Lithium 18650 Pack Maintenance

[@delboy4711]

When soldering my packs I leave some slack on the fuse wire otherwise they can easily snap again while handling the pack.

[@AdamWelchUK]

That’s probably a sensible idea. Thanks

[@gregb1714]

Maybe time to check the fuses in the other packs, you might not even notice on the graphs if one cell is disconnected.

[@AdamWelchUK]

Absolutely. I’ll be doing that soon.

[@BoHolbo]

Adam Welch Have you thought of gluing 3 wooden dowels into the holes between the cells? (On both sides) That way, you don’t have to mess around with a piece of plastic every time you need to work on the packs. Best regards

[@tl1024]

Mr Welch, please consider a "best of roundup" of the MPPT charge controllers you have reviewed. I, and I'm sure many others, would like a bit of a consolidated review video of the ones that were true MPPT. You have tons of good reviews, but so many you reviewed missed the true mark of MPPT.

[@Peter_S_]

Cheers from Boulder, Colorado, USA! Excellent video, Adam. Keep them coming!

[@delboy4711]

KZbinr 'Average Joe' did an interesting series of videos on fusing 18650 cells. The conclusion was that the rating on fuse wire is the current at which they are guaranteed NOT to blow. The actual current necessary to blow can be much higher and depends on factors like length. Based on his conclusions I soldered one end of my cells with 5A wire (simply because it was convenient), and the other end with 1A Pico fuses which were found to reliably blow at 2A. This was fine for my system and well within the expected current for normal operation. I think I got the Pico fuses for about £2 for a thousand from AliExpress.

[@AdamWelchUK]

Yeah I did a video a long while ago looking at fuses and made the same conclusion. Generally took twice the rated current to quickly blow a fuse. Over current situations could last quite a while at currents just over the rating.

[@viocaia]

Nice done..but I wonder why you fuse both plus and minus...?

[@mark-]

now you found 4 broken fuses in one pack, make me wonder how the rest of the fuses are in all the other packs

[@SuperBrainAK]

woops! probably a good reason to get the glass fuses since they are less prone to breaking, thanks for sharing!

[@bastianestebanezneira1540]

Hi Adam, sorry my bad english. I think I did not understand why the fuses were blown, what was the reason? an overload? , a discharge with a lot of power? hot? (sorry if you said it in the video, I have not noticed). I think those 4 batteries 18650 should be replaced by new ones, or recycled in good condition. To avoid the same failure in the future. You can also mark the batteries 18650 with a marker because if they fail again you know if they are the same ones that are "damaged" A greeting from Spain

[@midnight7297]

Great project. I can get a load of salvaged batteries for free. Approximately how many would I need of ok to good quality batteries, to perform the equivalent of a Tesla Powerwall in capacity? And how much roughly would it cost to do, factoring in free batteries? (I would need to get some solar panels too - but prob don't need to factor that in yet either). Would love to use these to help feed my electric car etc at night too

[@mmtruckingllc657]

Very informative! Great video, God bless you and your family!

[@John-gm8ty]

time you made a spot welder Adam

[@Martin-uf4ut]

Hi Adam. I can see the status of your BMS live now lol

[@chrispfeil6605]

Coool, so how does this capacity test versus the other packs? Are there any heaters in the pack? I appreciate reattaching some fuses while the pack is out is the easy fix, it’s missing most of the important checks though. I guess you’ll be able to see if it pulls into line and is obviously lower capacity with it trending highest/lowest over time though, so it’s s start.

[@jamest.5001]

It's been quite some time, and I'm being lazy and going to just ask, what are you using to get that battery charge monitor graph,?? I could really use something like that! I also need a real bms, I'm using 4 x 100amp small bms , for my 12v LIFePo4, bank, and I need to get my 7s 1400 cell bank in service, the lead acid needs to be used for back up power only! I was just thinking, I have likely over 1,000 lbs of lead acid batteries, and I'm going to be needing them moved!! That sucks! L-16's are heavy!! Great show, and good day!

[@AdamWelchUK]

The diyBMS and my tracer A charge controllers log their stats to influxdb. I then display this using grafana. It’s all done on a raspberry pi using Colin Hickeys script and guide. Works really well. Check out his videos on here for the full explanation.

[@williamjamesenkerwitz9495]

My question is are these batterys really worth it at the ends of the day after all its a lot of money......from South Africa

[@jamest.5001]

I can't find the fuse wire anywhere locally, and ordered, if I can find it again! Can take nearly 2 months!!

[@Reg-th6zq]

Why do you have a fuse in both the + & - ends of each cell? NOT neccesary! This will not add any additional protection to that cell. This was pointed out many decades ago with the simple demonstration of taking a piece of paper and cutting 2 equel cuts half way across, each cut representing a fuse. When the paper was pulled apart it broke only in one area where it had been cut.

