Smart Powerwall: Powerbrick II

fr333n3rgy

fr333n3rgy

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Joined
Jul 16, 2017
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4
Hi guys,

As promised,I've just finished the first set of PCBs for the powerbrick - see video on youtube athttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MP-F2gKTnlc&t=10s

The idea behind this design is:

1) No soldering required
2) Easy maintenance of cells
3) Ability to use ANY (working) cell even cells of different capacity
4) Individual cell charging (when used with thebackplane - under development)
5) No need for BMS (since charging backplane manages each cell individually)
6) No need for special "solar" charger - just a beefed up 5-36v power source will work
7) Various power configuration modes by chaining bricks in series/parallel
8) Enhanced LiIonCell Safety - both electronic and mechanical

I'll go into more details as the project develops.

I know you'll have questions, but be patient as I am not doing this full time so my replies will be a little slow. Subscribe to the youtube channel if you want, that way you'll get a notification when I upload the next video etc.
 
Wow, that's pretty neat! :)
 
Looks interesting!

We are still living in times where we need good ideas like this one. Sadly, and I'm not trying to jinx it, it is a matter of broader acceptance to make it economically viable. I guess in this stage the prototypes are still pretty expensive :)
 
Love that. Looking forward to use all of this on my project. Where can we buy this ?
 
DarkRaven said:
Looks interesting!

We are still living in times where we need good ideas like this one. Sadly, and I'm not trying to jinx it, it is a matter of broader acceptance to make it economically viable. I guess in this stage the prototypes are still pretty expensive :)
Click to expand...

about $2/board@ very small qty-- ...should be able to get this down further with larger qty.

kiwi said:
Love that. Looking forward to use all of this on my project. Where can we buy this ?
Click to expand...

Thanks.I firstly want to do some further load testing on the tracks etc. I'll make some videos with thermalimagingetc.

They will eventually be onthe wctek siteonceI have the first production batch done. I'll let you know here.
 
I see a big potential in this idea!

I also love people thinking outside the box!

Only thing I'm wondering about: what about cell fusing? Is there going to be a purely mechanical way of cutting out a defective cell?
 
IvoStaelens said:
I see a big potential in this idea!

I also love people thinking outside the box!

Only thing I'm wondering about: what about cell fusing? Is there going to be a purely mechanical way of cutting out a defective cell?
Click to expand...

Thank you and good question!

I've embedded the cell fuses on both sides of the plates (each cell has 2 fuses) - I will be making a thermal video and post it to show how they work. In addition, each cell has an electronic circuit for disconnection and each cell is monitored for temperature- so you'll have 3 type of cell protection 1) electronic, 2) temperature driven 3) mechanical.

you could say I'm a bit paranoid, but safety of handling used cells was my main concern when designing this. I want to be able to use any cell (as long as they're not dead) without having to constantly be worried about fires etc ...

The visionwill become clearer once I post more information about the backplane itself (which manages the pack with its microprocessor). I'm currently making final tweaks but I may post a video on the "breadboard" version of the prototype soon.
 
fr333n3rgy said:
IvoStaelens said:
I see a big potential in this idea!

I also love people thinking outside the box!

Only thing I'm wondering about: what about cell fusing? Is there going to be a purely mechanical way of cutting out a defective cell?
Click to expand...

Thank you and good question!

I've embedded the cell fuses on both sides of the plates (each cell has 2 fuses) - I will be making a thermal video and post it to show how they work. In addition, each cell has an electronic circuit for disconnection and each cell is monitored for temperature- so you'll have 3 type of cell protection 1) electronic, 2) temperature driven 3) mechanical.

you could say I'm a bit paranoid, but safety of handling used cells was my main concern when designing this. I want to be able to use any cell (as long as they're not dead) without having to constantly be worried about fires etc ...

The visionwill become clearer once I post more information about the backplane itself (which manages the pack with its microprocessor). I'm currently making final tweaks but I may post a video on the "breadboard" version of the prototype soon.
Click to expand...

No worries about paranoid... I think it's very important to think about safety ::)

I am very curious how you'll manage individual cell charging and keeping the entire pack balanced... I'm not a pro in electronics, but I think it's a complicated affair to get this done...

Keep us informed!!!!
 
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