
11:15 To stop the relay from fusing look for a zero crossover relay circuit.
Googles zero cross over...
@@HBPowerwall Did you find any useful info? A zero cross relay circuit causes the relay to always close at the zero volt part of the AC sinewave so there's no spark or big current surge to fuse the relay. Let me know if you don't find anything and I'll link some stuff.
link away - I don't think i'm looking at the right thing..
@toysareforboys not sure if a zero crossing circuit would work out with a standard relay cause there is inherent delay in the relay contacts opening and it would not be simple to time it right.
@hbpowerwall the idea of switching at zero crossing is basically to engage or disengage a switch at zero voltage (and therefore zero current) in an ac circuit. Works great for solid state relays and often you can buy them with all the circuitry required inside the solid state relay for not much more.
4:22 Why do some of those cells have thicker copper wire (not fuses) on the positive side?!
to hold the bus bar in place - other side has the fuse wire and they are offset
It won't be long before thermal imaging cameras become an integral part of your mobile phone. Perhaps also an "Edge Camera" on the mobile phone, for looking into slim or narrow dark spaces and filming.
Already in a few ...
Awesome vid. I want to get me a thermal cam. Looks great. Thank you
Yeh they are a handy tool for sure
@@HBPowerwall but so damned expensive!
Safety can't be free lol
@@HBPowerwall how much are they?
@@frankz1125 www.diypowerwalls.com/flir
really enjoyed this . the drive too.
I love the drive out there BUT i've never seen it rain or the creeks flowing out there - can't wait for that i'll be out there on the deck in a hammock - will be amazing!
If you haven't already, consider a solid state relay for your hot water.
SSR burnt out in under 30 days on and off a few times a day under a 40 amp load. Gave up on them for now.
top video..thanks for sharing...almost green grass in your backyard..
My yard is so dead also - everywhere around here is terrible. I feel for the farmers
@@HBPowerwall bring on the rain..fill our dam, its got to come soon.
@@smca7271 Hope so !!
I’m in the process of collecting my 18650 batteries and was curious yes they were charged during the day via solar then utilizing either some sort of grid tie inverter etc. discharge the power back into the grid? Is this something you can do, something that you do actually do yourself and if so roughly how long would one of those packs last?
Also roughly what could it run? I’d be looking to placing them in my shop what does temperatures that fluctuate from very hot to very cold. I try to keep the AC running out there but it’s a 30 x 40 shop with 13 foot tall rafters which tells you how tall it is so it’s not cheap to keep cool lol
Root cause analysis my son, that thermal is a winner
For sure - the best bit is I think i grabbed this thermal camera off ebay second hand for 150.. they are out the cheap !!!
great video! just wondering why the cells are joined to the bus bar with fuse wire? what would situation would cause a fuse wire to blow?
battery falls off the wall and dead shorts, or any dead short for that mater
Thanks going to watch all your videos. I have a bike shop and have tons of batteries with blown bms and dead cells etc I want to recycle. I will copy what you have done and make 1s packs maybe of about 30-p. :) thanks @@HBPowerwall
Good morning
why not use nickel strips per point and put a bms? That would be easier, right?
THANKS
Hi Pete,
still building my 18650 powerwall. Your videos have been an inspiration. Just a question from your video. How big is the 18650 portable recycled powerpack (and bms) that you use to charge discharge with your icharger X6. Have you made a video building the recycled powerpack? What do you charge the powerpack with? Cheers, Paul
uummmmmm errrr, I made a build video on it, th-cam.com/video/1NG6L41yQkk/w-d-xo.html - i hope that is the one you were referring too as I don't have the time to rewatch it hehe
@@HBPowerwall Cheers, Pete
incredibil nice work .
Thank-YOu
I always thought it best to have a FET per cell to deactivate electronically.
That is adding far too much complexity
Wondering if hanging the packs on Anderson connectors for like a quick swap would be an idea for the rack you made?
