Build your own portable POWER STATION (1200w, USB-C and MORE!)

in this video we're going to be making a super powerful battery bank and by powerful i really do mean it this thing is capable of delivering 1200 watts with ease which means that it's capable of powering for example a microwave or even play games on a console while simultaneously charging your phone and laptop at full speed while powering several lights with still plenty of headroom to spare wild the method we're going to use to make this can be scaled up or down depending on your own projects or use cases of which there are many which i'll be going into more detail about later but for now let's get building it as with many high-power storage solutions this build is going to be based on the use of lithium-ion battery cells they might look like the standard double-a battery we're all familiar with but they're actually a lot larger and have a completely different internal chemistry that allows them to be recharged hundreds if not thousands of times they do need to be handled with care though unlike a double-a battery lithium-ion cells like this are capable of delivering huge amounts of current which means that if they get shorted out they can rapidly heat up to an extreme degree and even begin venting and become a fire hazard that's why anything you build with lithium cells needs to be done with high levels of care and attention to safety and while i'll be showing you the best practices as far as my knowledge goes anything you copy from this video is done entirely at your own risk i've ordered a total of 84 of these lithium cells for my build as my intention is to wire up 12 sets of them together for a total of 50 volts when fully charged each of these sets is going to individually be made up of seven parallel wide cells which adds to the total capacity but not the voltage keeping it in check before mounting them together though it's always good practice to measure the voltage of each cell and put them into groups that match as closely as possible brand new cells like mine are likely to all pretty much match anyway but if old or even refurbished cells were to be used for a project like this the voltage differences between them might be substantial enough to cause a lot of current to flow into or out of them when wiring them up in which case it would be necessary to first use a charger with a storage mode setting to get them all to match anyway with the cells now grouped it's time for them to be mounted together now you might think that gluing them to each other would be a good quick way of doing this but it's actually far from ideal as underneath the cell's pvc wrapper is the outer part of its structural cylinder which is usually the same piece of metal that acts as the cell's negative terminal if this wrapper would ever get damaged or worn through it could expose an adjacent cell to a direct short when in a series configuration which is why this method is best avoided when safety is the main priority the solution little plastic battery spaces these can simply clip together into any desired grid size and their advantage in addition to making everything super neat and well aligned is that they keep the cells physically separated by a couple of millimeters which eradicates any chance of them touching and shorting out with mine this row is the first of 12 and as each of the 12 rows will act as parallel sets all of the individual cells in each row need to be the same way around as you can see the same applies to the second row though they all need to be inserted the other way around for the purpose of series wiring in just a minute this pattern can be repeated with the remaining rows until it looks like this with the top spacers in place as well the cells are all held together extremely securely which is just what we want now you might be wondering what the upright black rods are and they're actually non-conductive nylon bolts i added these earlier by drilling some holes through the spacers and screwing the nylon bolts in place with some matching nylon nuts and the idea is to use them for a very very secure mounting method and electrical insulation system which i'll be going into more detail about in just a few minutes before that though the next job is to wire up the cells now if you've seen other videos here on youtube you might have gotten the impression that it's fine to just solder wise directly onto them but this is actually a very very bad idea as it can not only result in dry solder joints due to the mass of metal that has to be contended with but it inevitably also results in the battery being heated up to a sometimes quite extreme degree causing internal damage and harming its lifespan and stability a much much better method is to instead use what's known as spot welding which basically involves conducting a low voltage high current between two pegs to weld a nickel strip directly onto the cell's contacts if done right it results in the nickel strip being very well secured to the cell and as the welding is so brief it doesn't have a chance to cause heat damage for smaller builds these cheap little battery operated units can do an adequate job of this but only with thinner nickel strips as i want to use some pretty thick strips for mine for high levels of current draw capability from the cells i'm going to be using a much bigger welding unit instead this does basically the same job though it's got more settings and has the ability to do rapid burst welds and of course has a higher power capability a lot of care needs to be taken when welding these strips in place though as one wrong move or even just dropping a strip on top of the exposed battery contacts could be disastrous so if you ever build something like this yourself make sure that there are no distractions around not even music and quadruple check every placement of each strip before welding them to the cells to keep things ordered i've welded up all of the parallel connections first along the negative terminals of each row with the top end of each strip being folded over the side for easy wiring of the balance cables which i'll be explaining in just a moment with that done they can now be wired up in series to add the rows together this basically results in a current path that flows from the left negative side of the pack into the next row and so on winding through to the positive side of the pack where it adds up to 50 volts at the final positive connection thanks to the folded tabs they can be used to monitor the voltage of each parallel row this is important because lithium cells should never be overcharged or over discharged and if one of the rows were to have a slightly different capacity