Okay, so here is what those plates look like: the original plates were made out of aluminum or aluminium um, and they were four plates. This size right here right. So this this one size is four equal plates and what it would require you to do was to place two of them like this on the bottom and then the top place, the one in the middle and then the third, the fourth one you would have to Cut it and because this was kind of uh you know it was thin aluminum, but it was. It was thick enough to carry the current uh, but it was.

It was uh, not thin enough to sometimes cut it easily. I know a lot of you guys. Did we sold hundreds of these kids and uh and you guys actually are they're still in need of them because yeah, i see the comments on the thing we've been out of stock for uh for a little while um, i'm just trying to make things easier and Faster and safer to to to make right. So this is my attempt at doing that right, um one of the problems that it had here, uh here's.

My first attempt at doing the pcb i made the these boards exactly the same dimensions that the um the aluminum plates had right, and so one of the problems is that the spacing is off right. So i'll give you an example here, these two last ones, the two cells here are facing the same direction. So the positive goes on top, and so, if these two touch here and they're they're, basically touching each other right and that's okay, they have this uh isolating wrap around them. This red wrap and that's okay, but if they were to go on a vehicle, for example, or something and they there's vibrations they that could wear out and they could touch now.

These two touch here no problem because they're facing the same way, but if these ones here touch these are opposite right, because this is now the positive they go around like this right. So if these two touch here, then that would become a massive uh short and so in order to eliminate that what i would have to do, then is: i would have to change the distance between these right now, these these originally the bus bars, are made of Aluminum had uh the same distance between all of these. They were kind of symmetrical right, and so that would always be the case uh, and so i would have to change that right. The distance here would have to be bigger to be able to do this thing in here.

I just never did that at the beginning. I think the original plates were designed to fit a box, a plastic box that is linked in that original video, and so i couldn't add a lot of space in there. Basically, this is this: is the they barely fit in there right, and so i i remember doing the video we added extra layers of tape around to try to minimize the chances of that now. You know a couple years later, there's better ways to do that, and i did it if you really look at it now.

The new. This is the first version and then i was like. I don't like that. I'm gon na change that here's the second one i added a bigger pads here, so they could cover the entire head of the screw so that because that's what's just the contact, that's what's gon na carry all the current and you see now it's a little bit Bigger right so because i added some space between these groups right here, so there's less chance of that stuff happening so now uh.
It should be much easier and much safer to build with these two plates here and now also easier, because it's it's much simpler. Now. It's just two plates: this is the bottom plate. This is the top plate.

Also using these allows me to put lettering in here and instructions how to do it right. So, basically, you just have to place them like that. Put the cells in there and do the thing. Another reason why i'm doing the change is because the the aluminum plates got really hard to get apparently the company that we used to do them.

They keep misquoting us and instead of just saying like hey, it's going to be an extra you know hundred dollars in your order. They just cancel the order and then they have. We have to go back and redo it, and then i just got tired of doing that. It seems to be harder and harder to get more work to get these plates.

So i thought well i'm doing a lot of work with these boards uh and this uh. You know this process of ordering these seems simple and it gets getting easier and easier for me. So now the only downside, i know what you guys are thinking. These are high power batteries.

Cells uh are how much current? Can these uh really thin? Uh laminated uh boards handle right. Well, that's what we're going to be here to do. I think most people think that um pcb boards with their one ounce, copper right. So this is a one ounce, copper on each side.

So it's a two ons two layers of one ounce, copper right. They think that they can only carry like 40 amps or something now i'm here to to prove to you guys that no, you can run you know 100, probably 200 amps. Here we will build this battery, we will put a thermal camera and then we will run that test and if, if this is not up to par right, i'm gon na try to run at least 350 amps through this uh pack, maybe not today, and a future Video, because i don't have the loads here - i order some stuff to be able to do that. Um, but i'll be able to run like 150 amps through this right and then on a later video uh.

We will see if this is not up to par and we need to go. All we have to do is go when you're ordering this and then specify that you want two ounce, copper. Now you have two inch copper on top two on scrapper on the bottom. Now four ounces and you can go even with you - know: uh pcb weight.

You can do four ounce, copper, five ounce, copper. You can really start ordering really thick uh copper layers on these ones, uh, so to be able to carry all that current right. So that's why i think this is a much better way to build this battery, much easier for the customer and much safer, because uh a lot of these issues with the when uh with spacing and stuff gets. It got already fixed and stuff right.
So now it's just to run those tests and then you know basically show you guys that these are capable of running quite high current uh power right, and so let's build that battery. I have a box full of headway cells over there, we're just gon na populate these, and this is going to be a super simple uh process. Okay, so the only thing that i've done to these is solder these terminals. In here right, it's got three little points in the back here and then i also expose some of the copper in the top there.

So you can put this bead of solder in there. So, there's quite a bit of uh, there's quite a bit of um surface that is going in here right, we'll see how it does in the current right. So that's the only thing that you would have to do once you order these plates uh. If you're from us or if you're from um the shop that prints the boards themselves right like pcbweight.com, now you don't need to put these in here.

You could also just put um. You could also put just ring terminals on your cables and then just attach it to any of these here now. The cool thing about these is that they're centrally located right here right, so we put two of them, because i think these are rated about 80 amps. So two of these would be like 160 amps um.

Maybe i should put one in the well, i don't know, maybe like a larger one or something in here. Well, i'll look for another one that maybe we can do the thing in here and then that in case that we need to put that in there uh, but right now for this, let's just put it together when you order the cells, if you order new, you Might have to get the screws these, i ordered them from one of our partners, uh batteryhookups.com, and they also include the screws. So you might want to get some washers like a pressure washer in here um. Maybe not i'm.

