Hey are you DIY Well, hell, you're my kind of people. Was built something all right. So here's what we got: DIY 12 volt battery with some awesome sales Luv 60-ft 200 amps continuous, about 600 for 10 seconds, right? So what do we need? We need to add a BMS this bad boy right here. Well, I mean you could add any, but this one is pretty cool because it does 200 amps.

uh and it also does about 600 amps. uh, you know, for about 10 seconds Small. It's light, it's cheap, so we gotta somehow install that in there now. Of course you could use bubble gum and it's a couple of paper clips and some socks or something and attach it.

You know, in here somewhere, run a bunch of cables, do all that nonsense. but Liz design a board that we can put on top here and then you just screw it on, put one connector and then you're ready to go and this thing will live up here. Okay to the drawing board. I Hope you're up for the challenge.

By the way, this video is sponsored by PCB way more on them later. For now, let's start designing custom part. So here's your setup. Let's do the outline and of course we're just gonna copy it from the other one.

Uh, that we've already drawn. Boom. So there it is. This is the basic outline of our project right? Uh, I went and measure this BMS thing and then I just measured this and that and that and then I just drew it in there and then that has a little hole in there and you're gonna see why.

that has a little oh just a little bit. So now what we do is we start adding uh, multi-layer So these are the holes right? So we need to draw these holes right here. Where are the M5 bolts that go in here right? and this is the basically the the input and then the output of this switch. This is a BMS right unit and it's just basically a switch.

It's got mosfets in here. it lets the current from one side to the other. All I have to do is measure these holes, the distance here right and then the the sides of the hole and then you have to draw those in here and that's what I've done here. This is the BMS and I've done that at solder Mask.

There it is the top and the bottom. Here's the bottom. This is the the portion of the trace or the the layer that is going to be exposed, not painted. The rest of the stuff is going to be painted Here is the other side, one is the bottom, one is the top right.

So then here are the other two that I transfer from the original board. The original board is the one that's on top of the cells, the ones that we just saw on the table there right? So then what we can do uh is also uh by the way I Wanna make sure that you know you guys know how to get because this is going to be an open source project right? So you'll be able to download this file that we're going to design here. Uh, and then you can uh, go and buy the all the components by yourself. So here's the link of the most important component which is the BMS the BMS unit that I you know that we're gonna installing here.

so if you want to go and buy it, here's a AliExpress link so that you can go and buy it. Uh Also, Boom! I just added all this stuff. Now let's look at what's going on here. So these around things that I put in this are going to be our terminals input and output right? So negative and positive and I wanted to make them very clear to the end user.

this is where the output is at. Not here because someone might make a mistake and try to put lugs in here. but this is the input to this BMS board. Uh, right and so not here and I used to have like positive and negative down here but then I was like nope, let's take those off in small letters.

Now you can see that this is the B minus and this is the B plus battery. Uh, positive Battery negative right? but in giant uh with the circle in here this is the output. output is negative positive also. uh for people who want to know what's going on more in the battery, Some people have asked this in the past, so I'm just starting to put this in every one of our projects.

they want to see this: The electrical schematic they want to know. Well, how is this connected? How is this battery put together? Where are the cells? How are these little uh IDC You know male connectors that you're putting on these batteries. What? What are those pins? Well, here are the pins: I have them labeled B Uh, minus C2 CR Center Taps of these batteries, right? Uh. And then B plus So you can exactly know where it's these pins are going, How are they connected? And this is the schematic of the battery and that's what you're connected in here.

and then here it's just going to go into the BMS right? Uh. 12 volts, 200 amps continuous. That's the BMS that's in there also. I have uh, let's delete that in here.

Just some typical things. The information that might be useful when you're doing this project. Uh, for use with these batteries here: The Lev60fs Uh, and it's this is a URL so you can click on this or type in this in on a you know in a browser and then you can see where they're at and you can then get more info on the cells right? Uh, 12s 12 Volt Uh, which is a 4S Four cells in series and then lithium and phosphate capacity 24 amp hours continuous power 180 amps big Power for 10 seconds, 600 amps just pretty Broad Basic information. Uh, then what do we do here? So let's look at this is bottom Let's Uh, look at the top layer.

bottom layer. Yeah, bottom layer right. So this is the bottom layer. This is the copper.

So what is happening here is we're connecting these B minus the battery. Uh negative. We're connecting this through this pad right here to D B minus of the BMS unit. So this is the input of the BMS So the energy is run is Flowing from here to there.

So you're gonna see a hot spot here because this is where it's going to see the brunt of the energy of the current right and then from here the P Then that's the load that's going to be. That's the exit. Point that's going to go over here. Very simple.

