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Batteries! They're in everything! Laptops, phones, cars, shavers, and they're great but what if you want to use them for something else? Turns out a wrecked Nissan Leaf is still good for a powering appliances and if you wanna do that kinda thing this is the thread for you. If you're interested in giving batteries a second life to power your home or make a backup battery generator lets figure that out in here. Or if you actually know how to do the drat thing then come here and tell me what the deal is on how to do it. I was asked to make this thread from several people in the climate change thread so in order to keep this one open, lets keep our climate dread and lmaoing out of here.
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Dec 17, 2019 02:44
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Second post saved for possibly useful information in the future.
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Dec 17, 2019 02:44
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Lately I've been looking at buying a Goal Zero Yeti lithium since it's an all in one sort of thing and I liked the portability of it but it's kinda pricey. If someone has good guides to start with I'd appreciate it. Right now I was looking at buying a decent lifepo4 battery off ebay but was hung up on the management of it. I know with a lead acid I don't need much but with lithium I'm not sure how necessary a BMS or charge management for balancing the batteries and how to power it off a wall.
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Dec 17, 2019 03:00
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Those are all questions I want to find out the answer to. I've been eyeing some prismatic lipofe4 cells on ebay.
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Dec 17, 2019 03:17
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so there's this youtuber, and his whole schtick is "diy powerwall" where he gets used batteries for cheap and then tries to cobble them into useful systems https://www.youtube.com/user/jehugarcia/videos in the process of trial and error (and he clearly only barely knows what he's doing) he open sourced the design files for a PCB system, which he also sells pre-made: https://jag35.com/collections/all he does these live 2 hour youtube shows where people working in their battery project ask questions, almost like a chat version of a call in show. i'm not saying any of this is like, "good", but its filling a specific niche speaking of, there's also this guy who does very similar content: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5AcwWwviQIiEQAvN-0E2mg/videos
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Dec 17, 2019 04:39
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net work error posted:Lately I've been looking at buying a Goal Zero Yeti lithium since it's an all in one sort of thing and I liked the portability of it but it's kinda pricey. I got yeti 3000 last spring and it saw daily use for ~6 months. It works great for my purposes, but I still found from time to time that 280ah doesn't go far when it rains for a week. If the yetis had some way to send or receive charge from an external battery they'd almost be perfect. Well that and they cannot receive a solar charge higher than 22v which is also lame.
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Dec 17, 2019 10:26
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I have been looking at an EGO power station. Mostly because I already have 3 of their 7.5 AH batteries. https://egopowerplus.com/nexus-portable-power-station/ My main use would be as a backup power source for my sump umps in my house. I haven’t bought it yet because it is kinda expensive, and it doesn’t look like there is a way to rig up some sort of automatic mode. As far as the batteries themselves, the EGO batteries seem pretty good. Being able to run my lawnmower for over an hour on a single charge has been really nice. Only complaint with the mower is that if the grass is wet (even with dew) it really starts to clump when the mower is mulching.
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Dec 17, 2019 15:31
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one thing i can never figure out about these EGO and Goal Zero products is how do you get it so that you can simultaneously be charging them with a solar panel *and* running some load off them. i have two big south facing windows in my office, and my "desktop" is an Intel NUC that works of a 19V DC power supply. I would love to put a 50W panel in each window, connect them to <THING> and then connect my nuc to <THING> and have it "just work". I'm assuming two 50W panels, behind glass, at a lovely angle, are going to produce something like 200Wh/day. Intel says this NUC will draw 15W at full workload, so i'm going to assume something like 20 hours a day of 5W and 5 hours a day of 15W, so ~175Wh/day. It should work. I just cant figure out what to buy. StabbinHobo fucked around with this message at 16:44 on Dec 17, 2019 |
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Dec 17, 2019 16:40
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StabbinHobo posted:one thing i can never figure out about these EGO and Goal Zero products is how do you get it so that you can simultaneously be charging them with a solar panel *and* running some load off them. I actually came across this article a while back on someone who decided to power his apartment office with a setup like you're describing. This might be handy for you: https://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2016/05/how-to-go-off-grid-in-your-apartment.html One interesting thing he did was splice some cables to make diy DC lightbulbs.
