Making a cheap power pack for my ebike using chinese 18650 clones suggestions?

mightbaal

100 mW
Joined
Jun 15, 2018
Messages
39
Ok well I know there are a lot of bad things about chinese 18650 cells but I want to make a pack for my E-bike. I want to make it with IMR or LMO batteries as they can discharge alot of amps if needed. I was thinking about making a 15s8p pack. I have ordered 100 of these cells before and I am no expert but they all tested same voltage (within .05v) from the factory and they were sitting in my basement for a year before I decided to test them in other items besides ecigs. I built a 4s6p pack for my kids power wheels with a 80 AMP continuous BMS (peak burst says 160A). The batteries never even got warm and my Imax B6 put over 12000 mah (12 ah right?) worth of charge into them when they were not even close to being dead. I currently have a ebike battery from china that I have had for like 3 years on my bike with a leaf motor 1500w but the controller pulls what it says about 1980w off the line till it tops out around 30-35 mph (flat road). This battery however is made from soft cells and is 48v20ah with a 2c rating. I feel like I am pushing the limits of this pack I had one problem where the solder actually melted on this batteries BMS going up a hill. I Soldered it way better than the chinese did after that. I have a spot welder for these batteries and pure nickel strips. Am I playing with fire (maybe literally) doing this? I can make these so cheap with a high amp draw if needed I always use a BMS for any pack I build. Here are the batteries I want to buy I will select the VTC6 3120 mah ones with 35a continuous discharge rating however I think these are all the same cells just wrapped different. I will attach some of my beta power wheels batteries that have been working good so far from my last batch of batteries. The 6s6p pack I bought a 15a BMS not knowing power wheels actually draws alot of amps and it smoked the crap out of it lol.

https://www.dhgate.com/product/100-top-quality-vtc4-2100mah-vtc5-2600mah/409194632.html#s1-1-1b;searl|3344844083

P.S. About the power wheels battery YES YES I know this is 14 gauge speaker wire I used lol. I have High temp silicone wires that range from like 8 gauge to 12 gauge. Just was for testing dont have picks of the 2nd battery the 4s6p (80A BMS) but im waiting on a BMS for that pack (6s6p) still that is rated for that amp draw.

The pic I was just testing the dumb charger making sure it worked I didnt have any XLMR (?) female adapters at the time
 

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Forgot to add pics of my 2 homemade bikes the Genesis is a 29 inch tire mongoose 26 both cheaper walmart frames "shrug"
 

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Just one suggestion, never bring it inside a house, or attached garage. My fire was caused when cheap clone cells went off.
 
mightbaal said:
I want to make it with IMR or LMO batteries as they can discharge alot of amps if needed.
If you're looking to use specific cells, then you need to buy those actual cells, or you aren't getting cells that were designed to do those specific ratings.

If you buy "clones" then you get whatever they actually made, not what the original cells they say they cloned can do.

Doesn't mean the clone cells might not do what the original cells do, but you have no way of knowing that they will do the same until you test all of them under the same conditions the original cells were tested under, with the same equipment. Unless you trust that the clone makers spent all that money on their own testing labs...yet still charge the cheap prices? :/
 
I am not really aware of any clones, but chances are the cells are repackaged and recycled from old devices or laptop batteries. It does not mean the batteries are bad. If you really want to stay safe, you might want to perform a capacity and IR test before you weld. It may be wise to double the capacity of what you believe you need. These cells may have a higher internal resistance than newer cells.


Batteries getting a second life: https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2018-03-11/china-s-giving-batteries-a-second-life
 
What's your time worth. There are a lot of good inexpensive 18650 that may work a name brand that you know they are reasonably matched.
 
Yea I have had luck with these so far. I've sold some to people at work for ecig mods that have been using them for about a year every day. They draw up to 200w off 2 of these in mods and don't get warm. Btw IMR is the same thing as LMO (Lithium ion manganese oxide).
 
IMR - LMO - Li-manganese. Many of the high-drain batteries used in vaping and flashlights have IMR chemistry. ... It allows your battery to discharge at a high current while maintaining low temperatures. This means that it's safer than many of the older ICR batteries.
 
China dwarfs the rest of the world combined in ebike usage, so they have cells made by the millions. Plus they make most of the cells going into cordless tool packs (ideal type for ebike use as long as you get the capacity you need. Just ask for specs and test reports. I've had good luck with them before switching to salvage electric car batteries.
 
zzoing said:
Its cheaper to buy from tumich here... some good chinese cells cost about 1 usd for 2200. Imr clones. They probably have half lifespan and reliability of pasanobic battries.they will lose rage after 100 cycles by my experiene. Get some tumich listed ones here.

Link???
 
https://endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=61608 ... to find the page I just write... tumich endless sphere... on google. good seller. I tend to go with panasonic because they are rock solid, I kept some of tumich's batteries charged at 4.2 volts for a year and forgot about them... then I built a pack and all the cells were of equal even after some being shelved at wrong voltage.
 
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