Has anyone built a 18650 Cell battery bank that's designed around the Kid's spec's?
I bought a kid when they first came out and it's still sitting in the box along with (2) Grape Solar 250 watt Poly panels.
Looking into battery banks and thought I'd ask this group their thoughts before I call and bother Midnight's support.
Mark
Excuse my ignorance, but what is a 18650 cell battery bank?
Dgd
Quote from: dgd on July 05, 2016, 03:34:42 PM
Excuse my ignorance, but what is a 18650 cell battery bank?
Dgd
18650 type Lithium Ion cells?
Gotta love the guess what I mean game . ;D
Pretty sure he means those little AA or AAA size cells. Or not.
Tom
They are a super sized lithium ion battery 3.7 volts and around 3.4 amps.
I use them in torches and headlamps.
Also they are used in electric smoke pipes and the like.
also known from laptop battery packs.
Open some old packs and get some 18650 for the e-cigarette :D
Are you talking about using used LiPo 18650 cells ?
Can be dangerous and cause fires charging those if they get out of balance.
Go to Endless Sphere forums and look up battery technology section there.
https://endless-sphere.com/forums/viewforum.php?f=14&sid=5ebbb98d782b8d1a8a16daae3541edaf
Many discussions on building packs with those.
Not a good idea unless you have proper balancing BMS system and a fire proof place to put the battery bank !
Larry
Thanks Larry, I'll check out the discussion.
Mark
Edit: different style of battery. 18650's are a lot safer from what I've read.
Quote from: Jumbicat on July 06, 2016, 03:55:59 AM
Thanks Larry, I'll check out the discussion.
Mark
Edit: different style of battery. 18650's are a lot safer from what I've read.
LiFePo4 are safer , LiPo will make fires much more easily from what I have read up on them.
Some of the ebike crowd on the Endless Sphere will post photo's of burned up walls in their garage or burned up bikes - usually caused because they bulk charge their battery packs instead of balance charging them. When they get an imbalance things can get very hot .
I have been using LiFePo4 Headway 10 AH lithium battery on my ebike for last 5 years and no problems, even though I have made some very poor mistakes at imbalance charging before I knew better.
There is a video on internet where a guy intentionally abuses different types of Lithium cells to see what happens and which ones burn up and which don't do that very easily.
If you want to use lithium batteries for solar - these days the choice seems to be CALB batteries . Maybe when and if Tesla really ever starts making their lithium storage packs and you can actually buy one for what they were advertising price as - that will be the better one but not on the market now .
Larry
Larry
I'm not using "Fake" or factory rejects which are most likely the cause of most problems. I'm harvesting cells from notebook batteries and or medical devices. Each cell is being stressed test to find it's capacity. Hopefully, I'll be able to build a pack that all cells are at least 2000mah. It's going to take time to find, sort, test and re-test before fabrication starts. I'll fuse each cell to be safe.
Not sure it's going to be worth the effort. I'd buy a Tesla Powerwall but not ready to invest in required hardware to run one. They should be available in 2017. I understand 2016 is already sold.
I do like the CALB batteries. Some projects I've been following have replaced the CALB bank with 18650 banks. (Samba Project) Too soon to find out if the change is worth it. There's a few folks that have built powerwalls using 18650 cells. I hope they are forthcoming on any downside to using 18650 cells. Internet is nice, but need to understand some stuff on YouTube is complete utter bu**sh%t.
Mark
Edit: I might add that when researching solar charge controllers, I read where a couple of engineers left OutBack to start their own company. They wanted to add additional features and were told no? Or they had a different approach to design. That's what I took away from the article. I bought the kid and from what little I've used it, I'm very happy with it. I'm sure with the right parameters, it will charge LiPo batteries safely.