Video Time! Hey this video is sponsored by PCB Way today. I Want to show you a very cool battery module that just came in. We got a palette of them and I'm kind of excited about it. Let me show it to you.
This is the battery module that we're talking about here. It's very very nice. It's very Compact and it looks pretty clean now. according to our supplier, this comes from a load of vehicles that was brand new, was being transported and somehow was involved in an accident and so as a result of that, all the cars had to be scrapped because they were damaged physically damaged like you know, beyond repair or something.
So these are brand new cells packs. we're zero Cycles zero miles on I Have no way to obviously verify that. Uh I Just went and checked to see this number right here and it looks like these are from Audi Q5s which is a plug-in hybrid I Believe Uh and so these are not from fully electric so that means these are very proudly very very powerful. Now according to this here these are 13s one paid which is pretty cool because that means these are can be used for a ass is as a 48 volt uh battery pack and uh the other cool thing is that well they're made in Hungary Republic of hungry their Samsung SDI cells.
Uh the other cool thing is that we have the hardness the wiring harness for the connector here so we might be able to use them. Use that connector to be able to just put our own installer on BMS right? But let's take them apart and then see how this is put together. That is pretty cool. so it looks like it's got its own BMS part of the BMS which is cool, but it's also not so cool, right? Because that means that what's coming out of here it's got one, two, three, four five, six seven, eight, nine, ten pins so that's a dead giveaway right there that is not Just sell Center Taps right so that you can put your own third-party BMS But the cool thing, so that's not so cool that it's got its own Electronics in here because these are proprietary now.
obviously this was like a like a very popular car and if you're good at coding then you could figure this out and then you actually use the proprietary equipment that's in here right? All the electronics in here, but because I think this is kind of a rare car Brad there's not. It's not a high production because it's like a Tesla Model S that everybody like there's everybody in there mothers is trying to figure out right? So I don't think this is going to be the way to go. but the cool thing is that it looks like this BMS or this PCB board is just screwed on here so that means I could take it apart and we I can design our own board, a breakout board. that then we can have our own connector I could even use the same connector, but probably not because uh, probably you could just use another.
Well, I don't know. maybe we can find this connector? I'll figure out which connector we can use in here, but this one fits perfectly in here. So if I make a board of this exactly the same, let's take it apart. Oh yep, so here it is. These are the pins to go right on here. I wonder what this is? Oh probably a thermistor? Yeah, so it's temperature right here. So this is a 48 volt nominal battery type a base. Let's go to the drawing app and then let's design our own custom one for this.
Okay, so I'm starting here with an old design. Uh, this board was for another battery project thing and so all the the connectors in here and some a lot of stuff, it's already in this. That's why I like to start with an existing project, but this project is going to be very, very simple. Essentially, what we're going to build here is going to be a breakout board.
so we just need to get all those Center Taps right, all those little connections between the cells and move them to a connector that then is accessible from the outside of the module. And the reason to do that is so that you can easily install an external BMS or a third-party BMS something that you can buy at Amazon AliExpress any other an internet sites and and so then what you can do is then just connect easily connect your BMS outside of this battery box right? So this is what we're designing here and it's just a lot of measuring right? the actual size of the existing board. I have the the the PCB board the the original ones on my hand and I'm measuring that and then I'm drying those things and then you know I'm then I'm going to do the traces. It's very simple stuff.
This is about the most basic uh things that you can do with Pcbs, right? It's it's just a bus bar essentially right. and this is a low current carrying bus part because it's just for Signal It's just to uh, it's just to send the individual cell voltages to a an external BMS So that's what we're doing here. Foreign. This matches pretty close to the original one, except that instead of having his own Electronics in here, it just goes to that connector.
So now what we have to do is go through the sponsor of this video Pcbway.com in order this board and then wait for it to show up and then we can see if it actually fits on the battery and then we. You know what mistakes we make. But while we wait, let's test the capacity of this batteries. Let's see just how much energy is stored inside of this battery by testing it All right? So it looks like 38 amp hours.
We started with 50 and then we ended up with 12 amp hours until right before the voltage collapse. So subtract 12 from 50. That equals 38. So 38 amp hours or 1.824 kilowatt hours.
1.8 kilowatt hours in each one of these modules. All right, And the boards are here from PCB way. Let's get one of these and try to put it in the actual battery over there. All right.
So guess what? I Just discovered that there's two versions of these modules. There's the M and then there's the L and I design the I. This is the first one that I got was an L and I designed that board for the L. so I might have to make one for the M. Let's see how it fits on the L and there it is. Look at that. So there's some slide. This is obviously version 1.0 Um, like here: I need to extend that.
Just put, push that thing a little bit further out and then there's some clearance here on this little plastic thing cover. Is that how it goes? Yeah, Okay, so there's some some clearance there, so I'm gonna have to move that thing out also. I Just noticed there's another mistake. This is B minus and B minus is followed by C1 but the one right next to B minus is this one C12 So I mismark those that should be C1 C2 Three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve and then this is uh, B Plus over here, right? So I need to change that? I You know I always make mistakes on these boards.