You see that it just goes in there and then the energy goes out here. So this is connected to that through the BMS and then on this side it's even simpler. Just uh. the battery uh positive is just going to the positive terminal over here.

and so this this pad right here just connects the you know, the battery terminal into this board terminal. So then that's the uh, that's the lower copper pad right on the upper pad. This is the the one on top layer is the same thing on the positive, it just connects the same thing on this one. It's just connects that and this one is the same thing so it just mirrors the bottom.

But then we have this extra little traces that go here and all this is is just connecting this. IDC uh 16 pin connector. Uh, that it's very common in all my builds, right? Two, What it's happening. Voice privacy content.

Okay I don't know what that is but what that is doing is what in the world is this Okay, what that's doing right here is just connecting this pin right here into this other pin and this pin is going to be a screw terminal. uh connector because eventually we might sell these uh, kind of already put together and that means that you will be able to put it together without uh, having solder. Uh, for some reason you know people think soldering is hard I Mean you need some specialized equipment like a solder and iron and stuff like that, but you know it's some people don't want to do it, but they still want to use this battery. This this thing they were going to make it available.

There's levels of DIY and I want to help as many people kind of build their own batteries and you know and so there's all the different levels right? from the ones that want to do everything themselves and want to learn as much as possible to the ones where like can I just buy all the parts and then just bolt them together and some light assembly and then we can get it used. Yeah, I'm I'm not an enemy of that. I'm not against that. and so that's why I'm offering this right here.

So that's why we're gonna make this connector into this connector because this connector is really really beginner friendly. You know it's gonna allow you to do solderless and so these then are just going to go into a wire that comes with the with the BMS right here right? So then um, bottom is got the thing. The document has got nothing else There we go. So this is a very simple board that we just designed here.

Uh this? Dimensions uh the smaller the boards are, the cheaper they are. Uh, now in this case, you wanna make sure that you have enough of this width to carry that much current right? and so I I um in fact I'm going to put it right here. that I um I'm gonna put a small thing like this: copy paste oh my. God this thing is terrible This these layers.

that's what I always. So what? I'm going to put it here I'm gonna put two ounce copper right? So I recommend you make this board out of two ounce because then when you download the file, you have the ability to choose whichever thickness of copper you want on this. But I recommend two ounce copper because then that's that gives you that much more capacity to carry that. Remember, there's 200 amps so you're gonna be going through this right? So this is a size that I came up with and stuff.

So now, uh, what you can do is just look at it in 3D and that is what the board is going to look like. Uh, this program is weird. It doesn't show you this cutout. There's no board in here.

It should be like a hole. sort of like this one. but it's okay. Uh, I've learned to just to kind of ignore that.

if you actually do the 2D then it shows you. um, a more accurate representation of what that's gonna look. See, here's a hole. and so those pads right here.

By the way, this is, uh, exposed copper on this side, but on the bottom side is just those. and what we're going to do is we're going to put screws and nuts in there. and basically this is this. This just needs to be exposed to get the nut or the or the top of the screw whichever way you install those the thing and then.

But on this side it needs to be 100 exposed because then that makes full contact with this portion of the BMS which is just a big thick copper pad that they put on the BMS and that will, uh help you really really transmit the Uh Power from out. In and out of the BMS right? So that's why we have this here. So now let's order this at PCB Way our sponsored and just like that Bam PCB way is pretty fast. They make these you know within a couple of days and then they ship them so they're in like four or five days.

You have these in here and now you can test them. So here's our battery and the first thing that I want to do is I Kind of just want to check to see the dimensions are correct. There we go see these are kind of made them big like that so they you have some room to play. Now what we're going to use here is gonna be these uh stand ups.

These are Big M8 times 1.5 um threaded right pitch threaded things in here. There we go look at that and then I made bolts in here. So that's how we're gonna connect this board into this. Okay, so that makes sense and then we're just gonna put some uh standoffs.

Okay let's populate this board. We'll put the connectors, we'll put the terminals and then we'll put the BMS. Let's go to the other bench. Okay so here's what we're gonna need.

the two big 180 amp Terminals and then you're gonna need this green terminal connector here and then the 16 pin IDC connector. Let's solder these in here. Okay, now that it's cool, it's time to install our BMS here. You just put it in here.

Make sure this is clean and that is clean. Put the four screws that come with the BMS. These screws come in there. The nuts also come in the BMS kit.

Okay, let's go install it on the battery. Oh, one last thing. this is the cable. so it goes around here.

Hey, these connectors are very interesting. You have to lower and open the little hole. you see that so you have to do that to both before you can put the connectors in there. If you don't do that, then it's not going to work.