Like a French cleat style
I don' t think i like andersons - like the more mechanical approach to connecting batteries
@@HBPowerwall ah okie dokie
hi, why is the fuse blown? What is the fuse wire size? how many mm thick copper wire
For each of those battery blocks you have on the wall, how many batteries do they consist of?
i think that one is 160
@@HBPowerwall One other question I had that you may or may not have mentioned in the video. Is there a particular brand or type of charger that you use for the sales prior to building them? I think you may have mentioned that you had bought a couple and was wondering if you had tried various chargers and found one that worked better than the other. I appreciate the input as I’m looking to purchase one myself today hopefully so I can get started on my wall project. Thank you
lately i been wanting to learn how do do this and been wanting to build
something. im JUST starting. helped clean a hoarders house which had 2
kobalt 80V lawn mower batteries which never saw use and degraded just
sitting in that rate hole. of the 40 cells i got 20 in good "physical"
condition.
before i even bother testing charger discharging ( and
buying all the relevant equipment) i need to start stocking up to make
it worth my time. any suggestions for where i can acquire sources? this
weekend im going to ask around at local Lowes/Home depots and see if
they are willing to allow me to give some of these battery packs a
second life.
Great patience here ... I notice that computer server-room Li-Ion batteries are moving away from these cylinder cells and moving toward square-shaped EV cells - most recently at 310 amp hour (went from 100ah, to 220, to 280, now at 310 etc.). What does this mean for power walls; wouldn't it make more sense to go with a Gyll battery format at this point? Yes you get "free" used batteries here, but it seems like you are using oceans of time building - and then keeping these old batteries operating safely.
I started this process YEARS back when access to cost-effective large format lithium cells was near impossible, NOW there is access but there is SO many issue/fakes/dead shit sellers flogging off b/c grade cells it's still hardly not worth the money yet. That said I would NEVER do it this way again.. BUT there are many all over the world that have my issues from back in the day - they just can't afford better. Using what you have with the spare time you can afford is an easy way to store energy. Thanks for your feedback its good to hear points of view.
@@HBPowerwall I notice that Will Prowse has a channel that sifts through a lot of those B-rated battery and cell vendors FYI th-cam.com/video/ZqkTLojOUGg/w-d-xo.html
Yes, for that particular sale.. Unfortunately sellers don't care and sell Agrade first sale, second is B/C grade... same story over and over unfortunately.. I would make 10k a month in commissions if I went that direction, but just can't do it responsibly.. don't want to be blamed for receiving poor cells
@@HBPowerwall This is where the server rack guys really add value I think; their volume allows them to ensure cells are A-Grades, not swollen, and properly matched and charge-balanced as well. It's worth giving the pervasive headache you refer to - to them... Also, the square cells recommend compression to maximum long-term performance, so its worth someone else warranteeing the flexible battery terminal connection designs too. Al lot goes into a supportable battery as you too well realize :)
Hello;
I'm looking for a video about BMS for powerwall. Did you done that? I am building a power wall and I don't know which BMS to buy. Do I really need a BMS for a power wall?
Yes I have, search for Batrium on every one of my videos basically lol www.batrium.com is my go to for BMS, it's the right price for the right product that does the right job!
Later is a good time😂
Hello Peter, I am French, could you please tell me what is your IR camera for température.
About the X6, the X6 specification said 7 to 32V DC for input. but you are charging at 4,15 V.
May be I dont understand something. Can you help ?
www.diypowerwalls.com/flir is the camera I'm using (one for my iPhone) it is about three years old now but what a tool to own!!! input voltage is 7-32v output it will charge like any other charger depending on settings
fuse blow at 3:40
Please don't make me watch an old video to confirm that lol
I notice that you use Heat Shrink identifying Positive and Negative colors respectively. Assume this is so, that you can at a glance to ensure to put the pack in the right way. I got caught out with this once. I seen this just before I screwed up to bolt. Had I used Heat Shrink identifying polarity I would not of made this mistake.
Back in the very early days with my Holden Combo van it's negative wire from battery to earth is RED! Positive was black - was 4000km away from home and got a flat battery - jump started it based off colour of the wires not the - + on the battery terminal and huge CRACk (electrical crack that makes you wet your pants) lucky all i did was blow up the radio and drive home 4000km with no radio to disguise the rattles in the back of the van.. WAS HELL..
