Newbie struggling to sort through fake listings versus real listings

Amish_Fighter_Pilot

New member
Joined
Jul 15, 2019
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14
Hello everyone. I have been planning to build a replacement battery for my son's Action Wheels Yamaha Raptor ATV and I've been trying to figure out what cells to buy for this(I don't have time to salvage cells right now).

It seems like there's a massive number of fake units being sold all over eBay and other sites. I've even heard of local stores having fakes and not even knowing. I really want to build him a modest battery with some 26650 cells, but units claiming 12800 maH are clearly fake and even some of those claiming to be certain brands are apparently fake.

Does anyone keep a blacklist of sellers who peddle fakes? Is there any site that is truly reliable to get proper units from? I have picked up a BT-3400(Rev 3.1), so I have the means now to test these cells for legitimacy. I already have some 3000maH LG batteries that I got with a vape a while back, but those were not cheap at all(10 bucks a piece at the local shop). I would really like to do something like a 4 or 5 p battery with 4 or 5 series. The original lead acid battery is 12V and rated at 12AH, but its about worthless now.

I need to keep the price low because we are very poor but my kid has needed something awesome for a while and I really want to make a good pack for him. I would really appreciate help sorting this out since I am so new to this. I'm also going to need to find a premade BMS that is affordable. Will I need a specialized charger too? Thanks!
 
Everything is a trade off.
Time vs money
New vs old
Extracting testing vs buy new and use
It seems you are asking for everything at once
Cheap,, high quality, no time spent.
I think you will have to choose something that is missed.
Maybe extracted already tested cells would be the best bang for buck?
Otherwise Thunderheart reviews new cells from queenbattery. Do they meet your requirements?
 
I built a 4S5P (14.8V) pack for my son's PowerWheels Jeep. I used Samsung inr18650-20r (2.0Ahr) cells salvaged from power tool batteries. I was able to gather enough good cells from Home Depot recycle bins, mostly from Ryobi or Ridgid packs. Alternatively, you can buy packs online/ebay for less than $4 cell.

The one snag ran into was that the 4s, 30A BMS I was using, would cut out. The way the jeep would send 100% power to the motors, the spike would trip the protection. I'm experimenting with using 2 BMSs in parallel. In the mean time, I was able to salvage some 12V batteries from an UPS battery backup.

Lastly, I have a bunch of LG 1.3Ah cells, from Ryobi packs. Some tested, some not. I'd be happy to send them to you, if you cover the shipping cost (assuming you're in the continental US).
 
Amish_Fighter_Pilot said:
Hello everyone. I have been planning to build a replacement battery for my son's Action Wheels Yamaha Raptor ATV and I've been trying to figure out what cells to buy for this(I don't have time to salvage cells right now).


I need to keep the price low because we are very poor but my kid has needed something awesome for a while and I really want to make a good pack for him. I would really appreciate help sorting this out since I am so new to this. I'm also going to need to find a premade BMS that is affordable. Will I need a specialized charger too? Thanks!

The BMS you will need to fendyourself for and also the charger. BUT this is your lucky day and your kid will have something awesome.
I have 1 set of 20 SanyoUR18650RX 1950mAh high drain cells all tested good except 1 that looks like it might be a SD but I could also have pulled it out of the tester too soon. As you know I live and die by IR and the IR is good so I would say it is probably a good cell.
But wait there is more 20 INR18650-20Q cells all with an IR ~19m? to 22m? some tested some not, the tested ones 1800mAh and up.
But wait there is more 23 ICR18650-22P not tested cells but IR is at an very acceptable 20m? to 24m?
As they are below my #1 capacity limit and #2 below my IR threshold as they are really high drain cells. you are more than welcome to them .
Cover the shipping and they are yours. PM me your info.I will not use them and I cannot think of a better home for them to go to thanyour sons toy.
Just think you can build 3 packs with these. There is one condition though I want a progress report on the build.

image_jbndjh.jpg

image_jnzobc.jpg

Wolf
 
Oz18650 said:
Another lovely offer!
What a great bunch on this forum!

