By the way: I am digging your tiny little jokes (polishing the terminals or that you realized it would have made more sense to put in the second row first). That‘s why we love your channel. Your approach to the project is very serious with high attention to every detail - but you never take yourself to serious!
030522/1159h PST 🇺🇸. 0306022/0559h Brisbane 🇦🇺 Danke Herr Andy. Guten Morgen. It’ll take many many hours of thought to design, redesign, alter, re-alter then change everything, altogether…. Mind boggling…. May be requiring Glucose for the grey matter or 500mL of original Oettinger export 1731! I understand. It’s nice to hear NO COMPRESSION. There were tons of fuss regarding the same. Good to see those single Buss Bars being used. Also nice to see the showers outdoors. Looking forward to the continuation of the job. Have a great day ahead. 73s…
I think the fusing of the balance leads is a bit of „german overengineering“ (and I am not sure whether it would actuslly save the BMS.) But I very much like the „visually logic“ concept and can totally relate to that!
Speaking of fusing, having both terminals on the side of the battery and not having the positive one fused at the terminal would make me very nervous. Why not install something like a 300amp AMG catastrophic fuse right on the end of the positive terminal bus bar and then heat shrink it all closed? Knowing me, I would slip when installing the side panel and it would arc against the terminals. I’d much rather blow a fuse than a cell or two. Just a thought.
Strongly suggest fixture. Keep in mind that the weight of the internal materials inside each cell, is constantly pulling down on each plate a little bit. If you have a strong top end charge coming in, and experience a little expansion, and there is no pressure on the outside of the cell, the plates can develop a curve in them and separate from the plate (Or that area of the wrapped lithium film, however its designed) that is next to them. Also known as delamination. Delamination can reduce cycle life as much as 50% in short order. In my packs, I use a Fiber Tape wrap, tightly pulled, to give me a firm but flexible wrap that imparts 1-2 lbs of pressure on the walls of the cells. Then either a plastic banding strap gun, and some good plastic edging to prevent corner damage, and tighten that around your wrapped fiber taped packs. I usually do 2-4 in each wrap, get them tight enough they move around easily together as a module without moving. Then Band the entire construct together. With 2 Rows of cells, I'd band each one individually. This way you are still flexible enough to expand without issue, and you can use flexible bus bars to prevent terminal stress during that expansion. This way fixture is accomplished, without creating any stress points on the materials of the cell or its terminals. Great video! System looks GREAT!
Thanks for this suggestion. I could already see from the length of your comment that this would be a lot of work ;) Delamination may only occur with high currents (0.7C-1c and higher) which we usually don't have in solar installations. I charge only to 3.45V and absorb then. This is mostly in the afternoon when the sun is not as strong any more, so a lower current anyway. I also will have three battery banks in parallel so the current will split up into ~1/3 for each bank which lowers the impact even further. My cells will degrade from calendar life not from anything else.
@@OffGridGarageAustralia Yes. This is a much lower rate than what I am pulling / demanding from my systems. And an even slightly lower top end charge. I stop my charge at 56v and absorb. I am living on the system entirely 24/7 and in sunny Florida that means Air conditioning and a 80 amp average inverter load with 120+ amp charging. Add tools, fridge, computers, lights, 12v coach charger, and more. Top pull for my system is close to 1C. So, I can see limited delamination in your use case. Your absorption explanation video for lithium taught me a lot. Thank you for all the excellent content!
@@theway-offgrid9853 thank you for sharing. That sounds like a great setup you have there. So no power connection at all or most not using it? Ok, if you pull almost 1C I probably would look into compression as well. It depends if you do close to a full cycle every day as well. My cycle profile is very shallow and with more battery banks coming I'm taking away more stress from the batteries. At least in terms of charging/discharging current.
@@OffGridGarageAustralia Nope. No hard connection to power. Too far away from the nearest junction. (3900ft) Fully off-grid for going on 5 years now. Just finished building my 5th large format pack. This pack is cycling 500-650 amp hour per day typically. Air Conditioning in an RV pulls a ton of power. Its certainly a different lifestyle that must be built around the pack. Watching your usage, turning off things that aren't being used, switching off heavy loads to run the microwave, or dishwasher, or washer/dryer, watching the electrical devices you add to your home and how much they draw. The overall power footprint is always a consideration. Plus this pack is mobile, so for me, fixture was an absolute must.
@@theway-offgrid9853 thanks again. Fascinating experience you have there. I like that your are so power aware and run things accordingly to other loads and availability of sunshine and battery. I wish more people would be like this. It would save us all a lot of money. On-grid or off-grid.
Wow, still raining, it looks like Scotland 👍 nice progress again, and indeed with all those measurements and small tasks you loose an enourmous amount of time but it looks like a Swiss clock!