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Dec 17, 2019 17:41
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This thread is great! We live in an area with somewhat frequent grid outages and rather than buy a generator, I'd love to have a bank of batteries in the house that would be able to power things for a day until the power comes back on. Other than a powerwall (which can do this, but doesn't seem like it's the main point of it) I can't see off the shelf options for what amounts to "a generator, but batteries instead".
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Dec 17, 2019 18:12
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beep-beep car is go posted:This thread is great! We live in an area with somewhat frequent grid outages and rather than buy a generator, I'd love to have a bank of batteries in the house that would be able to power things for a day until the power comes back on. Other than a powerwall (which can do this, but doesn't seem like it's the main point of it) I can't see off the shelf options for what amounts to "a generator, but batteries instead". I don’t think the prices on batteries have dropped enough yet for there to be a standardized design for what you want. Generally, your main power source (Grid, Solar, or Wind) is just too reliable. Also, small generators and the fuel to run them is just too cheap. Depending on your power usage, you might be able to see what off the grid solar in your area uses for batteries, and just hook that up to your grid source instead. But I am guessing that will either be insufficient for your needs, or too cost prohibitive. That EGO thing I linked earlier only has about 1600 Wh of power if you have 4 7.5 Ah batteries hooked up to it. It only comes with 2 of those batteries, and is like $1200 MSRP. Extra batteries are $350 by themselves. So $2k just to run your fridge for a day or two. Those Goal Zero units look to be slightly more cost effective per Wh, but not much. I think something scaled up for running a house for a day would probably have any size cost savings eaten up by the much lower volume of sales.
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Dec 17, 2019 19:13
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StabbinHobo posted:one thing i can never figure out about these EGO and Goal Zero products is how do you get it so that you can simultaneously be charging them with a solar panel *and* running some load off them. quote:i have two big south facing windows in my office, and my "desktop" is an Intel NUC that works of a 19V DC power supply. I would love to put a 50W panel in each window, connect them to <THING> and then connect my nuc to <THING> and have it "just work". Not sure what a NUC is, but if it requires 19v DC, a yeti won't work for you as the DC outputs are 12v. To be perfectly honest, I'm not sure any portable battery/solar chargers can output to 24v. How on earth do you power it now?
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Dec 17, 2019 22:29
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A NUC is a small computer, imagine if you look a laptop guts but no screen and tried to put it in the smallest box possible.
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Dec 17, 2019 22:39
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Are prismatic lipofe4 cells the same power density as cylindrical cells? I guess they aren't or all the batteries would be rectangular.
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Dec 17, 2019 22:40
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I go back to this site pretty often. It has some good info I think. https://batteryuniversity.com/learn/article/lithium_based_batteries
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Dec 18, 2019 00:47
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Orvin posted:I don’t think the prices on batteries have dropped enough yet for there to be a standardized design for what you want. Generally, your main power source (Grid, Solar, or Wind) is just too reliable. Also, small generators and the fuel to run them is just too cheap. I mean, it's not like I drive my house, couldn't I get (realatively) cheap sealed deep cycle lead acid batteries and use those? I guess the question is are lead acids actually any cheaper.
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Dec 18, 2019 15:17
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beep-beep car is go posted:I mean, it's not like I drive my house, couldn't I get (realatively) cheap sealed deep cycle lead acid batteries and use those? I guess the question is are lead acids actually any cheaper. My understanding is that lead acid batteries are cheaper but also can't be discharged as much as a lithium based battery can. This means it has to stay in that sweet spot. They also need to stay with a tender to increase the lifetime where as lithium batteries can be left untouched for a while and they retain their charge well without hurting the lifetime much. If I'm wrong please correct me since I'm not an expert.
