Black and white powerwall

Gerard Achternaam

New member
Joined
Sep 5, 2017
Messages
28
September 2017 started for me learning about this group of people building their own powerwall from recycled laptop batteries. That sounded cool! It happend to coincide with my wife asking me if we would still have power from our grid-tie installation if the grid went down. We wouldn't I learned here, but that is something I would like. And the mere question sounded like wife-approval to me!

I was lucky to find a metal recycler that sold me batteries for 1 euro per kilo. I bought 2 Opus BT-C3100 to do the charging and testing, and my work on the batteries was slowly taking over my work bench and more.


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Every evening I spend in my garage turning


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into


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and


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But it was slow going with just two Opus chargers. For less than 10 euro I bought 20 TP4056's, hooked them up to an old recycled computer PSU connected by stripped installation wire.


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All the ugly wiring was done on the flip side of the wood.


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That sped things up quite a bit.

Keith hooked me up with pretty white sleeves and I put double isolation rings on the positive side.


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I decided to fuse front and back with the fast axial glass fuses. They are only like 7 euro per 1000.


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I could not find another cheap source of batteries and I relieved my recycler of all his battery packs so I downgraded my dream from a 14S80P system to a 7S80P system. I wanted to get it up and running and maybe later add some more packs and upgrade to 48V. I bought the PIP2424 HSE for 200,- and a metalcabinet (plastic padded for isolation)to hold the packs (cabinet + holding brackets idea from a member here).


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I painted a wall white to make it look better (thanks daromer).



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It is quite amazing how much time it took to get all the wiring, breakers and switches together and installed, but it looks good I think.


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I still have to hook up the AC out to a line that runs to the house, install a complete new main fuse box to create room for a change-over switch to finish the project, but I am happy to announce my freezer is already running off-grid!

There's room for another 7 80P packs in the cabinet and I bet some LED lighting in there would look marvellous!

I cannot thank the admins and members here and on facebook enough. I watched many, many hours of youtube and read a shitload of posts to learn everything I need to get to this point. For a list of materials and costs check my sheet here:https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1B-D7Hzgfn6ygvX8J3nNXyes8-8B9SjIocECv-ga1p8U/
 
Wow very impressive Gerard. Is the cabinet made of metal? What was it originally?
 
Needs a great shot of the cells in their box in landscape mode for FB Header :)
 
Bertin_S2000 said:
Beautiful!!!
More infoon those pipe clamps to hold the packs?


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Standard 20mm pipe clamps, filed down a little to fit the space between two batteries. I use 3 clamps per pack, but two would have been enough, the connection is pretty sturdy.

This idea is not mine. Props go to somebody else.


ChrisEvans said:
What gauge wire did you use for bus bars?

3 strands of solid 2.5mm twisted together.


hbpowerwall said:
Needs a great shot of the cells in their box in landscape mode for FB Header :)


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Rad said:
Wow very impressive Gerard. Is the cabinet made of metal? What was it originally?

Yes, its a tool cabinet.I bought the cabinet here:https://www.hornbach.nl/shop/KUePPE...m-4-legplanken-3-deuren/3205592/artikel.htmlI alsolinked to the source of most things I bought in my sheet.

Also not my idea, props go to somebody else.


Original battery box and pipe clamps: https://secondlifestorage.com/t-Batterybox-for-14S-120P-Austrian-style
 
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