I would take apart pack 5 and treat it like it was a laptop battery. Retest all of the cells. 1 thing that I do is that I run the quick test on the cells and get a baseline impedance. I have found that my best cells run in the 70s and 80s, I will not use anything that is over 200. This may have weeded out some of the bad cells in your pack before you used it.
The reason he built it was to show that it was ( in his opinion ) a bad way of doing the build. he was working off of another you tuber's comment that it was just as good as he normally build them. I think we have all seen that it is not as good.
Hi! I discard all 18650 over 100mOhm, heaters, 0,0V and self-discharging, hope thats enough, just starting with my first project. :-) Greetings from Germany
by not capacity checking, you cannot find the good among the bad, you just find the ugly :) That's the conclusion I get from your test! Thank you for doing that, hopefully it prevents people from wasting their time/burning something down
Great video - if I understand your point, you are researching the rewards and benefits of the type of stress testing you performed for pack #5. If you have suitable replacement cell pack it makes sense to replace the cell pack and move on. After all, that's what other venders do. Ive noticed that they limit the investigation to a certain number of hours and then they move on.
You need to bracket IR charged and also capacity, and then remove autodischarge cells, then in use find a layout that enable thermal camera inspection. After 3 years my setup is still solid. I've lost 8% of cells in testing, and none afterward.
Thanks for your perseverance and dedication! You explained it perfectly at the end. From my own experience, using cells that are too tired can work for a while, but they'll cause a lot more work later on, as you've shown. I guess we are still finding out what the thresholds are for acceptable performance. If all we have are bad quality cells but they still kind of work, they can still be useful, but will need replacing sooner and cause a lot more work. With that in mind, it's fine on a dynamic system that's evolving - as we collect better quality cells and improve the pack, they can be retired and recycled with honour!
Like you said in my video, "Cell 5 is wearing faster!" I agree with you, there's no point spending all this time recycling cells, putting them together without proper capacity/discharge/charge tests and grade them based on real life results. =]
Excellent experiment Pete! I had to come back and revisit the infamous cell 5. Someone tried comparing my recent 4s40p trolling motor build to this. I dont think they understood that I did test all those cells. They just werent high capacity 1100mAh - 1799mAh. I did find a few heaters that snuck in though. I can easily replace them if they become a problem.
As a quick way to sort a bunch of lipo batteries I charged them all, and wire them into temporary strings of 7S. Then discharged to what should be near 30%. Test the voltage of each, put each in a pile labeled 1-7. Repeat. Lowest voltage is 1 highest is 7. I was making packs of 5 so I threw out 1 and 2 completely. Then each cell was made of one each 3-4-5-6-7. Obviously could do the same with bigger numbers. I found this averaged them out very well, and made the duds easy to pick out.
Loved the video, I vote to discharge test all the cell 5 cells, as you stated the method of throwing together cell 5 is basically chaos and charge/discharge testing helps find the cream of the crop, but it would be nice to see if you were working with 1200s? 1300s? 1400s? Or just plain 800s. Taking those numbers and comparing how bad they are as a comparison to how they performed against the really good 2100ish mah plus cells.
29 minutes of my life I’ll never get back! Thanks this was fun. So I’m assuming what we all could learn from this is the importance of testing for internal resistance? Possibly the drone pilots from New Hampshire could use cell five as a Power supply for field charging Lipo drone batteries.
may i ask why you put the thin cable (the fuse) instead of nickel strip? what is the benefit of this approach? and why not spot welding instead of doing as you did?doesn`T the temperature ruin the cells?
this video is CRAZY old, but want to have every cell fused, don't need the strength or amp draw that nickel provides but like the idea of protecting the rest of the bank if one cell goes dead short and starts drawing high current - thus blowing the fuse and reducing risk of fire or damage..
The conclusion is pretty clear (and it even would be without your comment at the end). That little time it takes to put a cell into a tester and run a cycle to properly test it, is well worth it. Cell 5 is "bad" and to fix it it would now need all the work that's usually needed to assemble a cell, again.
The cell#5 is a best battery for a home made/diy electric bike. The cell may have die after in many years later, this is a small step to learn about its later usage other than he originally plan to use.
Nice video buddy! Tnx for sharing the cell 5 troubles and conclusion you had. Now I am getting more and more curious about when and how the cells in the background will end up in this or another shed ;-)
Not ordered, the application has been submitted to the cheif financial officer and their crack team of coffee drinking accounts I expect a reply early 2018 with the required changes to the application.
