Adam Savage's One Day Builds: Lithium Ion Battery Charging Station!

hey guys Adam Savage here with a handheld opening shot what in my cave with a one-day build if you're like me you probably have a few of these lithium-ion cell batteries lying around these are a very specific kind of thing they 18 650s three point seven volt lithium-ion batteries they come in a lot of different brands they come with a lot of different kinds of electronics and I've ended up with a whole bunch of them and my problem is is that every time I end up with one I end up with a charger like this now the infrastructure for charging a whole bunch of batteries using one of these one at a time is like I don't have that kind of time in my lifetime so today's one day build is I'm going to build a gang charger for these guys so I can charge a bunch of them at once and then they can always be I can always have a set of them charged yeah basically it's like so I can keep a bunch of these charged at any given point so this is actually a project that I started a long time ago and that's why this exists this is some MDF that I drilled out with a Forstner bit to make a holder for these batteries with the idea that I'd have uncharged batteries in one side and charged batteries on the other and as long as I didn't have too many batteries I'd be able to tell which was which so this is always gonna be part of this build and then out of all of these dumb chargers that I have I've ended up with four of these these are fabulous these are two at a time and that means that I can make a gang charger that charges eight batteries at once but what am I gonna do am I going to touch a power strip and connect all of these plugs no no I am NOT because what I noticed here when I look at the output of these little wall warts is it says input 100 to 240 volts output sorry is 12 volts 1,000 milliamps so 1 amp at 12 volts so that should mean that as long as I have more than 4 amps of output I should be able to power all 4 of these and lo I do in this beautiful charger this is a terrific 12 volt transformer I found these this puts out 8 amps BAM this is a big-ass transformer for me when I first hooked up all the lights in my in my lit display cases with all the LEDs up the mullions it was drawing like 6 and 1/2 amps across the whole thing and I had a 6 amp transformer and I kept on frying them so I eventually found these nice big fat ones so this is twice as many amps as I need that should be more than enough and in fact I did a test where because this plug is the exact same polarity and size the ones that go in these Tenergy ones and it did charge a battery so I know that this works so the next step here is to figure out the form factor how do these live with this and what what is the form of this battery charger management system that's the next step once I figure that out then I am going to solder the four leads together from these power supplies so I have one plug that comes out of this transformer so I have to basically arrange the transformer the batteries the chargers into something and I'm thinking it's kind of like a little tote I'm taking a little tote that could store somewhere easily with a handle on it so you could move around the shop like mobility that's where I'm gonna start I think charged on one side and uncharged on the other it's better and I don't have to split it in half that's ok I think maybe the goal with this is that it's super thin but it's super skinny maybe it's like this I handle up the top so it's just a yeah so if that's the case then this yeah that's actually pretty cool the whole thing is gonna be very narrow and wide 14 inches wide yeah handle on it I knew it's all I always knew it's gonna have a handle so the handle this is 8 inches right inches minus the bottom yeah and then the handle need to be able to pull battery out not the most beautiful drawing but it'll get me there so some cut lifts here sides are 2.75 and they go up to 8 inches and then they start to taper and the distance to the bottom of the handle is 3.5 so I figure out what my handle is now figure out so there's times 2 times 2 of those and then to join those would be two times 13.5 inches two inches times 13.5 inches to grief two of those then one at 13.5 two times 2.75 and that should get me that's one two three four five pieces plus the handle I should get me most of the way let's start cutting some parts now and all right I believe so now it is sides go like this and get captured like this and I have probably somehow managed that's it's like that that's the that's the that's the current potential right so now ah ah I see huh this may be interesting it is interesting okay I have an interesting challenge which is I haven't given myself enough room to seat this in here it sit like this but I don't like that I wanted to sit like this so I'm actually going to mill out I want to use a milling machine to mill out yeah a spot for this uh-huh that's what I'm going to do and that spot is gonna be oh right yeah I can go right up against there I could be from there okay okay I have chucked these two pieces of wood into my mill they're on top of a piece of wood that's cut to the exact size of both of them together I have clamped the ends with some can't twist clamps and I'm about to use them a medium sized bit i think this half inch bit to take out about half of the weight yeah about half the width of each of these