Battery Packs...

[DaLanMan]

I am involved in a lot of weird things due to an unexpected event in my world. My best friend got cancer. He is now living with us and I am doing my best to keep abreast of his medical expenes. Not gonna whinge, I chose this, but it has meant since I can't go back to my old career, I have to get lots of hustle on.

This lead to a lot of odd things, and this months was weirder than most. I am going to be the proud owner of a truck-load of battery packs that are currently in the hands of a company going out of business. These were intended for field replacement of some kind of rental vehicle, not clear on what (never asked honestly I will find out when I get them) I lots of back and forth later and I am paying a song and a dance per unit and delayed buying til I found something to do with them.

My understanding thus far, they were purchased to field swap old batteries, the locality that they were in started banning the rentals. so, lots of spares, no business for them to go into.

The first thing I dug into was asking around my old stomping grounds for needs/wants. Lots of details later I had a request to in essence make something like this:
I know, it is temu, but it is just referance I had someone that wanted this for distribuition along with an electric thermal throw for homeless folks in a cold zone... With the intent that it is mounted in a box with a port on it for cel phone charging and so forth.

Since I have seen basal data on these I can't give out info on specific Cels til tomorrow... I will have more info on what exactly is in the box when the box gets here. I have built out one test unit and delivered to the charity group, they seemed fairly happy and while it doesn't do a lot to move the chemo cost needle. It justified the expenditure.

So folks, I have some moderate skills at Fab work, the free time of a semi-retired man on a mission, and you nice folks that all seem fairly brilliant and might have a need I can fill.

I will follow up tomorrow afternoon with more specifics, oh, and if you have a need for what is essentially a hard swappable 12v battery lemme know, I am hoping to bust out 20-40/week with current staff :: ok, it is me, my wife, and a few volunteers from the "save our besty from cancer" club... This club however is mostly IT people and engineers from Cal and UCLA. so we are over educated, probably a bit smug and in my case grumpy (retired Rangers evidently are all grumpy)

Let me know your thoughts,. I will turn this into a better sales point based on your feedback.

Happy Holidays.,

 

[jetpackjbd]

I am involved in a lot of weird things due to an unexpected event in my world. My best friend got cancer. He is now living with us and I am doing my best to keep abreast of his medical expenes. Not gonna whinge, I chose this, but it has meant since I can't go back to my old career, I have to get lots of hustle on.

This lead to a lot of odd things, and this months was weirder than most. I am going to be the proud owner of a truck-load of battery packs that are currently in the hands of a company going out of business. These were intended for field replacement of some kind of rental vehicle, not clear on what (never asked honestly I will find out when I get them) I lots of back and forth later and I am paying a song and a dance per unit and delayed buying til I found something to do with them.

My understanding thus far, they were purchased to field swap old batteries, the locality that they were in started banning the rentals. so, lots of spares, no business for them to go into.

The first thing I dug into was asking around my old stomping grounds for needs/wants. Lots of details later I had a request to in essence make something like this:
I know, it is temu, but it is just referance I had someone that wanted this for distribuition along with an electric thermal throw for homeless folks in a cold zone... With the intent that it is mounted in a box with a port on it for cel phone charging and so forth.

Since I have seen basal data on these I can't give out info on specific Cels til tomorrow... I will have more info on what exactly is in the box when the box gets here. I have built out one test unit and delivered to the charity group, they seemed fairly happy and while it doesn't do a lot to move the chemo cost needle. It justified the expenditure.

So folks, I have some moderate skills at Fab work, the free time of a semi-retired man on a mission, and you nice folks that all seem fairly brilliant and might have a need I can fill.

I will follow up tomorrow afternoon with more specifics, oh, and if you have a need for what is essentially a hard swappable 12v battery lemme know, I am hoping to bust out 20-40/week with current staff :: ok, it is me, my wife, and a few volunteers from the "save our besty from cancer" club... This club however is mostly IT people and engineers from Cal and UCLA. so we are over educated, probably a bit smug and in my case grumpy (retired Rangers evidently are all grumpy)

Let me know your thoughts,. I will turn this into a better sales point based on your feedback.