You have to test at least IR in a charged state : this gives the relative age of the cell. A high IR gives you voltage sag under load, but also bad bounce when charging. A high IR also create heat, and low efficiency of both charge and discharge. I've made my PW with older cells, but I was careful in the IR bracket and capacity bracket, after 3 years i pulled the cells of one pack, and tested them for both autodischarge and IR and found no particular difference, and none of the cells had to be trashed. All y cells are AS crappy as the others. That is the important point : choose a performance bracket for capacity and IR and remove autodischarge and heaters and you are good. If I add the over -under cap, the over and under IR, and the autodischarge I removed 8 % of cells at installation. and then none in 3 years. the better cells were also removed kept for powerbanks, flashlights, and stored for later. the cells between 2000 and 2400 MAH looks like they will never loose capacity, we'll see in 3 years.
I wouldn't be a full test unless you check the capacities of the cells. It could give you hindsight to how bad 5 was in the first place, ie the pack has 25% cap yet was providing 50% power, and it could tell you how bad cells can be before it affects things. From the vids it look like pack 5 works ok, it's just that it needs a lot of maintenance, ie pulling apart and swapping out bad cells on a regular basis.
why not use a single cell flashlight and time how long each fully charged cell takes till torch turns off. write a table of results. select a baseline. ditch cells below?
So it works fine in a pinch or when you don't have weeks and just need things to go now. It just isn't as efficient, but nobody expected it to be i think Afterwards you can test all the cells 1 or 2 packs at a time at your own leasure.
How did you test each cell voltage without disconnecting them from the busbar? Am I missing something? I thought that when you had several cells in parallel, when you measured the voltage on any of them, you would get the pack voltage....
I was likley looking for differences in voltage - ie if one cells was high or low it would indicate the fuse was blown. That said I haven't watched the video in a long long time
New to your channel so if you covered this can you direct me to that video? When putting it together you used several different color batteries. I have seen others say must use batteries of same mah? I am looking at only making two packs one 3s 4p and one 6s 2p one 12v and one 24v. i have enough batteries but they are of diferant mah. Can you help me understand how to hook them up if I can use them?
I would like to see you break it down and test them with your normal methods to show what kind of faulty cells made it into the pack using those methods.
This was so long ago that test is impossible - many have asked tho.. What i can say is i gave away the battery to a community member and now it's been broken down into a 12v battery for a composting toilet exhaust fan. 20 percent of the cells have become heaters.
So a few questions. I know this shows the trouble with used batteries and poor testing. Are you proposing all brand new cell batteries and not use the used ones? If you say used ones can work, what are the proper testing procedures to make sure you have the best of the best?
New cells would always be optional! but given people from all over the world scale this idea down all the way to a single led light bulbs worth of light for a few hours a night not practical on a dollars level. There is one person in the community that build a EV with used cells & could never prove he tested a single cell even after something like 50 videos and all his early videos clearly pointing out that the cells were 'tested for voltage' when calling him out on how he tested and I said it was dangerous and stilly (how ever in some cases the only way to do it was to test voltage and heat & not discharge values). Given he was building a car the extra expense of testing cells seemed rather important. Hence prompted this video - That said I'm still using #cell5 from time to time in test rig but looses 0.02v per day just sitting on the bench. I've done a few basic videos here th-cam.com/video/v_4ggDN7290/w-d-xo.html
Hi awesome powerwall and video's love it . But one huge question with busbars - an + at either end my experience with DC the Amps are going to go to the first available source meaning closest batteries. Just wondering if you seen any difference along busbar with load amps delivery. Voltage may stay the same but amps could differ from one end to other. Thanks in advance hope to see in video. Cheers
Hey, Pete! I feel like it might be a good idea to demonstrate just how wrong and bad things can go with a cell that fails. (Be it in a spectacular manor or otherwise) EDIT: Especially given how many people you've inspired to build their own powerwalls. Myself included.
milkbox, sounds like you want to see the magic smoke. Go to DIYTECH&REPAIRS channel and search "Kaboom" you'll get more than the smoke there, you will also see the magic pixies fly!
Karl Bartelt I think I've come across that channel before. Thanks for the tip. XD I was being serious, though. I mean, he's using recycled laptops batteries same as a lot of people who take far more shortcuts than he does. I'd bet 95% of The people who were inspired by him don't carry out their projects nearly to the level of detail that Pete does.
milkbox it seems Peter and Daniel have become DIY Power wall Kings, one rules the North and the other the South. While both of them wish they had Jehu’s (Battery King of the West) subscribers. Maybe they should each build an Electric VW Kombi to compete.
Karl Bartelt That would be an interesting colab. Probably prohibitively expensive given they'd need to ship the cars and all. Shipping would be bad enough with an infernal combustion car, but with a few hundred pounds of lithium batteries instead? Yeah, forget that. I'd like to see it, but I doubt it will ever happen.
