Hey i'm back, and today i want to talk to you guys about chargers. As you know, 36 volt batteries are plentiful out there uh the scooter batteries uh to be more specific right, and so, as a result of that, we've made a bunch of little battery packs using them. You know anything from like a couple of little packs single pack or a couple little packs all the way to like a hundred right. So like 10 40 well, the last one is 46 kilowatt hours uh using a hundred of these uh scooter packs right.

So as a result of that, we need a charger: a 36 volt charger, they're not really problematic to get but they're kind of expensive or you know i found a way to make them cheaper. Okay, an amazon if you type in a 36 volt charger. Well, a bunch of them come up, and these are good. I've actually used them.

I use these to charge our forklift. We use these to charge a bunch of our batteries and uh. One of the issues here is that these are made for lead acid. They do have some that are made for lithium ion, but it's hard to find them here on amazon.

You have to go to aliexpress and then you have to wait a long time to get them right. So these work no problem, i mean even if they do have the thing to they overcharge slightly overcharge the lithium-ion uh call oxide batteries, our those scooter batteries have a built-in bms. So no problem it'll save you right, but look at the prices, though, for an 18 amp right slightly over, like maybe 600 watts. 297.

That's 300 bucks for that one uh! This one 267 is a little bit slightly off. I have that exact same one and i've used it in fact, but you know what it stopped working after a while. So uh, here's another one for 289, but you couldn't find a a cheaper one. Let's see so this is a five amp one.

Where is it? I did okay, this one right here. I actually have this and i'm using it. That's only 159 160 right uh that seems to be working. Okay, it's like no, no brand uh compared to that or whatever uh.

Everything else is like yeah, so everything's above 160. All the way to 300 uh, that's what you'll get right, but what, if i can tell you uh or show you a way to make a cheaper one or something that maybe you can get for like 120 bucks. So let me show you how we can diy something that is slightly better and is slightly cheaper right all right. This right here is my 500 watt charger that i have built and now, at this point i've tested it.

I've shown a little bits and pieces here for you guys either on my facebook or on instagram. I don't remember where i showed this right, but one of my socials and i've been testing this. You know we've been designing, it redesigning it. You know i got the things a little bit off the wrong um and it's finally, here this i tested it.

Last week i charged a 46 kilowatt hour battery pack with this charger right here, 500 watts. It took a long time right because it's a small charger. 500 watts, but it did it and the reason i wanted to test that it was to see if we can keep the internal parts cool enough to run. For you know, i don't know 48 uh hours right, uh non-stop right continuously and it did it, and so now that i passed that test well, i'd say now: it's it's ready for prime time.

I can show you how to make this, and i can show you uh how to save some money right so before i showed you that, let's let me take it apart, so you can see the insides. I think i did oh no, oh yes, i did okay. So this is the side. I put a piece of tape, so there it's not bouncing around um, and here is the charger you see what i did was put eight or four of these chargers, um on the top plate and on the bottom plate, and i connected them all in parallel right.

The problem with these is that these are designed to work without a fan and they just radiate heat. And so, when you put a bunch of these fans in a box like this, well, they tend to overheat and don't they shut down right, and so that was what was happening. My first generation, my very first attempt at doing this. That is what happened, but here what i did was i added a dc to dc to go from 43 volts or the 42 volts that these put out and then go down to 12 volts and then in between the dc to dc and a 12 volt fan.

Here i put a 92 millimeter fan right, but i didn't want this to always be running, because the the the way that these are going to work is that you are going to plug it into your battery right and it's always going to be plugged into your Battery so it means the dc bus side of these is always going to have voltage, and so i didn't want this fan to just keep continuously running 24 7 right, because then this thing is going to eventually die. You only want the fan to run when the charger needs cooling, and so what i did. I just put a thermal switch in there uh and i just squeeze that switch in between you can see it right there you can. I squeeze that switch in between the chargers and when the chargers start working, the fan doesn't kick in right away.

It's only until it reaches a certain amount of time temperature. Then it kicks in and you can adjust the speed by adjusting the voltage of the uh dc to dc right, and so therefore, this is kind of like my first product that is designed and made. I mean yes, i'm just using off-the-shelf chargers and connecting in in parallel, and i know what people are gon na say some people are gon na say like well, that's not the way you do this you use dedicated. You know, uh components.

Why are you just using you know, charges that are designed to run on their own and paralleling them, and you know that's dumb. That's a dumb uh way to think because everybody uses parallel stuff right. I mean chargers, use parallel, uh, mosfets, right, uh, most electronics that have high performance or high current or whatever they use some kind of paralleling. Unless they go to like this big giant.

You know igbt modules, right um, but tran, you know putting stuff running stuff in parallel. It's a thing that tesla does right, they're chargers - i just i just got some superchargers in-house and uh when i'm looking in there. Oh, they just use 12 of the car chargers. Right and all they do, is they just run them in parallel, that's how they can get to 120 kilowatt right by paralleling a bunch of them.

So there's no different. What i'm doing here - except maybe i'm not using any kind of logic, to control the chargers in between, because these are very simple they're made uh they're high quality, because these were the ones that were made by the manufacturer of all these batteries. And all these scooters right, so these are name brand, so nine bot makes that es4 scooter and this charger is the one that they built and they ship with this uh scooter and we have. I think i bought like 30 000 of these right.