Wow! You aren't kidding. I really didn't expect all that. I would be completely cool with covering shipping for those. That's awesome! We've been homeless for the last 3 years basically(its complicated), but we have been spending most of this year working ourselves to death getting this property ready for our tiny home. Its kind of remote, so there's not other kids out there to play with. He loves his ATV(he insists it is an "ASTV" though lol), but the lame lead-acid battery is really worn out and he gets maybe 10 minutes of run time out of it, sometimes more if he doesn't go up any inclines. We've been saving up change for a new lead acid battery but then I started looking at lithium packs as a more serious option. I want to make that thing awesome like never before. One bit of good news is that someone was giving away a non-working ATV that was identical to it so I have one I can dissect and use for parts in case I ruin anything in this adventure! We have to get our concrete done today so I'll try to respond to individual posts here as soon as possible! Thanks again guys!!!!
 
Lucan said:
I built a 4S5P (14.8V) pack for my son's PowerWheels Jeep. I used Samsung inr18650-20r (2.0Ahr) cells salvaged from power tool batteries. I was able to gather enough good cells from Home Depot recycle bins, mostly from Ryobi or Ridgid packs. Alternatively, you can buy packs online/ebay for less than $4 cell.

The one snag ran into was that the 4s, 30A BMS I was using, would cut out. The way the jeep would send 100% power to the motors, the spike would trip the protection. I'm experimenting with using 2 BMSs in parallel. In the mean time, I was able to salvage some 12V batteries from an UPS battery backup.

Lastly, I have a bunch of LG 1.3Ah cells, from Ryobi packs. Some tested, some not. I'd be happy to send them to you, if you cover the shipping cost (assuming you're in the continental US).

That sounds great! I have a tester so I would have no problem going through and making sure they're good. I sent you a PM about it. Thanks for the generosity! Hopefully this will be a really good learning project for me to get into making batteries!


Wolf said:
Amish_Fighter_Pilot said:
Hello everyone. I have been planning to build a replacement battery for my son's Action Wheels Yamaha Raptor ATV and I've been trying to figure out what cells to buy for this(I don't have time to salvage cells right now).


I need to keep the price low because we are very poor but my kid has needed something awesome for a while and I really want to make a good pack for him. I would really appreciate help sorting this out since I am so new to this. I'm also going to need to find a premade BMS that is affordable. Will I need a specialized charger too? Thanks!

The BMS you will need to fendyourself for and also the charger. BUT this is your lucky day and your kid will have something awesome.
I have 1 set of 20 SanyoUR18650RX 1950mAh high drain cells all tested good except 1 that looks like it might be a SD but I could also have pulled it out of the tester too soon. As you know I live and die by IR and the IR is good so I would say it is probably a good cell.
But wait there is more 20 INR18650-20Q cells all with an IR ~19m? to 22m? some tested some not, the tested ones 1800mAh and up.
But wait there is more 23 ICR18650-22P not tested cells but IR is at an very acceptable 20m? to 24m?
As they are below my #1 capacity limit and #2 below my IR threshold as they are really high drain cells. you are more than welcome to them .
Cover the shipping and they are yours. PM me your info.I will not use them and I cannot think of a better home for them to go to thanyour sons toy.
Just think you can build 3 packs with these. There is one condition though I want a progress report on the build.

image_jbndjh.jpg

image_jnzobc.jpg

Wolf


Thank you! This should really help make this happen! I have plenty of wire and all sorts of chargers from years of scrapping work. I wish I had realized more over the years that there was value in the laptop batteries. I used to pass them over but I won't be doing that anymore!

This should make for a good learning project and should hopefully have that thing moving properly... Anyway, I will send you a PM here in a minute. Thanks! This forum is great!
 
I've never played with electric ATVs, but here are some thoughts.

You'll definitely want to add a BMS to protect the lithium cells from various conditions that could lead it to catch fire. I've not used this particular one, but the 45A version seems like a reasonable choice. Lacks over-temperature protection tough.
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/328...chweb0_0,searchweb201602_9,searchweb201603_52

Probably a good idea to add a fuse in there. A BMS can fail, too.