pieces so let's see how an I measure that loose in looks in that's as deep as I can go I like that okay so now we simply machine it to my marks I'm gonna give you a nice close-up of this room that went spectacularly I what I did was I cut both pieces as one so they would match each other and clamp them onto a board here with these can't twist clamps and here they are see and so now they provide a little bit of extra room for the power supply to sit down there because I didn't measure carefully enough I think it's time to clean these up on my scotch brite wheel and assemble the first part of this stand I said I was ready to do assembly on this but I'm not I still have to drill the holes for the handle and then cut the tapers for these I need all that to be cut before I start screwing and gluing this thing together so first things first when to use a Forstner bit to drill those two holes now when you're drilling two pieces of wood together often when you punch through the first piece of wood you end up with this little disc II disc at the bottom of the Forstner bit that will inhibit you from cutting through to the second piece if you're not going fast enough and so you need to clear that moving the work now it's time to mark and cut my tables all right so the one thing that I need to do before I even start assembling is I actually need to cut down the handle not just lengthwise but I also chose a Forster bit that was smaller than the diameter of the handle I'm going to chuck this into the lathe and turn down the diameter of this so it slots through that hole and spins and it's kind of like a little keeper I need to adjust its overall length and then the width of each end check that lovely - check perfect love it let's make sure my length is right yeah I'm going to cut this down to match this all right I think that's the final step for the initial assembly hey no blow throughs very pleased about that again no both Roos get better at this all right so now put one side on oh right one blood Oh to blow through z-- sorry about that ah three come on for this to make sure that they're totally hey I forgot to put the handle lines but that's okay cuz I think I can still squeeze it in yes all right there we go that is the basics I have one low three over here yeah now time to see how the rest of this I really messed up I seriously seriously seriously messed up this is what these videos are this is just me missing small details and causing myself to have more work later what the hell come on alright that is a boring conundrum I have not yet let me show you what the problem is the problem is is when I milled out the sides of this box to fit the power supply I had two marks and I accidentally went to the first market not the second mark and therefore my power supply is too big for the slot that I so carefully machined into my size and all that is because I didn't check before it left the men might have actually that I'm really impressed with how well that work it's actually hard to even tell once i'm done standing this it's hard to even tell that i made a big dumb mistake we know ladies and gentlemen never doubt never underestimate what you can do with a little saw and a sharp chisel tip you tips there but that's fine caution business back to square one now you fit now you vet see we look at that oh I'm super psyched that was dumb alright so now I have this this sits on a quarter inch it's my I probably should have cut this all out before later good that's not a blow through and that comes down just a tiny bit to be square am i right that's it good good good awesome now we have that and that and we have space for all the batteries including the charged ones that's great it's alright charged and uncharged on one side mm-hmm I like that so this isn't here you sit out there yeah yep and yep look in my experience you don't need much more hold down than a couple of pieces of this on a nice clean piece of wood very very strong very lovely and strong but I can add some epoxy in there if I need to so put this like this yes yeah that's me okay so now I've put two nails in and I'm going to I am going to mark for where the other nails go and that is going to be like about like that yeah that's there and the nails this line this if my math is correct I'm gonna put one here it should capture and it did freedom okay do the same thing on the other side just to say that's already there here this is the other thing that I really like about a 22-gauge nailer is that blow throughs are exceedingly easy to manage like it's not that hard to pull the nails out where you accidentally drove them past the yet where you wanted to yeah there we are ladies and germs we have the rudiments of a wait a second there it is we have the rudiments come on oh really of a portable battery charging station so the charging port comes out here you get there yep and then this gets this gets cut and wired these guys all live in here and will have charged uncharged this is great I've been wanting to do this for so long I can't even tell you amazing okay so here it is oh yeah this isn't a final show until I'm actually going to do some wiring but the batteries can all live in here eight at a time so you know that is see how easy you got green lights that you can see on everything I'll wire up for things and right through there into the power supply that's the next step all right now that the basic form