So there's a lot of them that i have because i have a lot of these batteries right, but then the thing becomes like do you want to plug in a bunch of little chargers and it becomes a giant mess. Look at this picture right here, yeah. So if you wanted to put eight chargers, uh separate right, you'd have to mess around with all those connections and all this stuff. All that fits inside neatly inside that box and all the wiring gets done in that pcb board right.

So this is a much better way to do that. Let's look at the how the board is laid out uh and then how you can order these pcbs by the way this video is sponsored by pcd way, submit your designs to their website here and then you have all kinds of choices to do all kinds of Thickness and boards uh, you can even do like these flexible ones write different weights in copper, size uh. They have a bunch of options in the colors and they have fast shipping check them out. If you are gon na design or order, some pcbs pcb way is the way to go.

Thank you for sponsoring pcb way, my channel, let's move on to this design. Okay, so let's look at this board. It's actually pretty pretty simple. It's just goes and connects the main black ac lines coming in to individual black uh and white right positive and that's not positive, neutral and line and neutral to the inputs here right now.

Of course, these are high ac right, high voltage ac lines, so they can't really. You can't have anything going to the other side of the board because then uh well, you could, you could get electrocuted right. So what we do here is put some of these surfaces to be exposed so that we can solder the cables right into them right, but without any holds right. So let me show you the 3d uh render here.

So you see it here, right, uh! That's the same copper line, uh that is coming in here it's going around and then it's connecting all these blacks together, um and then the white one does the same thing. It goes through the front here and then these other two paths right here are so that you can connect parallel the other board. This is gon na, be the bottom plate and then there's gon na be a top plate, and it's gon na be identical to this. So these are to connect one and one, and so then you can just connect a single input right cord in here.

You um, you can put it in here, and this little thing here is for uh uh, some surface mount m4 terminal uh little things that you can solder in here. Those are not 100 needed, but you can do it if you want to do it right, uh other than that, let's see, let's go back to the main thing: oh yeah, we have to put in our little uh sponsor project sponsor by pcb way right because they Are the ones that are sponsoring this video? So then the other thing is the uh output? Oh, so this is just a uh, copper plate and it's just there because i figure that it's probably easier. You know the manufacturer has to put it on and then they have to put the solution that then just eats away all of these areas without copper. So it's just easier, i think for them.

If you just leave that copper like this copper, is doing nothing in here, just adding adding strength to uh this plate right right, because they're already putting that layer and then they have to remove it so the less they have to remove, probably the quicker they can Make that board probably the cheaper that it costs to manufacture, and so why remove all these copper that goes in here without that doesn't affect anything. It just adds strength and thickness to this board right. So that's why we're doing it like that? But then here are the copper layers that are actually going to be electrified and it's the same thing same concept: nothing going to the other side, because these are 36 volts, nominal um, dc bus right and then here. This is where i have the dc to dc.

Going in and then uh the fans lines going out - and i have one in here on this side and then another those two same lines travel all the way to this other side. Just in case, you want to put two fans one in the front, one in the back or one on this side, one that side. So you can push and pull uh stuff. I don't know it's not needed, maybe if you're you're going to use this in a super hot environment, uh that a single fan will not be able to do it, then maybe putting two fans will be able and so now you'll be able to do it by Having this here right, so let's look at the thing.

So, let's regenerate that by the way, because now then it's gon na have the thing: let's see the last changes that we made there we go so now we have the pcb way and then this side i just put some branding in there. I need to probably put the 500 watt 36 volt thing in there uh. I even put my face in there just because i was trying. I was testing just to see what kind of images you can transfer into this thing right.

So there it is. That is the main board, and then the sides and the front and back of these don't have any electrical traces, they're, basically just to be made uh, just a structural right just to basically cover these chargers in this device inside of a box uh. I know i've been playing around with this concept for a long time, and this is the first time that i'm gon na be able to do it and use it, and so there we go. We got our thing now, all right if you're familiar with my uh.

This kind of projects that i do what i do this i do in phases right. So i'm going to finish the the designs, the boards, i'm submitting them to pcb way, and then you could just go and order them and i'll give you all the links of all the parts with order them. So you can make this thing yourself. You remember i promote diy, and so i will give you all the tools and all the designs and all my work that i do so that you can just do it yourself right and you can save some money, because then that way you don't have to pay Me or my guys, you know to fumble around with this stuff right, but if you're the kind of person that just wants to buy the board well, i eventually will order these boards and in a few weeks i will get all these things.

You know the dc dc's, the fans uh the boards themselves and then i'll have someone here in-house to put them together, solder them together and then we'll put them into nice. Little finished product that then you can just order and buy on my website. Jack 35 right. But at the core of this this is an open source, diy project, and so then you can just order that if you want to order these parts, the links are going to be in the description of this video and you can order the reports yourself.

You don't have to order them for a pcb wait, wait by the way, but uh you would be helping my sponsor this video. You do so. I appreciate that very much right, but you can you'll be able to download the gerber files and then you can order anywhere. You want uh.

Okay, thank you for watching this video we'll see you guys on the next one. I have a bunch of these projects coming up uh. There are different they're, all based on diy batteries of all kinds, shapes and sizes, uh and yeah. If you're interested in that sort of stuff, then consider subscribing to this channel and liking this video - and i will appreciate you forever flat and i will see you in the next one - all right, bye, we'll see you so so.

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