Today, i'm going to assemble this without them and see how it does, but it's always a good idea to put a pressure washer in there just in case it doesn't come loose with any vibrations if you're gon na put this battery where there's vibrations and stuff. So let's put this battery together, so of course uh. Should we do let's do the bottom plate, so the bottom plate is here - and this is the what you have to populate. So this is negative, so you could do this second row, which is these two rows here, are negative.

So we'll start with that. One! Okay, you just tighten it this one. Has it positive and there's that little gap that i built into the spacing to keep these safe, less gap in here, but i still added a bit of a gap in there yeah. These are all supposed to be black here and they're.

Not so no problem, we'll just move them over here, where they need to go so do i would like to do before moving on is to see if these batteries are the same voltage, because if the one of them is like completely dead, then that could be Problematic, so let me bring okay, so first one: oh 2.8. I don't know 3.2. 3.2, 3.2. 2.8.
2.4. 2.6. 2.7. 2.8.

2.8. 2.8. 3.2. 3.2.

2.8.8. 2.6. 2.7. 0.9.

0.2. 0.9. 2.8. 2.8.7.

2.8. 0.6. 2.87.8.6.9. There are mostly 2.8, but a few three point, something i'm just gon na go for it.

I'm just gon na put this plate in there. Let them balance to each other, and then they see where they end up the groups. Uh we'll see how it goes. This might even be too much.

I don't know right the closer. They are the better, the farther apart, then, the more current that is going to have to transfer the more heat. As soon as you put this in here, there might be some transfer. There might be a little bit of sparks that whole thing right, but we'll let's try it yeah, i think uh, four tenths of a volt is it's uh, pretty small of a difference.

Um, i don't think there's a lot of amperage going through there yeah and i would suggest you don't tighten any bolts yet because that allows you to move them around like this to be able to put them in there. So this battery is pretty uh discharged. So i think what i'm gon na do is i'm gon na have to charge it all right. So here is our setup.

Um charging the battery using our power supply here um. I have to figure out how to do this. The easier way like maybe running the yeah running, uh traces, so that you can, we can connect this thing easily more easily and then maybe just connecting two wires from one board to the other one just to connect the two or three other ones. Actually, there's only two on the bottom but anyways here it is it's connected.

I put this thing. This thing was beeping because number one group number one right here is the lowest right. It's at three volts right now, while the rest of them are around 3.2 volts. So we're gon na charge this uh up to 3.6 and once they you know once we reach 3.6 in the first group, then we'll start charging the individual groups to just to balance this pack up.

That's the probably the easiest way to do it. Another way is to do it is to use uh. You know like an rc uh rc charger right, but that's actually quick less fast, because those balance at like one or two amps, where here i can balance at you, know 20 amps right once i uh once i reach have one of the groups reach the top End then, i can go to the second one and then put quite a bit of power to get that one up there to the very top and then go to the next one and then go to the next one right. So this is probably the easiest way to do it.

As you can see it here, you can barely see it because this is as a cut off of us of three volts, so once it reaches 3.6, then we'll balance it and then we'll test this battery. All right, so it's been a while here since we're doing this test and look at that group number one which was the lowest now is the highest uh. No, the highest is still number four. I guess number two is the lowest, so it's somewhere in there now see, but maybe number group is group number one is gon na, have some cells that are low capacity? What happened here, man, the stupid things i hate when they do that, every once in a while, you have to disconnect them and then connect them again, all right! So here's our setup for the test, the battery's slightly above domino right now, uh 3.3 volts right uh.
I wish i could uh charge it all the way up, but i'm running out of time. So let's do this test. Let's just put a few minutes in here see how much we can load it see if we start seeing any heat in the actual board here. Uh, i'm connected to a 2000 watt, inverter 4000 watt surge.

I'm gon na connect this as a load. I think this can pull the full 2000 uh something might blow up today. I don't think it's gon na be the battery. It might be this thing, but we'll see okay, so i'm gon na turn.

Oh, what was that? Okay, let's touristy huh, okay, it's on, i think so, let's see i'm gon na. I think it's on the system is on power. I'm gon na add a little bit more there. We go it's one amp right now on the meter plant meter.

There we go oh come on what is going on here, protect, so the voltage is 13.31 13.3 wow. That's interesting, not sure why this is protecting. Ah, okay, now i guess there's something up with this inverter, because the voltage is high, it's 13 volts, yet it's protected itself, i'm barely pulling any power. Okay, so we'll have to leave this test for another day.

I did uh uh order, another one of these big inverters uh 3 000. What continues right, uh i'll look into this one, to see what's up, why it doesn't want to go, but for now this video is going to be about putting this battery together. The test is going to be it's going to have to come up later to be continued. Okay, thank you for watching these videos.

We'll see you guys the next one bye.

6 thoughts on “Building a 12v lifepo4 battery out of 32 headway cells”
  1. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars Jose Arrasola says:

    Hello sir , well done looks like will work awesome for those who like those headways ! I’m just a beginner just like a kid starting to learn how walk ! Thank you 🙏 for all the hard work you do for us !

  2. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars Giuseppe Villella says:

    Ciao amico🤝🔋come sempre ottimo lavoro 👏🎞.dove si possono trovare questi supporti Top ?online

  3. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars Dan Tronics says:

    since its 12v why do you use an inverter for the load, why not use some 12v car headlight(halogen lamps) instead?

  4. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars MurlocConfidential says:

    Pretty Sweet. Love the idea.

  5. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars Lightnin McQueen says:

    How do you fast forward live lol

  6. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars b0red says:

    First. Keep with the good vids bro!

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