Was cell 5 gone or still around? I'm starting out on the diy for solar and batteries and it would be lively to have a modle like this to build from. I'm more or a learner from what I can touch over just seeing...
How about you do a final final vid you take cell 5 apart, do a charge discharge and know exactly, how many bad cells to good cells you were dealing with in cell 5, that way you can look back and analyse your results, and then compare the results to what you normally put in a good cell, like you for eg (there was twenty cells in cell five that shouldn't have been in there)
at the time i think it as a $10 40w version that worked best for me, but these days it seems most are using 100w. My thinking was lower heat would not heat the cell as much BUT you took longer to solder it so using a higher head made the process much faster and doesn't seem to drop so much heat into the battery itself
@@HBPowerwall Thanks champion, I have just cycled 200 cells, got my nickel plate, solder and paste ready. I'll get a 100w then. I like your twisted copper design for joining packs👍I'm going to build a 20ah ebike battery first... baby steps😬
couldn't you use a bunch of weak cells to make a bigger pack for super light duty like or 2 usb device charging. or maybe it's a waste to charge such a pack
Thought you were only supposed to tack weld lithium cells? Everyone I've ever seen discussing batteries has said that solder heat is highly damaging to 18650 cells.
Solder isn't good by all accounts but I just pulled a 4 year old cell (the very first one i built) and it's still going strong even after a full life in a laptop.. but spotweding is the new standard now for sure. Back in the day that's all i had so it's what i used
Yes, but the main danger from such batteries is that thay are heating after 4 volts in 1A charge and that can be reduced by adding elements in pack. Its hard to say how long they can last and that is very interesting to test
If the power cell was a critical component for a military application that lives depended on, the decision is very easy. Cut your losses and replace the questionable cell. Since this is more or less a "hobby" application, mail it to the subscriber that gives you the best reason to send it to him/her (as a "prize"). I know this video was published 2 years ago, but Covid-19 didn't happen 2 years ago.
if you tested all those cells voltages while they were all connected together? it was pointless. only the one that were disconnected will give a different reading. and now it will just be a lower capacity pack.
PUT PART 2 IN TITLE!! you have to do work to find the vid if you don't, even if you put it in the description it is still easier for us and youtube to get us that content if you label the parts in a series
Hi Pete, I'll take cell 5 off your hands. I've got someone passing through Brisbane (on their way to me in Perth) shortly. I want him to drop off a pack of 32650s for you to play with. If you like them we can get litterally 3/4 ton of them for the community, never used but probably stored too long... hopefully you'll have worked out if theyre any good before my samples get to w.a. 😂 (36p pack)
Elliot Metcalf Figured. No worries! Those of us who aren't lazy can just source them elsewhere. This is a rather large country, after all. A quick look on the gargler should find some sources for good cells.
Hi! is it safe to connect (in parallel) lead acid 12v 9ah battery to a 2 4s2p configured lithium ion (18650) batteries on a motorcycle? and wont it damage my motorcycle?
What is your minimum battery capacity that you will use in one of your cells? 1,500? 2,000? Then I assume you use that web app to help you pair them properly?
Just about 2am here. I had my rotator cuff and some cartilage tears fixed in my shoulder about 8 weeks ago. I was stuck in a chair for about 6 weeks unable to move. Watched a huge chunk of your channel in that time and now i've got a garbage bag of laptop battery casings, about 600 18650s, a LiitoKala Lii-500 Battery charger, my multimeter, some battery wraps and a heat gun littering my workspace lol I hope you're happy.
also all the trash cells that are low voltage (under 2V) most are recovered and are good performers. I'v found there also 8% bad, and in those there is not more aheaters or autodischarge or high IR than in others. That is racism to trash those before testing.
That's totally not a good idea to keep that many lithium batteries like that in a house can you imagine the fire that would cause if even just ONE of those banks went off, and the amount of heat from one going off would probably trigger the rest and then you'd have a dangerous structure fire!!!! Unless you are keeping these banks in a structure you wouldn't miss if it caught fire...
@@HBPowerwall Good thinking, lithium batteries are nice but they all have a very dangerous hazard potential!! As you know :-) although lithium batteries are getting safer these days... Someday ALL lithium batteries won't pose the risks that most current lithium batteries pose right now!! Scientists keep learning how to make them safer and safer. They do have ones right now that wont catch fire if cut, punchered, overcharged, etc. But I dont think there available yet for residential use yet.
It's a MODULE, not a cell!!!!! Jeez... many cells in a module, many modules in a pack. When you're dealing with electricity, and particularly when you're doing so with thousands of people watching and emulating, I think it's really important to be accurate
Accurate would imply I'm an expert - THAT I'm not .... 1 cell or 100 in parallel still in my mind makes a single cell. Get Two CELLS that makes a bank or battery - each to their own i guess :)
you've wasted so much time and effort on cell 5 that you haven't been able to install Bo's pack. seems like the pack was just good enough to keep you guessing, and making it hard to say it was a bad Idea to build it that way. I think we all have seen the problems and would agree it is time to let it go.