So now let's take this thing apart. So oh wow, So this one's not black. Look at that. This one's different.
You know what? I bet you this is exactly the same. It's just mirror. So if I just put the markings for this board on that one and then put the markings on this one, will that work? Let's see. Plus Yeah, that would work.
That makes that the plus over there, right? That's this is the positive and then this is the negative. I Think that would work I Think I can make the same board work both modules I just have to make those small changes. But uh, those are small changes. We could make this board work right now, as is for this test.
So let's do that all right. So here, I'm just gonna make those changes. It's very, very rare that I get a board, you know, perfect the same time. There's too many things to measure too many things to usually on a board, right? So uh, I can't imagine what people who are actually putting electronic components in a border, how many revisions I have to go because they get and I'm kind of sloppy and I'm building I'm designing like 20 different designs at any time.
so I just do it and then I just either order it or if I wait then I I don't know exactly where I'm at in the design, you know? So yeah, I make a lot of mistakes, but we just move fast and we order a bunch of them and then eventually we get it right? Okay, so the last thing we have to do is we're gonna check the power output of this right because these are from Hybrid. They could probably do a lot of amps. so we have connected it to a 48 uh volt inverter here that could pull quite a bit of power. I Think To be able to gauge how much power the cell can do is you measure the amount of heat that they'll create at any given power output.
So we'll start this test. Here we go. That's the first load. s cells are not sagging.
It's 120 130 degrees after a full-on discharge at about 150. Well, it was about 150 amps for a while and then it went down to about 100 amps. I Think So foreign. Yeah, these these could probably do 200 amps. These are hot but not too hot that you can't touch them all right? So these things could put out the Uh 6 500 watts. One of these ones could run an LV 6548 all day. No problem. Fully charged to fully discharged, right? So if you want to run a split face setup, you would need as little as two of these modules.
and then you can connect both inverters into the same battery pack. Uh, that you can parallel right? So these things are very very powerful and they look pretty nice. Let me show you what they look like in the wall. Thank you, thank you! There we go.
20 kilowatt hours. This little pack here can run 10 inverters. Whatever. The maximum is that the Lv's uh 6548s can do.
this. Can run it right here. 20 kilowatt hours as opposed to 3.8 kilowatt hours in lithium phosphate. This is super Compact and it's very very narrow right? So like you can put this in your garage and uh, you know it wouldn't get in the way you could.
Literally, it's a power wall right? and it looks this good. It's crazy that this is DIY and it looks really good. Now this is is not done I need to still run the the bus bars and then the BMS right? So the BMS will have to run outside. Obviously because the BMS that it was in here, we replaced it with our own custom thing right? So um I'm gonna save that for another video because that would be lengthy.
I would have to like design the bus bars in here. Uh some cool thing I Want to do you know, not just some ugly cables in there? Well we'll make some cool project out of this one and then we'll fire it up. We'll get another Uh to. we'll put two of those inverters and then we'll run them at uh, you know, split face kind of thing.
This? this is really cool. I I Wish we had truckloads of these, but we don't. We have truckloads of these and by the way, these are these are amazing cells. Also, All right people.
if you're not building a battery, what are you doing? We're living in the Golden Age of Lithium battery storage. I Want to thank my sponsor Dcbway.com if you want to buy these modules and then have that little custom board that we built so that you can install your own third-party BMS Just go to PC Video. follow the link on the description of this video and then go to the project there, the project page and then you can download the files and then order it somewhere else or you can order it right there with PCB way. Thank you for watching this video and we'll see you guys in the next one.
Bye Thank you Foreign thank you.
Hi,
What is the maximum discharge current and the discharge current ?
Thanks you
tempting to upgrade my 2013 Jetta Hybrid — double the range
you need a laser cutter to throw those pcbs drawings on cardboard/balsa/plywood/fg board for fitment bro.
You might want to consider Hardie board or some other cement board for your backer. No matter how safe we try to make them, just about all battery technologies and electronics pose at least some risk of fire.
Cool video. Regarding the PCB mechanical design, I suggest you to print on a paper your design and iterate from there, and when you have a solid iteration, make the PCB. Iterating mechanical design with already made PCBs is quite expensive and wasteful.
Which software did you use for designing your PCB? Can you recommend it? 🙂
So I need to do my first ever battery and I’m going the DIY but I just saw your Jaguar cell video. Which would you recommend for a 48v “power wall” with a Growatt 12k inverter and what would be the difference?
Awesome video!!!
Hey there, wondering if this powerwall can be shipped as a ready to use format?
I miss my friend how are you good how much is 1 battery blue battery after bubbling light on off on of still
Is it legal to diy this where you are?