to the others a voltage difference would eventually appear and it would get amplified over several charge and discharge cycles getting severe enough to damage them not good this is why lithium batteries need what's known as a battery management system or bms for short they're available in many different sizes for a variety of use cases and can not only provide various power handling features such as over current protection but thanks to balancing can keep each of the cell rows at matching voltages regardless of how many times the battery is cycled nice now you can get cheap bms boards off places like ebay but for high levels of safety it's a good idea to get a quality branded one the upmarket ones have some really cool features too such as bluetooth and various configurable options through a pc so really worth the extra cost in my book i'll be showing you these cool features in just a bit but before that it needs to be connected to the battery and again we're going to do this to a high level of safety for this the first thing that's needed is a sheet of insulating plastic i've got some ptfe here which is a thermoplastic that has a very high melting point and also makes for an excellent electrical insulator as you can see i've made some holes in this piece that line up with the balancing tabs on the battery these allow the bms balancing leads to be routed to the tabs in a nice neat and ordered way and i took extra care with mine to make sure that they can never touch each other thanks to plenty of cable ties and a few holes here and there to thread the wires through round the back this is again just really good practice as it's not only safer but makes it easier to wire up as everything is laid out clearly and can be checked by eye to confirm that everything's going to the right place so after making sure that the voltage climbs as expected for each pin some more plastic can be now used to cover the tabs and act as a spacer for the next layer you'll notice that i've attached a thick black cable to one of these strips as well which is for hooking up to the lowest cell's negative terminals basically acting as the battery pack's ground it's now the turn of the bms and as you can see i've already soldered some wires up to its output and charging pads and again routed them neatly along the sheet it's mounted to this sheet covers the internal balancing leads nicely and once it's screwed in place again using nylon nuts and bolts the positive input and negative input can be soldered up to the battery after which the balancing leads can be clipped in place this now leaves the battery pack electrically protected by the bms though there's still a lot of exposed nickel strips that need to be covered before doing anything else this is the first job where the nylon bolts come in handy as i earlier used the battery spaces as a template to drill some matching holes in another sheet of ptfe plastic which means that it can simply be slotted in place on top and held down with you've guessed it nylon nuts this process can be repeated for the sides and bottom as well insulating and protecting the entire battery pack using plastic parts throughout its internal structure nice so with the core of the battery now complete it's time to start working on the various inputs and outputs for it including usb type-c and a really nice outer shell but before we get on with that it's time for a quick ad from this video's sponsor private internet access data collection is big business and certain websites will try and track your every online move wherever they can and while you might not mind that for websites you trust when you're actually exploring and browsing the web who knows what kind of data you're giving away your location how you interact with websites device and browser information and more can be collected and gathered into a digital fingerprint an invisible profile of you and how you use the web not ideal as part of a wider strategy you should consider adding a vpn service like private internet access to your digital toolbox for browsing securely with private internet access you can mask your ip address hiding it from websites so they have no idea where you really are this is great for security and privacy particularly if you're on a public network but it's also great for doing things like watching a tv show that's locked to a specific geographical location as thanks to private internet access you can choose to appear to be browsing from any one of over 70 countries thanks to their thousands of servers around the world with a single private internet access subscription you can protect up to 10 devices at a time and there's a strict no logs policy in place so if you'd like to try them out you can find a special link in the description through which you can get their complete service for less than three dollars a month with three extra months completely free it works with all major operating system platforms and there's a 30-day money-back guarantee for peace of mind as well so again the link is below if you'd like to get that special deal and get your internet secure today so while the battery is electrically insulated brilliantly with the thermoplastic it's not protected well physically so would likely get damaged if knocked about a bit this is where the second job of the nylon bolts comes into play as they can be used to interface the battery with an outer protective shell these nylon bolts are individually pretty weak though so it's a good idea to average them together with a strong metal plate aluminium is perfect for this and as you can see my piece has matching holes in it for the nylon bolts as well as four much larger holes for some m4 threaded inserts once these panels have been bolted down using some locking nuts this time it's already feeling a lot more substantial the final layer though consists of two side panels again made of aluminium reinforced with angles around their perimeters i've already carefully added threaded inserts to them and mounting holes here and there but before screwing them in place they definitely need some sprucing up with some vinyl wrap this is a great quick way of giving them a manufactured look and will go a long way to making the battery pack look aesthetically pleasing an important factor in any diy perks project i'm sure you'll agree mounting them to the battery is just a case of screwing them to the threaded inserts that were just added making it very secure indeed so with that done some small fans can be fixed to the top to push air through this upper chamber this is important as the power delivery circuitry will be housed here and the air movement will keep things nice and cool for neatness the