Hello from Brooklyn, NY

Hi, my name is Jaime and I am new to batteries and cells, found out about power walls in youtube with a guy named jehugarcia and in his channel he mentioned you guys? I bought some cells from battery hookups and 4 flare chargers, I am opening them up and running the norm test that charges, discharges and charges. I am very new so I have tons of questions!!! Good to be here!

Welcome to lithium anonymous.
4 flare chargers? never heard of them oh Zanflare
Later floyd

Hi floyd, yeah made a mistake is the zanflare C4, I got two, and then two more since they only operate the Norm Test at 500mAh. Then today I got 4 more of the other brand that I saw recommended in the internet LittoKala lii 500? not sure the name is right, but this one can do the norm test at 1000mAh, I purchased 450 cells from a guy on craigslist from old Compaq presario laptops and some other HP packs, it takes a long time to open the battery packs, but it is also fun! My guess after I purchased the cells was that maybe the compaq cells are a bit old but since I have 450 I am testing to see if they get to 4.20v and then I am storing them in a box to test voltage in two weeks? if voltage goes down, kind of bad cell, that's what I am hearing here also for some of the searches I have done.

I use Opus BT-C3400 which is the Opus BT-C3100 with updated firmware. The LittoKala lii 500 only charges at 1000 mAh from what I read discharge is 500 mAh. Battery hook up and battery clearing house are my two main sources for 18650s and other products. I don't really have the patience to open laptop packs any more.
later floyd

Hi there and welcome to you Jaime Last night I stayed awake 'till 4.30AM to make my (first) rechargeble box 18650-based; I'll be using them on all the sensor boxes I'm putting around the house!

Enjoy!

italianuser said:

Hi there and welcome to you Jaime Last night I stayed awake 'till 4.30AM to make my (first) rechargeble box 18650-based; I'll be using them on all the sensor boxes I'm putting around the house!

Enjoy!

Click to expand...

That sounds amazing, I am also up opening boxes and watching movies or youtube learning about cells, I have at least 5 project in my mind already, but I fell the learning curve is not easy and I should take it one step at the time. I ordered a bunch or PCB boards that can connect together to create power packs, I also have a BMS that will work with those pub boards, and a few other things that came with this KIT. We will love to see a picture of your first project italianuseer!

Best Jaime!

Yes, take you time, meanwhile you could start buying all that little stuff you need to manage you project.

I started off with a few things and then I ended up buying a LOAD of things online (I love AliExpress for my prototyping stuff), these were my first buyings:
- 18650 battery supports;
- a better tester for DC voltage/current (for now I bought a 20$ RichMeters RM303 with 0.05% accuracy on DC voltage, what I need the most, one day a lovely Fluke may be on my desk!);
- a couple of variable voltage boards (DC-DC converters) for quick tests/charging/powering up some or another device;
- connectors, xh2.54 for low current and xt30/xt60/else for higher currents;
- wires, AWG26 for little currents, AWG18 for my 1 or 2 amps, etc;
- a support for soldering and new soldering tips, flux and different diameter tin.

All for a bunch of $ online... yes, I want to learn chinese!

Here, I'll show my last-night-project, it's the base for something bigger. I will share it in the Project section of the forum soon:


Bottom-Left: my Arduino boards collects data from sensors around the house (water level in the tank, temperature, humidity, and soon voltages/current from solar and batteries); and sends data out to the web using an ESP8266 WiFi.
Top: a smaller board, an ATTINY85 collecting temperature and humidity and sending it to the Arduino board.
Right: my small battery box with a voltage display and a switch to display the current value.

Love it!

That looks cool! I bet you can make a small humidity reader to put inside acoustic guitars to read humidity inside the guitars? I was shopping for one of those humidifiers for acoustic guitars once and they are expensive ! love the house project! Very advance stuff here!!

Cheers!

LOL thanks... well, advanced stuff are those mega-walls you see in the forum! For a guitar?!? Ehm yes! But consider the DHT-22 sensor I use isn't so precise, here's a very nice study done by kandrsmith. So, as soon as you're ready do open a new thread with your projects (and/or questions!).