The biggest problem with doing it this way is that you have no way of knowing what the capacity of each cell is, so no idea on the pack capacity...... I Made my first ebike battery this way before i had the tools or knowledge that i have today.... All i had was 2 imax b6 chargers on a 16s 10p pack.... after 3 months the cells were dying on there arse
looking at this video I'm kinda guessing then these cells are hit n miss thus have to be matched. Really bad as manufactures should not sell inferior batteries. Stick to lead lols
@@HBPowerwall very true but these batteries here do sound cheap and concerning so many cells. maybe proper matching could get great result but hobbyist. Seen some better larger capacity cells kit for my van n need BMS. exciting but still new tech
Buying link below as can get a proper BMS setup with less cells. Above is great for hobbyist but need quality reliable system (or as much can be from here). Very interesting subject and open to conjecture being new tech (still new really!) www.aliexpress.com/item/33035453389.html?spm=a2g0o.store_home.productList_52597321.subject_1&aff_platform=link-c-tool&sk=kR2gtZ32&aff_trace_key=dab787e084804b93a10379538973903d-1591135131591-00368-kR2gtZ32&terminal_id=bd708022c59b44178345db85929971c4&tmLog=new_Detail&aff_request_id=dab787e084804b93a10379538973903d-1591135131591-00368-kR2gtZ32
It was a waste of time for me watching you. I've seen many videos like this all seem to end not telling us watch and where to buy good reliable batteries.
I would take apart pack 5 and treat it like it was a laptop battery. Retest all of the cells. 1 thing that I do is that I run the quick test on the cells and get a baseline impedance. I have found that my best cells run in the 70s and 80s, I will not use anything that is over 200. This may have weeded out some of the bad cells in your pack before you used it.
The reason he built it was to show that it was ( in his opinion ) a bad way of doing the build. he was working off of another you tuber's comment that it was just as good as he normally build them. I think we have all seen that it is not as good.
Hi! I discard all 18650 over 100mOhm, heaters, 0,0V and self-discharging, hope thats enough, just starting with my first project. :-) Greetings from Germany
by not capacity checking, you cannot find the good among the bad, you just find the ugly :) That's the conclusion I get from your test! Thank you for doing that, hopefully it prevents people from wasting their time/burning something down
Fingers crossed it helps someone out there!
Great video 2,5 years down the road. Thank you 😊
You are so welcome!
Great video - if I understand your point, you are researching the rewards and benefits of the type of stress testing you performed for pack #5. If you have suitable replacement cell pack it makes sense to replace the cell pack and move on. After all, that's what other venders do. Ive noticed that they limit the investigation to a certain number of hours and then they move on.
You need to bracket IR charged and also capacity, and then remove autodischarge cells, then in use find a layout that enable thermal camera inspection. After 3 years my setup is still solid. I've lost 8% of cells in testing, and none afterward.
Thanks for your perseverance and dedication! You explained it perfectly at the end.
From my own experience, using cells that are too tired can work for a while, but they'll cause a lot more work later on, as you've shown.
I guess we are still finding out what the thresholds are for acceptable performance.
If all we have are bad quality cells but they still kind of work, they can still be useful, but will need replacing sooner and cause a lot more work.
With that in mind, it's fine on a dynamic system that's evolving - as we collect better quality cells and improve the pack, they can be retired and recycled with honour!
Like you said in my video, "Cell 5 is wearing faster!"
I agree with you, there's no point spending all this time recycling cells, putting them together without proper capacity/discharge/charge tests and grade them based on real life results. =]
Yep, getting old before her time that's for sure
Excellent experiment Pete! I had to come back and revisit the infamous cell 5. Someone tried comparing my recent 4s40p trolling motor build to this. I dont think they understood that I did test all those cells. They just werent high capacity 1100mAh - 1799mAh. I did find a few heaters that snuck in though. I can easily replace them if they become a problem.
I so need to update this video ---- !!!! had a cell vomit on my the other day, zero volts & drained the pack from 3.9v to 0.3v in a few weeks
As a quick way to sort a bunch of lipo batteries I charged them all, and wire them into temporary strings of 7S. Then discharged to what should be near 30%. Test the voltage of each, put each in a pile labeled 1-7. Repeat. Lowest voltage is 1 highest is 7. I was making packs of 5 so I threw out 1 and 2 completely. Then each cell was made of one each 3-4-5-6-7.