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Dec 18, 2019 17:36
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beep-beep car is go posted:I mean, it's not like I drive my house, couldn't I get (realatively) cheap sealed deep cycle lead acid batteries and use those? I guess the question is are lead acids actually any cheaper. I know it’s possible to use deep cycle lead acid batteries to create a power bank. It’s what phone companies use for their 50V phone system, and what electric utilities use for emergency DC power at substations. I just don’t think there is much of an off the shelf setup. It would totally be a DIY thing. A quick look shows a 12V, 90Ah battery is about $200. On paper, that is about $200 per kWh. Or about 1/5 of the EGO setup. But I have no clue how the actual usage of a deep cycle stacks up to a lithium ion battery.
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Dec 18, 2019 20:13
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Lifetime of lead acid batteries is worse, and they are much less energy dense. But they are less expensive, though the gap is closing. They have LiPoFe4 car battery replacements that are (IIRC) 2-3x a normal battery.
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Dec 18, 2019 21:01
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Orvin posted:I know it’s possible to use deep cycle lead acid batteries to create a power bank. It’s what phone companies use for their 50V phone system, and what electric utilities use for emergency DC power at substations. I just don’t think there is much of an off the shelf setup. It would totally be a DIY thing. Yeah, looks like if I want to do this, I'll have to go DIY. 
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Dec 18, 2019 21:46
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beep-beep car is go posted:"a generator, but batteries instead". This is known as a UPS. Batteries + inverter = win. Line-interactive UPS systems have a switch that lets you flip over to the batteries when power goes out. Double-conversion is where the grid is powering your battery charger and your batteries+charger are always powering your inverter to power the load. This is how phone company stuff typically works, since they want zero downtime switchover, and double-conversion stuff gives very clean power. Line-interactive is what hospitals and stuff use, since they've got point-of-use batteries for stuff that needs it. Now, you can do this yourself with a big bank of batteries on a charger, then an isolation switch and inverter for the house. Off-the-shelf solutions that will power a house run at about $700/(hr of runtime), give or take.
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Dec 21, 2019 20:26
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beep-beep car is go posted:Yeah, looks like if I want to do this, I'll have to go DIY. Voting this for forum mascot meme.
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Dec 21, 2019 23:27
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I’m probably in the market or a DIY battery. I have an old motor glider that I want to fly with electric power. Have a motor and speed control that expects a 28s lithium battery. Need at least 6 kWh and a peak discharge rate of 25 kW. I’ve been on the lookout for batteries from a wrecked zero but they are few and far between. There is a guy selling model 3 cells for $350 a kWh on endless sphere. Might be easier than 900 18650’s.
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Dec 22, 2019 14:33
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yea get a module. building your own is a stupid amount of hand-work, and I wouldn't want to be flying around on faith in my soldering skills. even in a glider.
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Dec 22, 2019 15:34
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If I build a battery with cylindrical cells it would be welded. But yeah waiting for a motor cycle to have a bad day seems prudent.
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Dec 22, 2019 16:05
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For plane use I would really want a battery with least chance of catching fire. Anything that had gone through a crash would be out. Unless you plan to go for the parachute as soon as you smell a whiff of smoke.
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Dec 22, 2019 17:11
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I put in a lowball offer on a Yeti 1000 on eBay and to my surprise they took it so I'll post some pics and info/experiences with it when it comes in.
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Dec 22, 2019 21:19
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babyeatingpsychopath posted:This is how phone company stuff typically works, since they want zero downtime switchover, and double-conversion stuff gives very clean power.
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Dec 23, 2019 16:26
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Oh, for the thread: https://bigbattery.com/ It was started by the guy who went to jail for reselling Windows recovery CDs. Looks like they take "bad" batteries, break them down, test and condition the cells and build "good" batteries from them. Might be worth looking into for projects.
