DIY Power-wall

Published on 2 May 2016

Can run my house on 5 year old laptop batteries?

The answer is yes with an lot of time preparing 18650 cells , taking some care and attention to detail it can be done.

This project is live and my first 7kw of battery capacity is running my house when the sun goes down.

The surpus electricity that comes from my grid-tie inverter is stored in batteries during the day and automatically released overnight to remove / reduce my use of power from the electricity grid overnight.

In the UK we are charged around 20 pence per 1kw unit of electricity, UK FITS program pays 3 pence for any surplus export - so i am saving money as well.

My G83/2 inverter has the intelligence to know when to store to batteries , when to self use the solar PV power and monitors the electricity grid power consumption real time to make intelligent decisions.

So if your interested in building your own DIY "Telsa style" POWERWALL - here is my project to show you my experience and 3 months of stealing a few hours from sleep to create one.

If you like what you see please subscribe.

Apologies for the videos quality they should improve as i get more confident with the technology (my first attempt on youtube and videos) , also these are created on an iphone 5 so nothing special and little if any editing as you you will see.

So if you like please provide a thumbs up and subs help the 18650 battery community.

Published on 23 Apr 2016

UK DIY Powerwall - What are the best laptop packs for 18650 cell harvesting?

Basically how to spot the higher capacity laptop battery packs and what cells are inside?

Published on 23 Apr 2016

Inside my UK DIY "Tesla style" Powerwall 14kw project.

Published on 23 Apr 2016

UK DIY TESLA POWERWALL - HOME BATTERY. Made from old recycled Laptop Batteries. The finished product my home made 14kwh Tesla style Powerwall home power project. Made from old laptop batteries. My channel will show you how to make a home use battery to power your home from old laptop batteries! My home made DIY Powerwall has been working for 3 months, surplus energy from my Photovoltaic Solar Panels is stored in batteries during the day and used to power my home when the sun goes down. This reduces my electricity bills in the long run.

Phase 1 is 7kwh. a second phase is scheduled for the end of May 2016 to add a further 7kwh (that s 7 batteries each made from x120 18650 cells from old laptop batteries.)

Interested in making a big battery from old laptop batteries please take a look and if you like what you see give me a thumbs up and subscribe to my channel please.

Published on 30 Apr 2016

Part 1 of the series of how to build a DIY Powerwall - home battery from old laptop batteries.
How to build 18650 "Tesla style" battery packs - 18650 cell holder configurations and battery pack capacity sizing.

Published on 30 Apr 2016

Part 2 of the series on - How to build a DIY Powerwall - home battery from old laptop batteries.

Covering pre-soldering the battery packs. Next getting ready for copper buss bars and tesla style cell fuses

Published on 2 May 2016

Part 3 of the UK DIY POWERWALL covers introduction to buss bars used on my 18650 packs that are installed inside my UK DIY POWERWALL.

Published on 2 May 2016

Part 4 of the series of - How to build a DIY Powerwall - home battery from old laptop batteries.

Covering the selection materials to make the copper battery buss bars.

Published on 2 May 2016

Part 5 of the series of - How to build a DIY Powerwall - home battery from old laptop batteries

Covering preparing the copper metal to make the buss bars to be used on my 18650 battery packs for my expanded UK DIY POWERWALL home battery.

Published on 2 May 2016

Part 5 of the series on - How to build a DIY Powerwall - home battery from old laptop batteries.

Covering how to complete the soldering of the copper buss bar on your 18650 "Tesla style" battery packs.

Building multiple packs will enable you to build a DIY POWERWALL home Battery

Published on 3 May 2016

Part 7 - of the series to build a DIY Powerwall - home battery from old laptop batteries.

This video takes you through how to solder the "Tesla style" fuses from the 18650 cells to the copper buss bars, on both sides of the 18650 battery pack.

This is the last step in the how to build a single 18650 modular battery pack to power your Powerwall you will need another 6 to make up a 29v battery bank. Or 13 more if making a 48v battery bank

Published on 7 May 2016

Part - 8
Rant on battery bank initial setup - how to ensure all your 18650 packs start are balanced to the same voltage in parallel before connecting them in series. In my case 7 packs in series to make one large battery at 29v. I have no BMS but I do have a great inverter that manages the voltage cut off at 29.2v maximum and 23.5v bottom level cut off. I will be adding a video when my battery balancers arrive from China and will review hoe to fit and how these work to monitor all 7 packs and keep their voltages the same. Today there is a little bit of drift on the batteries due to some weaker cells in the packs, its not huge but something I need to manually monitor. Having the balancers will ensure I can set them up and leave them.

Published on 13 May 2016

Part 9 of the series to build a DIY Powerwall - home battery from old laptop batteries.

Many people are using a BMS for balancing their Electric Bike smaller 18650 battery packs which is fine for the lower amp batteries.

After researching I decided to go with the approach of Lithium-ion battery balancers to help maintain an even balanced voltage across my 7 batteries. These battery balancers have no voltage cut offs built in they are less complex and less electronics to fail. I'm using the inverter to manage the top and bottom battery bank cut offs. The battery balancers were purchased from Aliexpress.com I will post the link here in few days.

The battery balancers are working really well and work by using dc voltage on the battery side and the battery balancer interconnects the green and blue cables use AC current to share the voltage across other batteries.
10Amp balance charge capable. Most BMS system provide much less than 10Amps which is why low cost BMS units are not very efficient when you have large amps in your batteries.....