Then we stick the cable in there. Let's install this on the battery knife. All right. So here's our battery.

The first things we're going to do is, uh, put. install these and tighten the standoffs. Then you install this unit in here. See positive, negative, negative, Positive right there.

Right washer. Last thing is going to be this little ribbon cable. It's just two connectors. Make sure the connectors are facing the same way with the little key way.

Uh, facing the same way. And there we go. Our battery is done. Now you have a 200 amp BMS the input.

The output is right here. You charge it through here and you discharge it through here. Let's put a cable on there I Recommend making a cable like this that has a discharge uh, connector right? So they can do big, you know, 200 amps? No problem. But then you could also put a smaller connector in the same cable so that you can then connect this to your charger and then you produce it.

Depending on how you're going to use this in your circuit and stuff right, But uh, this would be one way to charge them. Today we're going to install this big cable just to discharge it. All right. And there it is.

There's your battery. Now this battery has a BMS Now let's check to make sure that the BMF is working. One quick easy way to do that is just with a multimeter. 13.17 13.17 So this is the same voltage.

Usually when the BMS is off, you will see less voltage, right? because it's just some leakage that's going there. Sometimes you will see Zero but a lot of times you'll see some like eight or five or three volts, just some small amount of voltage in there. Now sometimes this might be off and this thing will recognize full Voltage If this thing leaks too much voltage into it, right? Uh, and so the the final way to test it is just to put a load in here. and if it Powers the load, if it do, you know up to 200 amps then that's fine.

We have a working BMS All right. So what is this battery good for? Well, anything. anything that needs 12 volts right? These are long lasting cells. They last I think 5 000 Cycles or something like that.

These uh were used by BMW on 12 volt batteries like under the hood batteries right? And they have their own BMS and their own data system that would talk to the cars and stuff. Uh, these cells I Guess they didn't get used in that And so now that's why they're available as raw cells. And so that's why we're making the all this stuff to make this battery right. These cells, uh came to us just raw and then all these other little things you are going to need to make a fully functioning battery like this, right? And of course you can use this battery alone.

This will start a car, no problem. It can put out about 600 amps Um, for 10 seconds, right? Which is more than enough to start almost any car. but they're lighter and they last longer than a typical lead acid. Now this could be used for automotive use for car audio stuff because of again because they can put quite a bit of power, you can use it like this alone.

One single battery. You can put two of these batteries together and then just connect them in parallel. All you have to make sure is that the cells the the battery is about the same voltage before you connect them or else you'll see big Sparks and stuff and you might melt stuff Often you might get this unit to go into protect if you are trying to connect like a fully charged battery into a fully discharged battery. Uh so just make sure it's around the same voltage.

you can connect this now obviously. Uh, you could also connect a couple of these in series to make 24 volts. but if you're gonna do that, you know I would suggest you just build a 24 volt. We have all the same kits like this uh which is going to be for 24 volts.

So so there you go. Thank you for following this project along. You can order all these parts by going to Pcbway.com PCB Way is the sponsor of this video. They make your custom Pcbs in as little as a few days, right? You upload the file, you can design your own uh, Pcbs or you can use some of the ones that I've already designed in your, order them and you.

That's how you get this for super cheap. DIY will save you money because then you can order all this stuff straight from the source and then you can build these batteries right? This battery right here. as you see it on the open market, it's worth about twelve hundred dollars. That's how much a BMW will charge up for this battery.

Well if you DIY this this is only going to be like 380 or something like that. So the savings are substantial when you do DIY projects like this right? And so if you're looking for a battery that is very very powerful and it's easy to build, you can go to Pcbway.com and order all the parts now also. So if you just don't want to first round and build this like this, we also have this battery available just the way you see it here at Jack35.com and then you can just order the battery and it just works. It's it'll come assemble like this, pre-assemble like this but by us and then you can use this battery right? So there you go.

Another battery project on the books. Thank you for following along. Thank you for watching these videos. Uh and thank you for supporting and buying all this stuff.

And you know, building your own batteries I believe DIY It's a very powerful thing and it's the best way to learn to do things right. And so I want to thank PCB way for sponsoring this video. We'll see you guys on the next one. Bye! Oh by the way, if you have HBO Max make sure you watch Driver Downey Dream Cars I have an episode where I converted a BW bus into a fully electric car and then we went and shot the episode and stuff and we'd run around in the beach and stuff like that.

So if you have HBO Max my episode will be released I think mid July but you can go and watch the first and the second episode right now and I think the second and third episodes will be released this week right? So today is the day that we do the red carpet and we see the first episode. but I mean also classic cars are a pain in the ass.