How did you remove that single cell? It was blocked by the plastic holders.. did you had to take the whole pack apart?
takes seconds, just cut fuse on both ends, snap off 4 little plastic tabs on the negitive side and tap it out.. push in new cell new fuses 5 min later it's done. NOW ask how to FIND that bad cell lol
Safety Nazi thumbs up. Individual fusing of cells is a thumbs up too. Good safety progress.
I think there is more i could do like mid point fusing - definitely something i should invest in
Good morning. Thanks for all your videos. Do you have a 48v setup
I have a 40kwh 48v setup & a 10kwh 24v in my workshop
@@HBPowerwall can you send me the links
which flir camera did you use? flir one? flir one pro? fir one pro lt?
Flir one for iphone - like this one but it's for samsung I paid $100 for mine
rover.ebay.com/rover/1/705-53470-19255-0/1?mpre=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.ebay.com.au%2Fitm%2FFlir-One-435-0003-01-00-Thermal-Camera-for-Android%2F133379511544%3Fhash%3Ditem1f0e09d4f8%3Ag%3AR2YAAOSwqOxeiXks&campid=5338074967&toolid=20008
What do you need that much batteries and energy for?
You can never have to much!
Thanks a lot for videos i really enjoy.
Thanks as always for tunning in
awesome video, i learned a lot thank you
Glad to hear it!
bms selection depends on battery amp or load amp????
to a degree - but typically that's for cheap shitty BMS on the makret..
Have you come across any cells which have blown the fuses yet? I was thinking with such large 80p packs you might not notice one which has self-disconnected and you might even need to run around with a meter to spot it (broken fuse wires can be pretty tricky to spot sometimes).
I can say i don't think i've ever had a 'blown' fuse - i've had broken fuses but i feel they are from poor handling as opposed to electrical issue. THAT said i have stuffed up preaty bad and shorted a 24v pack (7S) and blew all 80 fuses on the first cell to the short. But that was my fault not a cell level fault.
@@HBPowerwall Would you be able to spot one in amongst an 80p pack tho? If you had a failure with lower resistance internal short than the ones in the video, it'd just blow and you might never know.
Hi from Puerto Rico. Do you finally create a battery of about 100 cells and use it. It worked?
I did a '12v' battery 18 months ago out of 120 cells - still going
Pete what are you doing to use as step down instead of the one you are using?
No more stepdown - just go 48v fans and Batrium WatchMon4 can handle upto 60v so it'll run direct also
Hey Pete, if you were starting again, would you stick with 80p or the 160p or a different size pack for your home set up ? Cheers and thanks for all the experience you've shared.
BIgger is better - is the new thinking - more cells easier to keep balanced (perhaps harder to maintain)
7:50 what the model of thermal vision device did you use?
www.secondlifestorage.com/flir
So did you remove and replace those 2 cells? I'm not clear what you did to resolve the issue.
Yep, and its been back in service since
HBPowerwall I have to know... how many Kwatts do you now have in service and a rough cost for it all. Amazing storage, I just love it. But I’m thinking you’re going to need a larger plot of land as there is no end in sight for the expansion 😂
Great Videos and channel. I've a question about cells which shows a kind of rust between inner and outside. It looks like a liquid but the cells a really good. do you know what that is? thanks in advance. Dieter from germany
Sounds like electrotie or just moisture either way that would be placed into the recycle bin for me.
BOOM!
This is no average BOOOOM
I've been watching your vids to learn more and I think they're great. Do you use 5amp fuse wire to solder the batteries to the bus bars? Thanks for all you do
Yes i did, now I try to use the fused nickel strip
@@HBPowerwall why the change? As I understand each cell will peak at 5amps and a bad one would short internally and go above that but be self isolating as it burned out the 5amp fuse wire. Or do I have that soooo wrong?
its faster, and spotwelding has been well proven to be better - i can't spotweld the fuse wire because i can't focus that small
@@HBPowerwall ok.. I built a spot welder from a microwave to build my first 7s3p 18650 battery pack for my ebike,. The whole thing cost me about £20. It worked well. Your twisted wire bus bars looked cool though
20bucks if it worked you’d be hard possession to beat that price !! Well done 👍
What cell holders on the ends are you using?