panels that cover these areas not only have the same white gloss wrap applied but also have some nice oak edging screwed to them as well the same formula can be repeated for the bottom plate which has some rubber feet applied and the other side cover though this one has an air outlet for the fans and a charging port which is connected directly to the bms's charging input so this is looking really good especially for a battery but good looks need good functionality to go along with them which means that it's time to add the power delivery circuitry and output ports in its current state the battery is capable of outputting a maximum of 50 volts which is great for some applications which i'll go into more detail about later but for a lot of use cases it's simply too high so needs to be regulated to a more useful level my plan for this is to use some voltage regulators which can take the 50 volts and reduce it in an efficient manner to pretty much anything i want i'm using three of them to achieve one 12-volt direct output 124 volt direct output and one 24 volt internal rail that i can use for usb power delivery this internal rail might seem quite high for usb charging purposes but the main power board i'm using is a fairly special one that supports quick charge 3.0 at 24 watts per port so it can take up to 32 volts on its input as for usb type c the only device i could find that provides full 90 watts power delivery from a dc input was this car charger which can happily also take 24 volts perfect for running off the internal rail all of these components can be mounted to the final aluminium sheet and as you can see i've mounted three high current switches here as well as some power sockets for the various voltage outputs i've also added a current and voltage meter to mine as it will be useful for seeing how many watts the battery is delivering as well as how much power is left soldering everything up takes quite a long time but it's worth going slowly to make sure it's done correctly including adding some fuses for devices that don't have any built-in now i don't want to be just limited to pulling power through the voltage regulators as they have a total power limit of 200 watts each which is where some of these dean's connectors come in handy they're capable of high currents already but to be extra sure i'm using two of them together with the internal two pins acting as the positive connections and the outer two acting as the negative connections so the orientation doesn't matter as they can be plugged in either way around just like a usb type-c cable pretty cool this is to be hooked up directly to the output of the bms which means that i'll have access to the full 50 volts coming off the battery so it's going to be very important for super high powered devices with everything wired up it's time to hook it up to the output of the bms using plenty of heat shrink to keep everything secure with this top panel finally mounted in place it looks absolutely fantastic especially for a battery but as it's so heavy is a bit awkward to move around so the final thing to do is add a handle i have some thick leather left over from a previous project which is perfect for making this out of winding a thin strip of it around a larger loop makes for a nice grip which can be held in place by threading it through two more straps this makes for a very strong handle that feels comfortable to hold thanks to the soft leather and it looks really nice as well finishing off the build perfectly however before using it the bms needs to be configured to tell it what kind of batteries it's looking after and various safety parameters while this can be done via usb i added a bluetooth module earlier so i can connect wirelessly to it from my laptop to make the necessary changes i like being able to check event logs from here to see how it's been performing as well as monitor the balance voltages in real time super cool so with that it's time to have some fun with it after giving it a full charge with a lithium charging brick it's got enough juice for the big test which is to power a microwave with it through a mains voltage inverter that's powered directly from the high current dean's connectors sure enough it works a treat and while it's super weird to be outside and have a hot meal in minutes it's a great reward to see it in action like this now it's not actually as gimmicky as you might think either imagine going for a long day out in the countryside and wanting to have a hot meal in the evening with this it's totally doable and can run for up to an hour which means you can feed several people if needed you can even use it to juice up a car battery if it goes flat for example and after a few minutes you'll be able to get going without calling for assistance not bad the uses for something like this really are limitless want to go for an extended camping trip well with this you can keep your devices charged for literally weeks at a time what about the electricity being knocked out by a storm no problem here either you can keep essential utilities like a fridge freezer going for almost two days keeping its contents from spoiling and of course what about the obligatory outdoor gaming tournament six hours easily yes yes [Laughter] so although it's rather heavy which is to be expected i suppose i'm really impressed with both its looks and its capability and i'm already super inspired for other projects that i can make that are going to be powered off this thing so make sure you're subscribed so you don't miss them once they're released but other than that i hope you found this video interesting and really i hope that it's going to be a great guide for people who want to make their own power projects no matter what they are but other than that i'm matt you've been watching diy perks and i hope to see you next time goodbye for now it's nice to be outside for once to be honest you

Channel: DIY Perks

Views: 1,352,525

Rating: 4.9600043 out of 5

Keywords:

Id: adY-S8AH_Jc

Length: 19min 44sec (1184 seconds)

Published: Mon Jun 07 2021

Reddit Comments

[u/JNader56]

Best 21700 out there in my opinion.

[u/[deleted]]

My first thought for use would NOT have been a microwave oven...

[u/mezekaldon]

1200 watts. That's like, just barely enough to run a rtx 3090, lol.

[u/PiperidinDerivat]

WTF

alone the Cells would cost 500€

[u/fuckyou2dude]

I both love and hate DIY Perks. On one hand he makes some cool stuff, but on the other hand he hardly goes into the actual workings of his projects and focuses much more on the aesthetics of the build rather than its functionality. Seems like a clout chaser to me.

EDIT: Unpopular opinion I guess?

[u/calmlikea3omb]

My god