Obviously could do the same with bigger numbers. I found this averaged them out very well, and made the duds easy to pick out.
your mad but have at it...
@@HBPowerwall Lets just say I have good insurance and the batteries aren't in the house. :)
Yep you're proper mad - enjoy your project where ever it leads you.
Loved the video, I vote to discharge test all the cell 5 cells, as you stated the method of throwing together cell 5 is basically chaos and charge/discharge testing helps find the cream of the crop, but it would be nice to see if you were working with 1200s? 1300s? 1400s? Or just plain 800s. Taking those numbers and comparing how bad they are as a comparison to how they performed against the really good 2100ish mah plus cells.
29 minutes of my life I’ll never get back! Thanks this was fun. So I’m assuming what we all could learn from this is the importance of testing for internal resistance? Possibly the drone pilots from New Hampshire could use cell five as a Power supply for field charging Lipo drone batteries.
may i ask why you put the thin cable (the fuse) instead of nickel strip? what is the benefit of this approach? and why not spot welding instead of doing as you did?doesn`T the temperature ruin the cells?
this video is CRAZY old, but want to have every cell fused, don't need the strength or amp draw that nickel provides but like the idea of protecting the rest of the bank if one cell goes dead short and starts drawing high current - thus blowing the fuse and reducing risk of fire or damage..
@@HBPowerwall yeah just that i`m trying to learn so watching as much as videos i can ^^. Thanks for the explanation and the time to reply
no worries..
Good luck with your project
@@HBPowerwall thanks!
No worries
The conclusion is pretty clear (and it even would be without your comment at the end). That little time it takes to put a cell into a tester and run a cycle to properly test it, is well worth it. Cell 5 is "bad" and to fix it it would now need all the work that's usually needed to assemble a cell, again.
So you saying i should fix it? #Cell5livesagain
The cell#5 is a best battery for a home made/diy electric bike.
The cell may have die after in many years later, this is a small step to learn about its later usage other than he originally plan to use.
Nice video buddy! Tnx for sharing the cell 5 troubles and conclusion you had. Now I am getting more and more curious about when and how the cells in the background will end up in this or another shed ;-)
I have to fit them in that's the hard part :) ROOM, space arrr Shipping container I can't wait for your arrival
HBPowerwall when does the shipping container arrive in your backyard? Did you order it already? Does the hot Asian chick approve?
Not ordered, the application has been submitted to the cheif financial officer and their crack team of coffee drinking accounts I expect a reply early 2018 with the required changes to the application.
The Asian chick approves :)
The bottom line it doesn't work! Great job. Thanks for all your hard work.
Well actually it did work, just not well and not long term & it's dangerous. And i'd never do it again :)
Did you check the individual cells internal resistance ?
You have to test at least IR in a charged state : this gives the relative age of the cell. A high IR gives you voltage sag under load, but also bad bounce when charging. A high IR also create heat, and low efficiency of both charge and discharge. I've made my PW with older cells, but I was careful in the IR bracket and capacity bracket, after 3 years i pulled the cells of one pack, and tested them for both autodischarge and IR and found no particular difference, and none of the cells had to be trashed. All y cells are AS crappy as the others. That is the important point : choose a performance bracket for capacity and IR and remove autodischarge and heaters and you are good. If I add the over -under cap, the over and under IR, and the autodischarge I removed 8 % of cells at installation. and then none in 3 years. the better cells were also removed kept for powerbanks, flashlights, and stored for later. the cells between 2000 and 2400 MAH looks like they will never loose capacity, we'll see in 3 years.
Hello, its safe to use Sanyo heaters on a 7s80p with a 25ah charge bms? The charge is around 0,3mha per cell. Thx
I wouldn't be a full test unless you check the capacities of the cells. It could give you hindsight to how bad 5 was in the first place, ie the pack has 25% cap yet was providing 50% power, and it could tell you how bad cells can be before it affects things. From the vids it look like pack 5 works ok, it's just that it needs a lot of maintenance, ie pulling apart and swapping out bad cells on a regular basis.
why not use a single cell flashlight and time how long each fully charged cell takes till torch turns off. write a table of results. select a baseline. ditch cells below?
So it works fine in a pinch or when you don't have weeks and just need things to go now.
It just isn't as efficient, but nobody expected it to be i think
Afterwards you can test all the cells 1 or 2 packs at a time at your own leasure.
It truly was the dumbist idea ever BUT your right, if you NEEEED it now, i'll get the job done
How did you test each cell voltage without disconnecting them from the busbar? Am I missing something? I thought that when you had several cells in parallel, when you measured the voltage on any of them, you would get the pack voltage....