You might want to add ceramic capacitors to the motors to reduce voltage spikes that might otherwise kill nearby electric components. The parts cost virtually nothing.
https://medium.com/jungletronics/dc-motors-against-back-emf-589d8ed174cc


Some inspiration:
http://forum.modifiedpowerwheels.com/viewtopic.php?t=19976
 
kc8adu said:
make it 4s.
gives it a bit more power and wont hurt it a bit.
you would be surprised to see what those motors will tolerate.

Thanks, I'll keep that in mind here. I found a person giving away a broken ATV that was identical to his so I picked it up so I have one I can tinker with without risking destroying his.

I haven't finished taking it apart, but I was able to crack open the motor housing just enough to peek in there and it looks basically like it has the equivalent of two cordless drill motors; one on each wheel. I had expected one larger motor and some sort of differential, but I was wrong. The interesting thing is that fitting a much bigger motor in there would actually not be that hard since it appears to have quite a bit of unused space.


ajw22 said:
I've never played with electric ATVs, but here are some thoughts.

You'll definitely want to add a BMS to protect the lithium cells from various conditions that could lead it to catch fire. I've not used this particular one, but the 45A version seems like a reasonable choice. Lacks over-temperature protection tough.
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/328...chweb0_0,searchweb201602_9,searchweb201603_52

Probably a good idea to add a fuse in there. A BMS can fail, too.

You might want to add ceramic capacitors to the motors to reduce voltage spikes that might otherwise kill nearby electric components. The parts cost virtually nothing.
https://medium.com/jungletronics/dc-motors-against-back-emf-589d8ed174cc


Some inspiration:
http://forum.modifiedpowerwheels.com/viewtopic.php?t=19976

Thanks for the reply. I was considering putting fuse wire to each cell. I have a ton of wire sitting around of various sizes so that shouldn't be hard to accomplish. I certainly have tons of old electronic devices around that I could take capacitors off of. Is there anything wrong with using large caps off a computer power supply? I honestly don't understand capacitor ratings as well as I would like to. I'll try to get myself educated on that as fast as possible. Safety is extremely important on this since my kid will be sitting on top of it. I'll probably fabricate some sort of steel shell to go around it all.
 
Yes, they don't really degrade, so any old part will do, but it needs to be a "ceramic capacitor". They're typically blue or yellow/brownish in color... google for pics.
Make sure it's not a "tantalum capacitor" - they have a printed "+", dot or similar sign.

It's not an exact science, but 3 capacitors anywhere in the 47nF ~ 2uF range seems to work well. Ie. it should have any of the following numbers printed on them: 473, 683, 104,154,254,224,334,474,684,105,155,205. Probably no harm in mixing, if you can't get 3 of the same type.
https://www.circuitspedia.com/how-to-read-ceramic-capacitor-code-value-104-chart/

Solder might not stick well on the motor case. Try scratching the surface where you want to solder.

Here are some more info:
https://www.pololu.com/docs/0J15/9
 
Hello again! I've been super busy trying to get our tiny home ready to move, but tonight I took apart the motor housing on the junk ATV that is just like his. I took out the two motors and their gear boxes. I'm still trying to find data on these motors but they're clearly some sort of permanent magnet DC motor. They remind me a lot of the motors used on car windows actually.

Anyway here are the pictures of them:


image_vrdlnk.jpg



image_aojedo.jpg


I was fairly surprised to open this thing up and not just see one motor with some sort of cheapo differential. They share an axle, but the axle seems to just serve as a spindle for the wheels to rotate around and the hexagonal plastic parts on the opposite side of those gear boxes do the actual driving of each wheel. These things are like a puzzle to take apart though unfortunately; its absurd how you have to take almost every part of the thing off to detach the motor housing. Dumar seems to no longer be making these things and may even be out of business. Its surprising how little info there is on the internet about the internal workings of these things.
 
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