Becoming a Vendor of EV Hardware in Canada, Starting with Li-ion Cells at Decent Prices.

[walterwitt]

Hello Everyone,

My name's Chris Witt, and I'm new to the forum, but have had a longstanding interest in EV's and other battery powered devices for most of my adult life. After discussing with @BlueSwordM how sad the availability of really any modern cells is in Canada is, I've decided to take a leap and start a small business. With it, I will start selling 18650 and 21700 cells at reasonable prices, and then expand into other DIY EV, and maker/inventor related hardware. My goal is to become a hardware store for the hardware not found at regular hardware stores, specifically aimed at makers/hobbyists/inventors. I won't sell any finished products just hardware and maybe also some tools.

My business name is Motion Power & Witt Supply Co. And I've been slowly working my way through the required regulations and best practices for offering bare lithium-ion cells for sale across Canada. I know that because Li-ion cells are inherently dangerous, all sellers must explicitly state that they reject any liability from their products and so this industry relies wholly on trust and transparency from vendors on the testing they perform and the safety measures they take. and I plan to do just that, starting with my preparations for safely and legally transporting dangerous goods.

The government of Canada requires that all persons who import, transport, or offers for transport dangerous goods must (with some exceptions) complete a transportation of dangerous goods training course and receives a certificate for this training, which I have just recently completed.

With this training, I learned all about the packaging, labeling and documentation requirements, and as such I have now gathered all the materials I need to start shipping batteries across the country.

I also want to share with you all some pictures of my self made minimum standard for packaging cells (plus other items I plan on selling) to comply with regulations and ensure no cells are ever damaged in transport.




Sorry the box is a bit scuffed, I was using it for practice with different layouts and types of packing.

Let me know if you have any comments about my packing, or anything else you'd like to see before you consider buying cells from me! I plan on releasing details of my storage setup once I have it all together, and then details on what cells I plan on offering, how much, and where to buy from.

I look forward to any comments you have for me, and I look forward to making this business a success!

 

[Nix Liou]

This is likely an unnecessary concern, but I would recommend using spacers that don't support the cells only by small tabs on the ends for shipping. I ship cells with similar overall packaging, except that I use 5"x5"x3" cardboard boxes to hold sets of 25 21700 cells.
I shipped some cells previously in rigid plastic spacers and had occasional issues with dents or damage, so I switched to using spacers that contact the entire length of the cell.

When purchasing cells from reputable US vendors such as 18650BS, I found them using a similar strategy with 5x5x3 boxes and thin cardboard spacers like in the image below. Despite not having a snug fit like plastic spacers, simply cushioning the cells with cardboard seems to result in less damage and marking on the cells (assuming the outer packaging is thorough).



Anyways, I think your packaging methods are likely totally fine as well, since the most important part is having lots of layers of foam and padding between interior and exterior boxes.

 

[neptronix]

Very cool and i wish you the best of luck. This sounds like a cool business.

Have you considered selling completed batteries? right now the main games in town are affordableebikes and grin technologies.
At the moment they don't offer anything beyond a 5ah cell, but we know 6.5ah cells are out there.
Same case with em3ev, one of my favorite suppliers.

I know this is not what you are going for but there is a strange hole in this market. I would be one of the first buyers if you offered such a thing.

 

[walterwitt]

This is likely an unnecessary concern, but I would recommend using spacers that don't support the cells only by small tabs on the ends for shipping. I ship cells with similar overall packaging, except that I use 5"x5"x3" cardboard boxes to hold sets of 25 21700 cells.
I shipped some cells previously in rigid plastic spacers and had occasional issues with dents or damage, so I switched to using spacers that contact the entire length of the cell.

When purchasing cells from reputable US vendors such as 18650BS, I found them using a similar strategy with 5x5x3 boxes and thin cardboard spacers like in the image below. Despite not having a snug fit like plastic spacers, simply cushioning the cells with cardboard seems to result in less damage and marking on the cells (assuming the outer packaging is thorough).

View attachment 384692

Anyways, I think your packaging methods are likely totally fine as well, since the most important part is having lots of layers of foam and padding between interior and exterior boxes.

Thanks for the feedback, Right now, the main reason I'm going with dedicated cell holders is because I kind of want to drive home the fact that the cells I'm selling are meant to be used in pack building. So including the spacers with the cells not only acts as effective packaging, but also is a value add to people using the cells as intended. Now, if someone's building a very custom pack that needs a completely different layout than simple square holders will do, than I'll have a seperate item at a larger quantity that sells the cells in factory packaging, as I feel like packs like that are almost always gonna be using 50+ cells.

Very cool and i wish you the best of luck. This sounds like a cool business.