I was likley looking for differences in voltage - ie if one cells was high or low it would indicate the fuse was blown. That said I haven't watched the video in a long long time
New to your channel so if you covered this can you direct me to that video? When putting it together you used several different color batteries. I have seen others say must use batteries of same mah? I am looking at only making two packs one 3s 4p and one 6s 2p one 12v and one 24v. i have enough batteries but they are of diferant mah. Can you help me understand how to hook them up if I can use them?
Whats the name of software you are using for you monitoring your battery packs.?
I use a Batrium - www.batrium.com BMS
I would like to see you break it down and test them with your normal methods to show what kind of faulty cells made it into the pack using those methods.
This was so long ago that test is impossible - many have asked tho.. What i can say is i gave away the battery to a community member and now it's been broken down into a 12v battery for a composting toilet exhaust fan. 20 percent of the cells have become heaters.
Haha, yeah I should have looked at the date.
What percentage of batteries do you reject normally? What percentage did you reject in this project?
I would say 40 percent don't make it to my wall.
So what is the best way to build the bank
So a few questions. I know this shows the trouble with used batteries and poor testing. Are you proposing all brand new cell batteries and not use the used ones? If you say used ones can work, what are the proper testing procedures to make sure you have the best of the best?
New cells would always be optional! but given people from all over the world scale this idea down all the way to a single led light bulbs worth of light for a few hours a night not practical on a dollars level. There is one person in the community that build a EV with used cells & could never prove he tested a single cell even after something like 50 videos and all his early videos clearly pointing out that the cells were 'tested for voltage' when calling him out on how he tested and I said it was dangerous and stilly (how ever in some cases the only way to do it was to test voltage and heat & not discharge values). Given he was building a car the extra expense of testing cells seemed rather important. Hence prompted this video - That said I'm still using #cell5 from time to time in test rig but looses 0.02v per day just sitting on the bench. I've done a few basic videos here th-cam.com/video/v_4ggDN7290/w-d-xo.html
Hi awesome powerwall and video's love it . But one huge question with busbars - an + at either end my experience with DC the Amps are going to go to the first available source meaning closest batteries. Just wondering if you seen any difference along busbar with load amps delivery. Voltage may stay the same but amps could differ from one end to other.
Thanks in advance hope to see in video.
Cheers
max amps per cell is like .4 apms so never be an issue
Hey, Pete! I feel like it might be a good idea to demonstrate just how wrong and bad things can go with a cell that fails. (Be it in a spectacular manor or otherwise)
EDIT: Especially given how many people you've inspired to build their own powerwalls. Myself included.
milkbox, sounds like you want to see the magic smoke. Go to DIYTECH&REPAIRS channel and search "Kaboom" you'll get more than the smoke there, you will also see the magic pixies fly!
Karl Bartelt I think I've come across that channel before. Thanks for the tip. XD I was being serious, though. I mean, he's using recycled laptops batteries same as a lot of people who take far more shortcuts than he does. I'd bet 95% of The people who were inspired by him don't carry out their projects nearly to the level of detail that Pete does.
milkbox it seems Peter and Daniel have become DIY Power wall Kings, one rules the North and the other the South. While both of them wish they had Jehu’s (Battery King of the West) subscribers. Maybe they should each build an Electric VW Kombi to compete.
Karl Bartelt That would be an interesting colab. Probably prohibitively expensive given they'd need to ship the cars and all. Shipping would be bad enough with an infernal combustion car, but with a few hundred pounds of lithium batteries instead? Yeah, forget that. I'd like to see it, but I doubt it will ever happen.
I suggest stripping it down and running it through my discharge board to give you an idea of all cell capacities.
Was cell 5 gone or still around? I'm starting out on the diy for solar and batteries and it would be lively to have a modle like this to build from. I'm more or a learner from what I can touch over just seeing...
It still lives.... for now :)
How about you do a final final vid you take cell 5 apart, do a charge discharge and know exactly, how many bad cells to good cells you were dealing with in cell 5, that way you can look back and analyse your results, and then compare the results to what you normally put in a good cell, like you for eg (there was twenty cells in cell five that shouldn't have been in there)
Awesome, what wattage iron do you use sir?
at the time i think it as a $10 40w version that worked best for me, but these days it seems most are using 100w. My thinking was lower heat would not heat the cell as much BUT you took longer to solder it so using a higher head made the process much faster and doesn't seem to drop so much heat into the battery itself
@@HBPowerwall Thanks champion, I have just cycled 200 cells, got my nickel plate, solder and paste ready. I'll get a 100w then. I like your twisted copper design for joining packs👍I'm going to build a 20ah ebike battery first... baby steps😬
couldn't you use a bunch of weak cells to make a bigger pack for super light duty like or 2 usb device charging. or maybe it's a waste to charge such a pack
I think that is a great idea - name of the game is keeping these cells out of landfill or stop them from being recycled before their true end of life.