[@AdamWelchUK]

If you go back through my videos you’ll find I agree - it adds no extra protection what so ever. It does however seem to be the easiest way to solder the cells to the bus bar without a spot welder. So repeating on both sides simply made my life easier (and I like symmetry)!

[@Reg-th6zq]

Yes, but with fuses only on one side and solid copper to the other, you would not have to prod both sides as now, just a thought, as you want a simpler life.

[@markauenhofer29]

Hey m8! Would you recommend tenpower 28HE für ebikes? For example 750W maximum.

[@electronic7979]

Very good 👍

[@offgriddreaming5403]

Nice Adam, that’s pack should be much happier now! I wonder if you will get 1KW now? 😊

[@AdamWelchUK]

It’d be nice wouldn’t it. Need to double check the other packs now - I’ve clearly mishandled them at some point. Cheers from dropping by.

[@MikesDIYTeslaPowerwall]

Would be good to see if any of the other packs have a cell fuse broken too

[@AdamWelchUK]

Yeah. I should take the others down. I’ll report back if there is anything major to report. Cheers mike

[@mikeypeters7003]

Do you have any tutorial videos showing how to make a simple solar charge station, with a smallish solar panel. . Just enough to charge a 12 battery or equivalent. Nothing to complicated, but just to use as an emergency supply for low drain devices. Something to start me off, and to move onto greater things. Thank you.

[@AdamWelchUK]

Try this one out for size. It’s a simple system I use to keep my caravan battery charged up when it’s not in use... Starting with Solar & Maintaining your Caravan Battery in Storage - 12v Solar Shed kzbin.info/www/bejne/mGjNoWZuqKt2fqM

[@mikeypeters7003]

Thank you looks simple enough. Be nice to be able to run items on it while it charging. Just the simple set up I want to start with. Love you videos, very informative.

[@yv6eda]

Great catch Adam!

[@Nostrildomus]

Do you get a bonus when having twenty minute infomercials or are we being youtubed ?

[@bgreenatetihad]

Thanks for the video Adam. One question from me....wouldn't you have expected that the DIY BMSs would have kept the packs more balanced than they were, even though one pack was a different total capacity?

[@AdamWelchUK]

To be honest I’m really impressed with the top balancing the diyBMS has managed to do. This pack was about a fifth down on capacity - so it charged much quicker and the diyBMS dealt with that quite quickly (even though I’ve fitted reasonably high bypass resistors resulting in a fairly low bypass current). I haven’t been discharging this pack significantly, and that’s where this version of the diyBMS would struggle because it doesn’t have any low voltage protections. Stuart’s new design does however - I need to by some more components to give it a go.

[@darrenslater1913]

would you say, this experience lends any credence to the solderless methods becoming available ( although the prices smart a little )

[@AdamWelchUK]

I think it’s most likely I mishandled the pack to break the fuses. I think any connection method has a risk of failure - cheap or otherwise.

[@imchris1978]

You need to add cable ties on the outside edges stops the pack flexing when your handling it

[@AdamWelchUK]

I see what you mean. Might give that a go. Thanks.

[@tg_privat]

Very nice. Your videos are real inspiration to me. But I was somehow expecting some kind of a sophisticated problem with this pack. A faulty cell or something. Not just broken fuses. :-) I had a bad experience a few days ago with a pair of cells harvested from a laptop battery as a pair. They were behaving strangely for some time. When I separated them, I found out, one was totaly dead and draining the other one. It was totaly new to me, as long as many people on YT are claiming, this almost never happens. And this kind of fuseless pair could be pretty dangerous. I watched your video expecting something similar happened to your pack and the fuses were blown because of a short. Somehow disapointed at the end. :-)

[@AdamWelchUK]

Well I’ll be honest that was my suspicion. I expected that I would have to unsolder all the fuses and use the IR meter I bought recently to identify a dead or dying cell. As it turned out, I’d obviously just been too heavy handed at some point and snapped the fuses! I think I’ll take the others down soon and check them over who knows there might be more issues to fix.

[@krzysztofkozorys516]

Hello Adam,best regards from Poland.

[@AdamWelchUK]

Hello from England!

[@darkknight145]

Get rid of the fuses on the bottom of the batteries, might be time for you to make up a small spot welder to weld the tabs onto your batteries ... can be made from a microwave transformer (not inverter type) ..... a good project!

[@AdamWelchUK]

Yeah it’s been on my list for a while. I guess I jumped the gun a bit when I built my packs.