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Dec 23, 2019 21:51
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beep-beep car is go posted:Oh, for the thread: e: I guess I should define my scale. I'm trying to power a 1200watt motor (more like 700watt while running) for ~5% duty cycle at a remote site. CopperHound fucked around with this message at 07:30 on Dec 27, 2019 |
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Dec 27, 2019 07:22
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What is affordable?
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Dec 27, 2019 15:06
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I came across this video recently and thought it was pretty decent. Might interest some of you in here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ewkj875qUmk
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Dec 28, 2019 17:52
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helno posted:I’m probably in the market or a DIY battery. I built a 0.4 kWh pack out of 36 18650:s using a spot welder, nickel welding strips and 3D printed spacers/brackets for the cells. IMO spot welding is the way to go, soldering directly to cells is a bad idea and soldering wires to pre-welded tabs becomes a massive pain in the rear end really quickly. The problem with 18650s is that they haven't been really designed for any kind of cooling in mind and with a big pack and high discharge current both the cooling and the amount of hardware you need to connect everything together with enough current capacity starts to become an issue... The LiFeYPO4 (3.2V/100Ah) cells used in the video above are massively easier to build a big pack out of, I would definitely pay a bit more for those than try to build a thousand 18650 cell pack. Max discharge rate is just 3C though. I'm considering an putting an electric motor in a sailboat and will probably need 2 kW constant power for at least 2 hours, those cells look pretty good for that use.
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Dec 31, 2019 15:18
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I dunno how much of a difference Yttrium makes, but my understanding was that LFP batteries, despite having better discharge and thermal properties, are simply non-starters due to their much lower energy density (Wh/kg) you could probably care less about that in a sailboat, but when it comes to flight 250Wh/kg is already baaaarely enough for experimental 2-seaters with a half hour of flight time. an LFP battery with half the energy (or twice the weight) would just not work. on a related note, check out this "refueling" video of siemens doing a battery pack swap on a test plane. pause and look closely at 1:04 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TcoTELN729M
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Dec 31, 2019 15:58
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I ordered 8x 20Ah lifepo4 pouches, so I need to figure out how I'm using them exactly.
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Jan 4, 2020 04:42
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I got a free cell somehow, so now I've got 28.8V of lifepo4. The plan is something like this: Bidirectional charger between car and lifepo4 (looking at LTC3871) Eventually add AC charging for the lifepo4, which would let me charge the car battery from AC indirectly 36V supply for audio and inverter is going to be LTC3897, maybe with a system to turn some phases off for better efficiency at low load TAS3251 for amplifiers Cell balancing - not sure, looking at stuff like LTC3300 with active balancing that can move charge between cells and not just cell to pack, might try to clone the 3300 with a little microcontroller Still need to pick a controller and UI stuff. It'd be cool to have an eInk display.
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Jan 10, 2020 22:33
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Finally unboxed the Yeti 1000 I ordered and initial impression is that it's very well put together. It's currently charging before I start messing with it and I'll try to run a few things off of it and report back but if anyone has any questions I'll answer best I can.
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Jan 12, 2020 01:09
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That looks nice, I am a little disappointed it isn't the world's finest cooler. What is 'power pole' charging?
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Jan 12, 2020 03:36
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taqueso posted:What is 'power pole' charging? The red/black DC connectors on it are Andersen PowerPole connectors. Common in ham radio and a few other markets that use a lot of higher-power DC.
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Jan 13, 2020 19:28
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Hey folks, I have a new to me solar setup in a cabin I purchased, and the batteries are inside. They’re two deep cycle marine batteries, flooded style. I’m worried about whether they should be outside, in case they put out dangerous gases. I was thinking batterie box, but then I got to thinking about temperature issues in the various different temps we experience here (-40C ish all the way to plus 40c) thoughts? The cabin is well insulated so I was wondering about seeing if I could vent the batteries where they are now and maybe build a small enclosure or something of the sort. Appreciate any insights thanks
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Jul 8, 2020 13:11
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