Thanks bro , this video helps me alot. i am trying to bill one my self
anytime
Great video i was just wondering if you had gotten in touch with Cody from Cody’s lab!!!
Thanks again for the insight
You keep refering to "long ones", what exactly are you referring to?
Where do i buy fuse wire in a spool like u got
kit.com/HBPowerwall/diypowerwall-build-parts - about halfway down the page. Some use 36awg it depends on your uses
Thought you were only supposed to tack weld lithium cells? Everyone I've ever seen discussing batteries has said that solder heat is highly damaging to 18650 cells.
Solder isn't good by all accounts but I just pulled a 4 year old cell (the very first one i built) and it's still going strong even after a full life in a laptop.. but spotweding is the new standard now for sure. Back in the day that's all i had so it's what i used
Maybe you need to add some in parallel (+30%) to equalize the capacity?
But then you're still left with an unsafe battery .
Yes, but the main danger from such batteries is that thay are heating after 4 volts in 1A charge and that can be reduced by adding elements in pack. Its hard to say how long they can last and that is very interesting to test
If the power cell was a critical component for a military application that lives depended on, the decision is very easy. Cut your losses and replace the questionable cell. Since this is more or less a "hobby" application, mail it to the subscriber that gives you the best reason to send it to him/her (as a "prize"). I know this video was published 2 years ago, but Covid-19 didn't happen 2 years ago.
it was given away to a subscriber and re configured it to 12 volts now lives in a shitter... its for an exhaust fan in an out house.
I wish I knew what this battery was doing... is this like an off grid power bank or something?
look at some of my other videos or the description it has a link to the first video
Can I charge a power wall with 500 watt wind turbines from China and how many would be needed to charge a power wall
WIth the correct charge controllers & dumploads you can - how long it takes depends if it's windy or not & how big the battery is.
if you tested all those cells voltages while they were all connected together? it was pointless.
only the one that were disconnected will give a different reading. and now it will just be a lower capacity pack.
I was looking for cells with broken fuses thus having different voltages Interesting only one was zero volt!
PUT PART 2 IN TITLE!! you have to do work to find the vid if you don't, even if you put it in the description it is still easier for us and youtube to get us that content if you label the parts in a series
I'm sure i put it at the end of 'part one' but will do
All of your testing a work on cell 5 just goes to show, there are no short cuts if you want quality and reliability.
And testing isn't even hard, bit of extra expense but still rest the cells anyway so ... everyone TEST YOUR CELLS!
that necklace though. so fancy
Has only been off my neck once for 1/2 an hour in 18 years - my now 22 yr old daughter and I bought matching ones when she was 4.
Whats your rules for a bad battery?
Damaged, get hot while charging/discharging, self discharge & high IR
No. 5 is alive
Hi Pete, I'll take cell 5 off your hands. I've got someone passing through Brisbane (on their way to me in Perth) shortly. I want him to drop off a pack of 32650s for you to play with. If you like them we can get litterally 3/4 ton of them for the community, never used but probably stored too long... hopefully you'll have worked out if theyre any good before my samples get to w.a. 😂 (36p pack)
Elliot Metcalf Asking now because others likely will, but I'm sure it's safe to assume none will be coming to the U.S.?
Unfortunatly correct milkbox.
Elliot Metcalf Figured. No worries! Those of us who aren't lazy can just source them elsewhere. This is a rather large country, after all. A quick look on the gargler should find some sources for good cells.
Hi! is it safe to connect (in parallel) lead acid 12v 9ah battery to a 2 4s2p configured lithium ion (18650) batteries on a motorcycle? and wont it damage my motorcycle?
no not at all..
What is your minimum battery capacity that you will use in one of your cells? 1,500? 2,000?
Then I assume you use that web app to help you pair them properly?
I run min in my powerwall of 2200mah and I use the secondlifestorage.com/repacker.php Cell Builder to build my packs
Wow! Ask an aussie at 2am and they answer at 2am! lol Ty sir :)
3.43 pm here Monday morning :)
Just about 2am here. I had my rotator cuff and some cartilage tears fixed in my shoulder about 8 weeks ago. I was stuck in a chair for about 6 weeks unable to move. Watched a huge chunk of your channel in that time and now i've got a garbage bag of laptop battery casings, about 600 18650s, a LiitoKala Lii-500 Battery charger, my multimeter, some battery wraps and a heat gun littering my workspace lol
I hope you're happy.
I take responsibility seriously - you're on your own buddy pay for your own therapy lol
I thought it was a great video! Including all the fast fwd and fancy camera angles!!!😀👍
I like fancy *said with a lisp*
CELL 5 IS ALIVE
Cell 5 is now in the shitter - been converted to 12v battery and running a thunderbox exhaust fan !!