Happy Holidays.,

What’s the specs on it? Size, amperage output, battery configuration, BMS included? If the battery packs you have are like the listing you showed, I could really use some for my scooter

 

[DaLanMan]

Currently I am literally buying kits off of alibaba, so the link provided is the actual case. I am in discussion about alternatives, but this is a pretty standardized case in a lot of environments and it is ... questionable if I should use a custom one.

So, it comes with 21 batteries (looks at the pile of stuff he needs to catch up on) which I have still not gotten out of a casement yet to get specifics.

It has the following specs from the site:
Model:Battery Storage Box
External Dimension:150*87*130mm
Internal Dimension:143*80*110mm
Color: Black,Orange
BMS: 3S 40A Balance BMS
Material: ABS Plastic

I have a couple items in route to me to see if I want to either offer them, or incorporate them

Turmera 2S-8S 5V-30V Smart Multi-funtion Battery Capacity Displayer for 12V 24V Lithium Battery Lifepo4 Battery Lead-Acid Use
will give a little display on the top of the unit so you know where it stands. I have enough overhead to fit things in. Just not sure quite yet what exactly it will be.

I have a group of people kind of driving this project forward, they are focused on helping the homeless and destitute, once I started playing with it, I had a number of people have some ideas for things they wanted. so kind of from the top:

1) a framework of slots these will fit into to work as an add-on to a power wall (I think he actually has a Tesla unit, I know he has the solar panel shingles on his place.)
2) modular unit for a mobil power station, so you can swap batteries out instead of needing to stop to wait for the charge to get laid down (this is for a company that has 20 work-trucks no idea what they do, but evidently they do it with a power bank)
3) My son wants me to make an adapter to put on his e-bike rack so he can mob out all day instead of for 3 hours.

I am seeing the potential because these batteries are the same dimension as a motorcycle battery and as some used in UPS systems, they from what I know about electronics (that is a thin statement) they should slot right into any of these without too much effort.

Just my idle thoughts... Now, back to the Honey Dew list.

 

[DaLanMan]

Ok, the good, the bad and the just weird...

This battery was *not* what I was expecting first off, it has 40 units 18650
marked:
INR 18650MH1
+GA217h055n1
This lead me to Here
So, it appears we have legit LG battery bits in our bobs...

Now, I am not gonna swear on it, and if someone else withh better knowledge would like to chime in, I would actually appreciate it.

So I assume I ahve a 1024p config which matches a *LOT* of out of the box store bikes.

We now know what these batteries are.

I am fairly certain I can comfortable sell them (expecting about 10-20% bad cel rate because I am an optimist.) for roughly a dollar a cel with all the bibs and bobs needed to compile them into the package again.
The package with its assundries:
10.00 Case and pre-printed brackets
3,00 bms
25,00 Bluetooth BMS if desired (i think my cost FOB my place is like 25ish dollars)
12,00 There is also in some of these going to be installed a gang box with an on/off switch, USB and cig lighter adapter
2.00 if the free shipping statement is true. and a battery status display
21,00 for used cels. (as shown)

So depending on options chosen, I can hopefully kick them out the door at 55-60 bucks.

Looks like I will be able to crank out between 150 and 300 units.
with an expected output of 12v and (counts on fingers) 67200 MAH I need more sleep...

Bit of quick research and that price is matched on alibaba not including shipping, but there will be shipping anyways unless folks are gonna cwing by my house to trade lies and buy batteries.

In any case, gonna do the following today.
Test out all these cels'
assemble the first unit and see how it flies.
build the outer box with the displays and ports etc on it.
Then test that a bit, then give it to my kid to see if he breaks it in the next couple of days.

So as of now, not sure I can say I am better than ALibaba, except if there is a problem I will do my best to fix it and I actually answer my phone.

I am inside the number I have to hit for getting these to the local charity for givve-away, i just need to find some boyscouts with soldering irons or something.

It looks like I have a few boxes of LG 21700 4800mah as well, so will be looking into those later today.

So, lemme know what ya'all think. I am gonna be pushing these out and have more available than the local charity can purchase, so I will have spares.