Are they just a standard eBay spec one?
That thermal camera looks pretty tempting to buy
Keith supplies all my holders, sleeves & bits and pieces - ebay.to/2IqaWUR
Its dangerous to mix different current batteries as the higher current batteries will try and dump more into the lower current batteries.
Not a good thing to do!! And you have a bloody lot in one space! That's a Very big hazardous setup!
Each battery bank should all be the same mah! And you will notice also they will work more efficient.
Love your setup but not sure about the battery banks.
Thumbs up
having the same mah isn't so much of an issue with only 0.3amp draw... give or take 0.1. Have 1000's running this way for years - still going strong
Hi, since these are parallel packs in series and you remove one, the voltage for the battery will drop respectively 3,7v until you put it back in service, is that correct?
Why would it drop to 3.7?
@@HBPowerwall So please correct since i am new to this, you have let's say 14s80p for example and you remove one of those 80p pack right ? Each pach is 3,7v and in series all 14 give 51,8v and you remove one of the pack doesn't it drop the voltage of the battery to 48,1v ? What am i missing ?
What area/town is the location of the farm? How far out of Brissy is it?
about 150km from Brisbane CBD
When are you going to glass axial fuses with a low 1amp fuse would have solved that issue by its self no?
Probably not, I doubt that cell was anywhere close to pulling an amp if he was barely able to feel it's warmth.
I won't do the glass fuses personally don't like the idea but it does work well for others - cost is a big factor - small piece of nickel plated copper wire is so much cheaper and more accessible to the larger community. The draw each cell was taking was much less than the fusible current of my fuse wire *around 2-3 amps. if you had fuse wire or glass fuses of 250ma they might have blown but would have added considerable amount of resistance to the batteries
@@HBPowerwall very true, and another thing I note is that medical certified packs even have parallel cells, so I don't worry, proper use and maintenance is more important to me.
I’ve got to get a thermal camera
Sure are handy -
"Seek thermal" are worth a look.
Is Everyone batteries from laptop batteries or Brand New or from depacket?
Mine are all used laptop batteries out of the recycle bin - Second life storage for the win.
@@HBPowerwall thanks for answer
This doesn't seem very economical. How much do you spend in cells and supporting equipment? I take it your remote and don't receive grid power?
I live on grid buddy lives offgrid with the nearest useable pole 10km away - ROI on my setup was 1.8years 10k it cost me
Did you say that you're replacing battery cells after 4 years of use?
Is that typical?
Yes, BUT they are my Gen1 batteries, poorly built for youtube content if i was to be honest. Also batteries are probably 14 years of use - 10 in an old laptop four on my wall..
I'm determining if I'm going to continue building a powerwall. It's a lot of work for only a 4 year service life, if that's what I can realistically anticipate.
Do you expect a longer usage life from your new 200p battery cells? (At configured capacity.) If so, please, what's the expectation based on?
what is a "long one"
Longmon - www.batrium.com/collections/cell-monitor/products/longmon
18650 how many pieces are needed for one kilowatt?
one KwH? maybe 200 cells but what voltage you thinking about making your battery
HBPowerwall I do not know what you can tell for one kilowatt?
Great video once again Pete. What is the thermal camera that you use? It looks like an App on your phone.🤔. Also is it safe to say that as the pack gets bigger there is less heat, in turn harder to spot faulty cells. But for this to be an issue it would have to be about 1000p upwards?
I use www.diypowerwalls.com/flir for my iPhone works great! I think the bigger the packs the hotter the cell would get and faster just because there is more potential amps due to the pigger parallel pack
@@HBPowerwall Not really, the voltage over the cell is still just one cell's worth, and adding more cell's in parallel doesn't raise the voltage, so doesn't raise the current (it's not blowing the fuse, so it's not so low-resistance that the internal resistance of the rest of the cell's would start to matter much.