Can we make it burn?
Don't 18650s burn houses down?
Almost wish it had of ended badly would have made for a much better ending
also all the trash cells that are low voltage (under 2V) most are recovered and are good performers. I'v found there also 8% bad, and in those there is not more aheaters or autodischarge or high IR than in others. That is racism to trash those before testing.
That's totally not a good idea to keep that many lithium batteries like that in a house can you imagine the fire that would cause if even just ONE of those banks went off, and the amount of heat from one going off would probably trigger the rest and then you'd have a dangerous structure fire!!!! Unless you are keeping these banks in a structure you wouldn't miss if it caught fire...
it's not in my house it's 50m away in my workshop - acceptable losses
@@HBPowerwall Good thinking, lithium batteries are nice but they all have a very dangerous hazard potential!! As you know :-) although lithium batteries are getting safer these days... Someday ALL lithium batteries won't pose the risks that most current lithium batteries pose right now!! Scientists keep learning how to make them safer and safer. They do have ones right now that wont catch fire if cut, punchered, overcharged, etc. But I dont think there available yet for residential use yet.
To bad I'm in the USA. I would love to have pack 5 :(
Yeh, probably have a few issues with postage :) There isn't too many links out there to this vid how you get here? Patreon ?
HBPowerwall yup yup patreon 😚
Hey Pete what do you mean by Patreon? Oh yes i did LOL
Don't know when to release this one. trying to avoid the issues 'they' have having at the moment..
It's a MODULE, not a cell!!!!! Jeez... many cells in a module, many modules in a pack. When you're dealing with electricity, and particularly when you're doing so with thousands of people watching and emulating, I think it's really important to be accurate
Accurate would imply I'm an expert - THAT I'm not .... 1 cell or 100 in parallel still in my mind makes a single cell. Get Two CELLS that makes a bank or battery - each to their own i guess :)
Are you open to having somebody come for a site visit ?
yep with good planing
I would like to test it on my scooter
It was given away and is now running a 12v offgrid toilet fan (shit cells used for a shitty job lol)
you've wasted so much time and effort on cell 5 that you haven't been able to install Bo's pack. seems like the pack was just good enough to keep you guessing, and making it hard to say it was a bad Idea to build it that way. I think we all have seen the problems and would agree it is time to let it go.
I love your dance ;)
Cell 5 you did your best but its time to go to the battery vets and be put out of Petes misery
Drop it off the bench, dead short, give away, charge to 6v - all are considerations other than the vets !
The biggest problem with doing it this way is that you have no way of knowing what the capacity of each cell is, so no idea on the pack capacity...... I Made my first ebike battery this way before i had the tools or knowledge that i have today.... All i had was 2 imax b6 chargers on a 16s 10p pack.... after 3 months the cells were dying on there arse
Yep super poor way of doing it.
I'll only accept it if it comes with a hot asian chick
YOU NO GET HOT ASIAN CHICK! NO NOW NO LONGTIME!
heya oke cell 5 is dane to bad
Cell five is on a farm reconfigured to a 12v battery running the dunny vent pipe fan... I think it founds it forever home lol
Oh man that is hideous looking..... :)
Tell me about it, goes against everything (almost) i do @!
looking at this video I'm kinda guessing then these cells are hit n miss thus have to be matched. Really bad as manufactures should not sell inferior batteries. Stick to lead lols
Lead worked for many years, it's been replaced by smaller, lighter & denser cells :P time for Lithium to be the new lead
@@HBPowerwall very true but these batteries here do sound cheap and concerning so many cells. maybe proper matching could get great result but hobbyist. Seen some better larger capacity cells kit for my van n need BMS. exciting but still new tech
Buying link below as can get a proper BMS setup with less cells. Above is great for hobbyist but need quality reliable system (or as much can be from here). Very interesting subject and open to conjecture being new tech (still new really!)
www.aliexpress.com/item/33035453389.html?spm=a2g0o.store_home.productList_52597321.subject_1&aff_platform=link-c-tool&sk=kR2gtZ32&aff_trace_key=dab787e084804b93a10379538973903d-1591135131591-00368-kR2gtZ32&terminal_id=bd708022c59b44178345db85929971c4&tmLog=new_Detail&aff_request_id=dab787e084804b93a10379538973903d-1591135131591-00368-kR2gtZ32
It was a waste of time for me watching you. I've seen many videos like this all seem to end not telling us watch and where to buy good reliable batteries.
My 'job' isn't to tell you where to buy, it's to share my experiences with the world and HOPE someone gains some thing from what i've shared.