factor of my lithium-ion charger Thoth is mostly complete it's time to wire it up it's time to wire up these four bad boys to this guy and I am not going to do a whole heat shrink and soldering iron thing I'm gonna do this all with wire lugs with wire nuts and it's because I have a particular love for wire nuts I think that they are fabulous I think everyone should have a bunch of them in their kit and I tend to do my my sample constructions with wire nuts instead of clip leads it's just the way that I think so well why are not white or not I'm gonna pull out a large one you've seen these there you go there's a wire nut and inside is a little tapered spring and when you twist that over two ends of wire it actually pulls them together and for little wiring they make these little tiny lugs these little tiny wire nuts I really like them suffice to say these little wire nuts are awesome and that's how I'm going to assemble so first I'm going to sever the connection to uh to the plug let me get myself up always give you a little more wider than you might think you need because it's easy to take away it's really hard to add I can't stress that enough it's easy to take away it's really hard to add there we go nice with wire nuts you want to have a little more exposed wire than you normally would for like tinning and soldering I like to have like 3/8 to 1/2 of an inch for violence oh right and then right oh so I I need these wires to all come back so I need to cut them but I also don't want to ruin these wall warts I have a spot for storing these and I keep them all safe because you never know I use them all the time yeah okay so I think the longest distance anyone is going to troubles gonna be here to here to here to there so let's do that there's how impatient I am I just want to cut them all at once there we go bingo now these go into my storage and then we need to know which is which and usually wires aren't right okay so that's a negative that looks like it says it's a negative so let's just double-check yeah one of the it on any two strand wire there's almost always going to be some delineator between the two wires it's often very low-key so you don't necessarily see it on lamp cord for your house sometimes one side is ribbed and the other is not for electrical cords sometimes it's a very faint marking on one of the two wires so I'm just gonna separate these out and do a little continuity test yep positive is in the center so there all right so here's what I'm doing I'm going to plug in all four of these wires one two three oh and then I'm going to route them all out through this little hole right here so I have these little wire keepers which are actually sorry which are actually just for holding on to wires and keeping them nicely organized oh sweet business let's get another one in there three oh three hee ha ha ha 4 there we go and you're gonna see this how much I love the wire nuts because this whole wiring job would be done in about 4 minutes it's it's so fast to just get a proof of concept out so there's nothing negative negative and negative yep add up to negative and screw a little wired out on their low those are connected now we'll do the four positives so what I like to do before I do a twisty pie is I get all my wires with their with their bare necks lined up like that and then I'll do a twisty poo yep and then I'll bring the other one in and I'll do it twisty on that harder to do for camera I'm noticing all right so then bringing a wire nut and there you have it there's one other thing I'd like to do with this kind of wiring which is to do a little bit of strain relief so that things don't pull out so I'm just gonna do that so no amount of moving and racking is gonna alter this persuasion but now it's time it is time to plug this guy in okay so the initial plugging in I did not release any mysterious blue smoke which everybody knows is the worst thing you can do to electronics you don't want to release the mysterious blue smoke if you do all bets are off it's my camera all cattywampus nose to this there better not an episode of Batman so let us see if I put this in yeah we're gonna charge yup we got a charge Oh baby we are charging eight at the same time I am so psyched look at that there you go that is a one day build and add a bit of functionality that I've been wanting to add to my shop for literally the better part of a couple of years I'm glad you have gotten around to it thank you guys for joining me anything you want to know about in this put your questions in the comments below and I may do some tooltip videos about stuff that I haven't mentioned before see you next time I almost forgot ah the labeling the labeling I forgot will do uncharged and charged so this is the come on okay it's just not a thing unless it has a label

Channel: Adam Savage’s Tested

Views: 666,693

Keywords: tested, adam savage, one day builds, one day build, adam savage one day build, adam savages one day builds, adam savage tested, tested adam savage one day build, inside adam savages cave, adam savage builds, tested one day builds, adam savage one day builds, battery charger, lithium ion, battery holder, gang charger, lithium ion battery, 3.7v li-nm, 3.7v battery charger, 3.7v to 12v, 3.7v battery, 3.7v li-ion battery, lithium ion battery charger, battery management system

Id: TT8PzFaZ0Zw

Length: 36min 53sec (2213 seconds)

Published: Wed May 13 2020