Have you considered selling completed batteries? right now the main games in town are affordableebikes and grin technologies.
At the moment they don't offer anything beyond a 5ah cell, but we know 6.5ah cells are out there.
Same case with em3ev, one of my favorite suppliers.

I know this is not what you are going for but there is a strange hole in this market. I would be one of the first buyers if you offered such a thing.

Yeah, like you said, it doesn't really fit my business model, I would however be willing to sell the required BMS, Tabs, spot welder and holders in the right layout for the pack. do you have a link to more info at all?

 

[walterwitt]

I made a quick video showing what I have for my storage and packaging setup. it's a bit messy and incomplete but it shows what I'm working towards!

 

[A-DamW]

... I would however be willing to sell the required BMS, Tabs, spot welder and holders in the right layout for the pack. do you have a link to more info at all?

I have bought more than 10 BMS's from JBD, on their aliexpress store, specifically the SP17S005(10-17s) and the SP14S004(7-14s).
Dirt cheap, reliable, tiny, bluetooth built-in.
I have left one connected to a smallish, 13s ~6AH (~300WH) unused battery for over a year as a test, it did very slowly evenly drain(not empty, ~3.8vpc start, 3.5vpc @15 months) it, but I would say if you were charging/using the battery every 6 months or so, totally fine to leave hooked up.

JBD aliexpress store

SP14S004 model

Also, JBD has been around awhile, their bluetooth protocol is very well documented, and there is lots of open source code to read data directly from the bms.

For phone apps, OverkillSolar has a free and open source (no ads) full featured(user can adjust all available settings) app for Android and iOS

Here is another application I wrote and released open source for JBD bms's making-bmss-vesc-compatible

 

[walterwitt]

I have bought more than 10 BMS's from JBD, on their aliexpress store, specifically the SP17S005(10-17s) and the SP14S004(7-14s).
Dirt cheap, reliable, tiny, bluetooth built-in.
I have left one connected to a smallish, 13s ~6AH (~300WH) unused battery for over a year as a test, it did very slowly evenly drain(not empty, ~3.8vpc start, 3.5vpc @15 months) it, but I would say if you were charging/using the battery every 6 months or so, totally fine to leave hooked up.

JBD aliexpress store

SP14S004 model

Also, JBD has been around awhile, their bluetooth protocol is very well documented, and there is lots of open source code to read data directly from the bms.

For phone apps, OverkillSolar has a free and open source (no ads) full featured(user can adjust all available settings) app for Android and iOS

Here is another application I wrote and released open source for JBD bms's making-bmss-vesc-compatible

JBD was exactly the brand I was gonna try and get for sale lol! Are you sure that's there official AliExpress store? It doesn't even have JBD in their name, and I've found several others claiming to be the official store.

 

[A-DamW]

JBD was exactly the brand I was gonna try and get for sale lol! Are you sure that's there official AliExpress store? It doesn't even have JBD in their name, and I've found several others claiming to be the official store.

Hmmn, that's a good question. I have it in my bookmarks that it is the official store, but that in no way guarantees anything.

Thanks for checking me on that link(I have a LOT of bookmarks) I believe this one is correct (I will edit my post above with the correct link)
Looks like they have 4.9 out of 5 stars, 143 reveiws, 1000+ sold.
And their name is
JBD BMS Official Store

 

[walterwitt]

I've posted another video update of my setup that shows how I'm storing, testing, and shipping cells from my storage locker to all across Canada .

 

[walterwitt]

I have bought more than 10 BMS's from JBD, on their aliexpress store, specifically the SP17S005(10-17s) and the SP14S004(7-14s).
Dirt cheap, reliable, tiny, bluetooth built-in.
I have left one connected to a smallish, 13s ~6AH (~300WH) unused battery for over a year as a test, it did very slowly evenly drain(not empty, ~3.8vpc start, 3.5vpc @15 months) it, but I would say if you were charging/using the battery every 6 months or so, totally fine to leave hooked up.

JBD aliexpress store

SP14S004 model

Also, JBD has been around awhile, their bluetooth protocol is very well documented, and there is lots of open source code to read data directly from the bms.

For phone apps, OverkillSolar has a free and open source (no ads) full featured(user can adjust all available settings) app for Android and iOS

Here is another application I wrote and released open source for JBD bms's making-bmss-vesc-compatible

I've got the SP14S004 Model up for sale on my store now. I've been experimenting with it quite a bit and shofar I love these little things. I'm also quite interested in the adapter you made to connect it to a VESC, as I have my own VESC project that would benefit from that. Only thing turning me off is that it goes through 2 different hardware layers before it get's to the VESC. Have you made any progress in getting it down to maybe just 1 device between the two? or at the very least is there a nice way of packaging the two together?