Hi Dave. I love to watch your channel. I have been doing solar since 2014. 24 volt batteries SLA. I'm tearing apart Tesla Model 3 batteries for 13 28.8 volt out of the entire 403 volt battery. The Tesla uses Panasonic's 21700 battery. 4416 total cell count with 46 cells per 3.7 volt battery. Anyhow trying to figure out how to spot weld to the top of the cell which is aluminum. Any ideas or tricks to get a wire to stick without blowing whole in the aluminum top? Best regards. Lou Little in SLC, Utah.
Spot welding will blow through the cells - they need end caps added -
@@HBPowerwall thanks for the reply. I have seen those in caps on the China networking but I am not aware of how to attach the cap to the battery. Do they use some sort of silver solder epoxy or something to connect to the top?
@@w.loulittle130 I’d kind of like to know about that myself. If there is an epoxy based system with enough conductivity, it would sure eliminate some major problems that arise when heat is applied to cells. I also think that maintaining an efficient soldering iron is a major drawback.
What are you using for a thermal camera?
I'm using a Flir camera for my iPhone - www.diypowerwalls.com/flir
@@HBPowerwall Thanks.
Nice check battery problem
Thank-You
Why the fuse dont pup
what size of wire do you use for fuse ?
I've been using this - amzn.to/37I1Yxh
How much costed the camera?
The camera cost about 200 second hand a few years back www.diypowerwalls.com/flir
Where can I buy such batteries?
Depends on your location - BatteryHookup is a trusted source - www.batteryhookup.com/?rfsn=1822285.c32dc5
3.39 cells don't have fuse :)
I think you might be looking at the thicker wires? If that is the case if you saw the opposite side to it - that is fused. It's because i wanted to hold the busbars down at each end for extra strength - it's offset on both ends/sides
@@HBPowerwall thicker wires side 3:39 min. there is nothing to connect the battery or maybe am wrong or maybe you don't using these cells.
P.S. by the way nice videos lot of useful information from real life experience.
Why solder and not spot welds? I mean i get being cheep, but you're having capacity loses(due to soldering) and probably resistance losses. Plus getting a cheap spot welder is!ct that expensive when you do 10kwh(actually anything over 2kwh justifies that purchase for me).
I started this process broke, alone & inexperienced - with time you do things better - You'd hope - I do like spotwelding these days, back in the day soldering was cost effective and accessible to me
Hey Peter, TH-cam question, do you have A / B thumbnails? I swear it changed since first uploaded
Trying to get a higher click through rate so change them to try improve ( it didn’t work lol )
HBPowerwall ha that’s no good. Have you ever gone through how you got to the size your channel is, would love to know how you promoted yourself other than the website and YT. I stumbled on your channel and subbed straight away. Your channel gave me a push into transferring job roles. Dealing with solar, batteries and power quality for a distributor down in Victoria. I actually enjoy the work now. Thankyou.
I started by spamming every other remotely related page, then I sent Jehu Vegemite then I was just plain lucky to build a powerwall that worked.
Show💥💥🤟
Need me to show BOOM - wrong channel lol
do you need some rain
badly!
send me some 18650 for some rain is that a good deal🤔
@@johnjamce1146 You think that'll work lol ?
lol 😃😃
Классно
Nod... lol
I don't know why, but watching him just lay his hands all over the exposed contacts freaks me out.
Come on I could lick them and nothing would happen it was 3.8 volts - If that freaks you out your life must be a nightmare..
HBPowerwall I know nothing of what any of all of this is. You were a recommended video that seemed intriguing. Coming from a place of complete ignorance It looks like a bunch of raw scary batteries with exposed wires.
Thanks for the personal jab though?
Man, if you're the safety nazi, then I shudder to think of how others do things. Nice diagnosis though, I didn't realise how obvious these soft-short cells would be in thermal camera view. Kind of assumed they would have enough surface area and enough colder cells around them to not be noticeable.
check out the short I released last night.. another heater found.
Please work on explaining things.
What would you like more explained ?
Just hard to follow a lot of what you say, very little explanations as to what your taking about and why. Maybe start with a summary of what your going to be talking about and what you will be explaining. Maybe give an overview schematic description and explain what each part does. Try to understand that people like me don’t know all the things you do and need some things explained as background.
Slow down, video pan, cannot see or understand 🥹
What you want me to change a video from years ago.. SURE THING lol