Hey there, let's play with some batteries. Today's video is going to be sponsored by PCB Way where you can make your own piece of bees. So these are this is the battery that we're gonna work on today. These are becoming very very popular.

They are EV modules and a couple days ago uh I showed I uploaded a video where we showed this one right here. It's a 13s module that is brand new because cars were involved in an accident and they weren't used so they have zero miles on them and so it was. The thing that uh was hard was that it had its own proprietary BMS This thing in here or part of the BMS is inside of the battery module and they have these weird connectors that are sometimes very very hard to find. as is the case with this one here.

We had these for many many months now and we haven't been able to find the connector right. So on this case you know when you take the cover off the it's very easy to take this board out. We just let's just screwed onto the module and so that's what we did. We designed a printed circuit board and then this is the same size and the same uh Dimensions as the old one except this is just a breakout board and then we put our own connector right here and so that's what we were able to do that right.

As soon as you do that then you get rid of the proprietary stuff that has locked. you know code in there and it's got. You can use it easily. Uh, and now you.

This is open source and now you're able to get and use these batteries because you have the access to all of the center points right center. Taps for all the 13 cells and so now you can go and buy your own third-party BMS and then use it. Now that's the case with that one today. we're gonna look at this one right here.

This is from the Honda inside and like I said before, we just have been unable to find this connector. We put it out there I put it in all the forums I've talked to some people and they all say oh yeah that looks like a connector but you know I Bought all the connectors that look similarly to this and it's none of them have worked. It's actually pretty simple connector. It's just a three millimeter by three millimeter and I think it's 13 pins or 14 pins something like that.

and so this is the module right? and so this one is different and that it doesn't have any Electronics in there so it doesn't have any proprietary stuff. It's literally just cables in here, but it's really hard to get in here and then put your own connector. This is live right? so you couldn't just cut it and then just put your own connector. You'd have to very carefully peel back all these things and then you know disconnect it or come in here and start clipping away these cables.

and then you can put your own. It's very, very tedious and very, uh, you know, time consuming, right? And so that's why the easiest things that I figure to do was to make our own connector. And I know what you're saying? How can you make your own connector That is correct? We are going to attempt to make our own connector so you know I came across this. We use these called Dupont connectors and the pitch here is 2.54 millimeters in distance, right? So that means the distance between all the pins is 2.5 almost the three millimeter distance between these I measure these right carefully, right? But the the actual pins.

they go in there and they, uh, they're about the size that you need. So the only thing that we need to do is make a board or something, our own housing that can put all of these 15 or 16 pins that go in here at the right spacing. Right Add three, uh, millimeters apart, right? and so that's what we're going to do. Let's go to the drawing app and then let's draw that thing up.

We'll take the dimensions of this board, right? All right. So okay, so here is the connector. Uh, here's a pattern of pins in that connector, right? So when you're looking at it from the front, this is starts with B minus This would be considered the pin number one and then two, Three, four, Five, Six, seven, eight, nine, Ten Eleven Twelve thirteen and then there's a pin here, but it's not used so I'm not even putting it in here just so that when you connected, uh, well, you don't you don't actually use it right? So um, these are marked like that because these are Center Taps and I like to uh, usually go C two here, three, four, five, six seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven twelve because then you end up with a 12 number which is the amount of cells that are in the pack. but a lot of other people use these C1 here and then they end with a C11 Even though there's 12 cells, right? And you just, you know.

Well, here's the last cell and here's the first cell. I don't know there, it's just I Think there people go back and forth and you know you just have to pick one. and uh, sometimes I pick one, sometimes I pick the other one I think I should probably just stick to one, but on this one I Decided to do the C1 C2 Three, four, five right and I just put those markings in there because there's not enough space. Uh, this is enough for someone to know where they're at.

The important thing is, here's pin One. Here's uh, the last pin the pin 13 right? Um, and then this is just a tiny tiny little board and the spacing is three millimeters by three millimeters, right? This is as easy as that, right? And so what we're gonna do is we're gonna stick those little Dupont connectors in there and then solder them and then shrink wrap them and then that's how the connector is gonna be put together. So here we go. That is it.

It's a very, very simple uh project. Let's print it out, add PCB way and then uh, once we get it, then we can try it on the batteries and look at that. It's here and it almost looks exactly the same. Does it? Yes, it does.

Let's go try it on the actual battery module. make sure the pins are all straight. Yep, just look okay. Look at that that went in there and now you have a connector there.

Okay, so I don't know what to do with these and I sense that everyone is going to want to do something different with these. So I think we're just gonna leave them like that. So the main reason to uh get access to these cables is to check the individual cell voltages right the center caps of all the cells. This module has 12 cells in series and so when you want to use this battery, you want to either you yourself know where the cells are at or you need to install a BMS battery management system that will keep track of the cell's voltages.

they the AMS to keep those as balanced as possible. If one of those Falls below or too high then the battery should stop charging or discharging. being you know it shouldn't Kind of put a stop to its use and so that's what these cables will allow you to do right? So this right here is a very cool little device that will let you check up until uh, 22 cells in series, right? And so we're gonna use that to connect it in there and then you can see the individual cell voltages in here. So in order to connect that the number one is B minus right? So that's number one and then it goes down this way and then it has a little arrow goes out to that and then it goes down and then 6X back to C4 And so that's how you plug those in here.

So we're going to use that. Here is the most negative. that's number one and then the this one right here is going to be number two. Yep, Okay now I think I connected all these correctly.

I will plug it into the battery and here we go. We got all 12 12 cells. Uh, and you can see that it's very very balanced. All right.

So I hope these little cables will help anyone that's trying to use these modules, right? So if you wanted to install a BMS for example, Well this is like a 14s right here, right? It usually starts. number one is the black one in here and that'll go to the first one and then every other cable just goes in sequence and you can connect them like that, right? and so you could take those cables, splice them in there, and then you put that in here and then you put the negative through the BMS and now you have a battery that's protected via of the BMS. The other uh way that you could do this is you can put a bunch of these together right next to each other. sort of like what we did here on the wall with these ones and connect them all in parallel and then connect all of these also into another board and connect them all in parallel and it becomes one big giant 12s or yeah, 12 S Battery right? 44 volts nominal? Uh.

and this other videos I even show how there are some inverters like the Victron inverters that will accept this voltage and you could control and you can program the right voltage profile to be able to use these right. These are very, very affordable and we have I Think We are down to two pallets of these which is still quite a bit of them right over 200 I Think or something like that. Uh, and but this was a part that was missing and now thanks to our sponsor PCB Way Well, we can easily and quickly make something like That, right? So uh, of course. uh, this is open source.

You can go and download that little file I'm going to make it available. just go to the description of this video and click on the link there and you'll be able to download it there I think we've also made a few of these uh, uh, or a handful of them. So we're also going to list them on our website there so that you can buy them. and I think there are several versions.

We'll put the two versions that we made at first I made a little short one and then I put this little longer one. and if you guys need them right and you don't want to make them, then we'll put them out there just for a nominal fee so that we can pay our guys that are doing this sort of stuff. It is kind of. It is very tedious and uh, soldering this pins in here.

but once you get it, once you get going, you should be able to figure it out and do it. And so this is kind of a DIY way to use these modules here, right? Uh, sometimes you have to make your own connector because they're just not available and this is one of those times. So there we go. Thank you for watching this video.

We'll see you guys on the next one! Bye.