[@tg_privat]

There could be a problem spotwelding over soldered connections. I tryed to do it, but thre was extensive sparking. If I would remove all the slolder maybe. It is not worth the effort.

[@treelibrarian7618]

easier just to resolder with less delicate copper wire (0.6mm?) surely...

[@mondotv4216]

Adam Welch I was going to ask why you’d fused both positive and negative?

[@LeeFall]

Will you be upgrading to BMS V4? I just completed 7 v3's and now waiting for components for v4. Looks a lot easier than v3! Keep up the great videos Adam!

[@AdamWelchUK]

I’ll most definitely be looking at version 4. I’ve got a plan for it. :-)

[@LeeFall]

@@AdamWelchUK Awesome Adam cant wait to build along with you.

[@zr7699]

Be used for fuse wire?

[@kevinpham8641]

Please give me a link for BMS that you had on this video ? Thank you.

[@AdamWelchUK]

github.com/stuartpittaway/diyBMS Stuart has updated it now though to v4

[@alexandreesquenet3736]

at 4:10, you should be a dentist ^^ This is the problem with the parallel cells balancing issue after the fuse broke. I love my Lifeypo4 200Ah Winston batteries ^^

[@DavidBTB]

That doesn't look like the DIY BMS software. What application are you using to get those graphs and historical data?

[@AdamWelchUK]

I’m using Colin Hickeys adaptation on the diyBMS code and reporting the data to influxdb, which then is read by grafana to display the historical data.

[@andybarnard4575]

There also seems to be some dashboards where the data has come straight from a tracer a. Have you a video on that? I've been experimenting with reading modbus interface directly on a tracer N but for the time being am just dumping data to MQTT.

[@AdamWelchUK]

Andy Barnard Well spotted! No I haven’t done a video on it - it’s all Colin Hickeys work. If you jump over to his channel you’ll find guides on how to do that.

[@andybarnard4575]

Thanks Adam. He shows tracer to influx db to grafana. As I've already got my tracer data in mqtt and there is an mqtt plug in for influx db it looks like I can make my own variant.

[@rm6857]

4cells is 20% of pack capacity? Would like to see charging/discharging graphs after reconnecting these 4 cells.

[@zr7699]

Can magnet wire

[@KrX3D]

very nice. keep us updated. i should also check mine since its doing its job for more than 8 months. i use to power my wemos an wemos dc power shield, it looks cleaner than this hanging dc converter :P also it would still be nice if you could upload your 3d wemos part ;)

[@AdamWelchUK]

Yes you’re correct - that was a quick fix which has remained for too long. I’ll try and upload the parts somewhere soon.

[@fraaggl]

If i'm correct, the solar system that i see must cost at least twice the price of using normal electricity ! Where is the advantage to that ?

[@AdamWelchUK]

You’re absolutely right that financially this probably isn’t ever going to pay me back - but I enjoy the process of building and using the system. To make it more cost neutral you’d need a bigger system to offset a bigger chunk of your normal day to day use of power.

[@fraaggl]

I agree with you, making your own installation give you some much pleasure and knowledge ! I really like the way you've soldered your 18650. I'm use to the classic Nickel strip and spot soldering station. But your way is more stylish and secure i presume. How do you know which size of fuse cable to use ?

[@technologicalsingularity1788]

Another load test please!!!

[@nomadic_rider42]

I'm not a big fan of using fuse wire, instead I bought a pack of glass-fuses with leads and using them instead.

[@KenSentMe-]

I just received 4A polyswitches (or poly switch). I use those for my 66Ah @12v battery pack which i will be using for electric trolling motor. Polys are nice because they are auto reseting.

[@pulesjet]

Must have taken a knock about at some point.

[@AdamWelchUK]

Yes I probably was a bit heavy handed at some point.

[@grahamrdyer6322]

Time to do solar trackers,

[@scottpowell6145]

wire gauge way to small. I know whoever soldered these batteries did manage to solder all leads. wire gauge way to small.

[@AdamWelchUK]

Way too small for what?

[@KennethTanFotografie]

A somewhat disappointing video as it shows an important failure but you do not investigate the possible cause. Just repairing and replacing always gives me the chills. I hope you have time to do a followup video to research the cause. Looks like you could check the other packs inline because there is enough space to get in between. Maybe with a small endoscope camera?

[@AdamWelchUK]

I think these have been broken through mishandling. Fuses fuse in the middle when they blow due to excessive current (because the connections at each end draw away some heat) these were all broken at the end, so this was a mechanical failure I’m fairly sure. Also the disconnected cells were holding a good voltage. Nothing pointed to an over current situation.

[@kevinpham8641]

Please give me a link for Longmon system that you had on this video? Thank you.