I need feeback from those who’s been down this road. What is better? To build your own battery pack or buy one. I’ve order all the stuff I need to build a battery pack, and been watching tons of video on how to make one myself.
I’ve looked at the following pack and for what I want, would need to order maybe 2 or 4 packs of these and hook him up to make a 12s2p pack.
The other way is to buy 18650 cells and make everything from scratch.
My real question are: Is the turnigy pack any good?
As for using cells:
1a. Not sure what cells to go with
1b. Would they end up being better (more power and longer uses)
2. Who can I trust to buy (brand) cells from?
Hey man is this your first build? If it is then go crazy on the research for your battery. It is the heart and soul of the board and should be treated with respect.
18650 Samsung 30q are the go to but need to be built properly and I mean properly. A dual set up like your plan is going to need a good solid battery of at least 4 p. I would advise to buy the first one from a trusted vendor on here to start with and keep it simple. Where are you located? That will help on pointing you in the right direction. Good luck.
Yes this is my first build. I’ve been moving slow doing research and still waiting for some smaller parts to arrive so will have more time to focus on reading up. Everything is starting to make sense and the overwhelming feeling of where to start is long gone.
I really want to build my own pack, going to skips the BMS and just use a balance charger to charge the packs with a parallel board. I plan to make each pack using 18650 cells as 6S1P. This way I can hook them up in series and parallel to stack for more power and range down the road. I feel a 12S4P pack now seems like the way to go.
I am located in Toronto, who is a good reputable seller for those 18650 Samsung 30q cells?
@Superflim I am aware of this kit, cool idea, they have been out of stock forever and claim to be working on something new (v2) but really nothing has hit the market and no date announced.
Thanks for the battery supplier, have you used them? if so, how would you rate what you got.
If you are going to make your own 18650 packs you need to think of it like this. To diy a pack it might cost you around $250 for materials but then another $100-200 for a spot welder and tools, this is good for if you ever want to build more packs as from then on they will only be about $250. If you want to buy a pack it will typically be cheaper once you factor in the cost of the spot welder, but if you buy more than one pack you are losing money. So honestly it depends what you want, you must also be very careful when building your packs and take proper precautions.
I personally have two boards using lipos, they are cheap, easy to make, have a high amp output and can just as easily be charged with a bms, which I highly recommend. No, I mean you must get a bms, the hobby charger will eventually piss you off and you’ll buy a bms anyway. Just get a charge only one on eBay for $15 and a adjustable charger for about $20-30
This is truth. If you can afford to move up to a charge and discharge BMS it is totally worth it. After having a board catch on fire, NESE modules are the way to go. I have had 2 packs die within 100 cycles of my Turnigy graphine batteries FYI.
@mishrasubhransu there are days I wish I had my own 3d printer, I just make my own modules
@pat.speed the stuff i am buying will also go into other electronic hobbies i plan to get into and explore ideas with. for the battery pack i plan to go solder-less as possible so will skip the spot-welder investment. Can you suggest some of the chargers?
You don’t need a 3D printer. You could buy entire modules from http://18650.lt/index.php/product/n-e-s-e-module/ . Get 5 modules of 2S4P option. That’s about 80 euros. not bad at all considering that these are very robust, efficient, modular and serviceable. I don’t think the spot welded battery pack can match that.
jehu garcia, a youtube battery guy used this in his diy power wall and his experiments showed how these got terribly hot at 4 amps per cell, so yeah, not the same.
I’ve build my first pack yesterday and it was hard day for me. Bunch of mistakes during the process and surprisingly quite a lot of stress. Now I can see really how many things can go wrong. I’m not very happy with it but it should be safe and I learned a lot. I had a lot of f**k DIY moments and the only benefit for me is that I’ll build more of them. If you need one don’t even bother! If you plan to do more and perfect the craft just go for it! Good luck
, I need to print a few other items and prove my wife wrong that my first build will not look ghetto!