I will also work with you for what you want, I have well, we all buy at basically the same place, if you have a preference for BMS or whatnot. i will work it in for you.

 

[lnanek]

If you want to try your hand at something that sells for a bit more than standard packs, Grin's LiGo cells were quite popular for a while:

LiGo Batteries - Grin Products - Product Info

The LiGo battery is a modular 36V pack designed and manufactured at Grin that is just under the 100 Wh limit allowed for passenger air travel. This allows you to bring multiple small batteries with you in your carry-on baggage, and then hook the packs together to behave as a single large battery...

ebikes.ca

You can break them apart to fly on planes legally and build varying voltage systems. Yet they still have modern protections RC lipo batteries don't, like balancing BMS, charge indicators, and anti-spark connectors.

Standard packs off AliExpress aren't really designed to handle all the voltage you get putting them in series. The cheapest, like UPP, don't even balance. They are made at super cheap prices as well, so it's tough to make any profit making them.

 

[DaLanMan]

It isn't about what can be sold, the entire project was kicked off to support a charitable event. I will look into it though, never know what will come of it, Thanks!

 

[999zip999]

What are you building these 12 volt batteries for. What do you see as their uses ? What type of spot welder do you have ?

 

[DaLanMan]

It started off with a homeless chap that used to work at my old warehouse, he came around asking for work, and since it was me and a bunch of other lazy engineers, there was always something needing done. So I hired em, 2 days a week, don't show up under the influence or it is your last day and off to the races.

He got adopted by the guys who bought out that portion of the company after I left.

Well in any case, he was stopping by off-shift to charge things, phones, game boy with rechargable batts etc. I realised around that time that the lack of electricity is a bigger and bigger problem for people trying to get off the streets.

So, leads up to today, pretty much the best offering you can make to portable power for those in need works out to be 12v because it is safe, not likely to electrocute, hard to jack up, easy to connect etc.

I got involved with a group doing research to help in disasters, a packed unit with power, basic lighting, some kind of heating option for sterilising water etc was on the table, This is still on-going but I ended up cranking out a dozen of the units, 21 cels, 12v 40ish amp...

In ant case, they were extremely well received, at first I was 3d printing a cap for them to pop enclosures into, then a guy ordered the same cap injection molded which made it much easier (and faster) so It has a removable cap that has an info screen, usb ports, and a couple of plug in ports for various things. They will even do a nice job of boiling a bit of water (with the items needed being generally cheap and available at any truck stop, rv place, better gas stations etc)

There is even a built in low intensity light on one end, and a directional light on the other (honestly I still want to strip that, it is a terrible design and not built for easy carrying, even after I whipped up a paracord handle system for it) These can be matched up with a small solar panel and a charger and you can get power from a lot of places if you look for it, and we keep everything to the safest levels possible, even the choice of charge port was a big issue (barrel chargers are inherently kind of shit and do not have longevity in the planning as anyone that has owned a laptop can tell ya)

I am currently the person in charge of the power system out of a group bidding on the Fema funding to build hand-out units, lots of details that are boring, but we are partially funded to finish the use case study and then we will move on to actually proto-typing it.

So yeah, the idea started when I ran across this unit (not the original source)
Temu's link
I paid more for that first one, but I have ordered most recently off of Alibaba (100pcs) and am talking to that vendor about changing the layout. It seems a good idea to make this more direct to my application than universally kind of bad.

As for the spot welder, I have the vevor one:
Vevor 737G

Now don't get me wrong, it is literally the cheapest one you can get as far as I can tell, (well non hand held blah blah) and it worked like that. Few mods later and it is still a cheap POS, but it is a highly functional cheap POS. I might upgrade a couple more things but I am getting dangerously close to "wouldn't it be better.." Which inevitably leads to wife aggro, not up to the whole golf ball level of wife aggro, but it could approach it.
(Short version of golf balls... I bought a couple pallets of them really cheap to re-sell. I don't play golf, no one I know plays golf, turns out golfers are a bit clickish and wierd about things like balls. I am down to the last case of them, never to be repeated, I did make some serious change from it though)