Suggestion/questions: so, you won't compress the Eve cells..? OK, but I read compression increase cycle numbers and it is even written on the manual of your cell as "fixture". You don't use conductive paste either and you don't recommend polishing as well. I suggest you polish a terminal and the bus bar and then tou check the resistance, you should see 10-25% better due the good contact, especially with the conductive paste. There too, in the PDF you attached from the Eve cell there is a recommendation for polishing. I always use a thin layer of plastic in between cells with the compression method. Moreover, it s better to make sure the bus bar are perfectly flat, we want to avoid contact on a reduced area, even worse on the edge of the bars. What BMS do you use? Thank you, good channel!
That is (partly) correct but: Compression is necessary if you drive high currents. In and out. This likely won't occur with our solar installations. I will have 3 battery banks ins parallel and more in the future. My battery will degrade and die from calendar age and definitely not from cycling. I use conductive paste as shown in other videos. I also made two videos about compression of the EVE cells. I think it's totally overrated and a lot of effort for minimal benefit (if at all).
Hey Andy, perhaps see if you can use the lugs from the BMS on either side of the joiner bus bar. This way it helps ensure both cables share the load the same way. Or you could even use a single post, and put the 90 deg terminal between the two lugs coming from the BMS. This removes some more connection points.
Right, that's the picture you've sent me... OK, but what if I want to replace the BMS? That would not be as easy then. The whole purpose of this small busbar was to make it easy and flexible to replace, swap and explore other devices. Also, it holds the BMS in place 😉
@@OffGridGarageAustralia could still put all of the lugs just on the one post without the short bus bar. Slightly more fiddly but I think the result is possibly worthwhile. You could test the difference in current through each wire with the clamp meter first. If it's close enough, then probably not worth the extra effort.
with my mining rigs in our heat, my gpu's need re-seating every so many days .. nothing is ever moved .. and they are always on so thermal movement is minimal .. but still suddenly communications errors cause random faults .. and i just wiggle or touch around and it is suddenly ok .. these very tiny amounts of resistance can cause havic with multiplicity of connections as u have .. a trouble shooting catalogue of isolating to find the cause is long and difficult in any one of those connections over the yrs .. write it while u still ahve all the problems spots in mind as it should work well for long while .. but when ?! .. smiles .. u shall reward urself with what u may b chasing .. love ur channel .. and hope u didnt float away like we did down here in beerwah
We have this a lot here in Australia due to air moisture and oxidatio0n on RAM module contacts. As you said, just wiggle or re-seat and it's good for another 6 months 😊
@@OffGridGarageAustralia smiles .. pc's of clients on beaches ..... aahhhhhhhhhhhh .. sometimes the corrosion was hard to believe the machines even booted net alone could run code ...lol... much better out here .. and u up in the clouds ... even better .. the water went below gound level today ... yeah !.. cheers .. and if you need any AS solar standards i have yrs old forms ... but need to find revisions to be legal as they can make the smallest changes as i am sure u r aware with building electrical equipement
Hi Andy - i have a question to your battery storage shelf- i saw in the video that you placed the batteries on a kind of acrylic plate (5mm?)- is this mounted directly on the shelf wood,or is under the acrylic plate an additional metal plate in between? Thx Josef
Hi Andy, I recomend you instead of applying torque, apply it by increasing slowly and step by step, and between each step measure resistence with your ohmmeter, probable there is a point in which more torque doesn't give your better connection
It's hard to measure the resistance as I don't have access to the actual busbar any more. I can only measure from one busbar to the other across the cell.
@@OffGridGarageAustralia you can measure this way: 1. Measure cell #1 internal resistance by touching flat terminals, or bus bars near terminals) 2. Measure between cell #1 negative flat terminal (or bus bar near it) and cell #2 negative terminal (or bus bars near it). This way you have: internal resistance + connection in cell #1 positive terminal + bus bar. Your are measuring one connection. Next: 3. Cell #2 internal resistance 4. Between cell #1 positive terminal and cell #2 positive terminal (you now...or near bus bars), so now you measure internal resistance of cell #2 + bus bar + cell #2 negative connection May be you haven't now a good access. I don't know this.
Hi Andy, if you want to fuse them why not just screw the fuse into the dinrailconnectors and weld other side to balance cable so you have all fuses in line together for better optics and overview. And saves you 16 extra weldings times 3 banks.
But what about if I replace the BMS or want to connect a balancer? I would need to solder new fuses on these cables as well every time I swap them. That does not make sense. Every BMS, balancer or device has it's own cabling harness.
@@OffGridGarageAustralia No, you misunderstood. The fuses coming on the other side of the cable from where you made them now. The balancer cable is on the other side off the rowclambs. Now you have to search for broken fuses above the cells which isn’t easy. Besides someone mentioned the fuseholderrowclambs that’s what I’m using but only on the black wire from the bms.
This great but quite complicated. after watching you first battery build, Went phocos way and reduced components to just battery bank, phocos anygrid inverter, some MCB, SPD and solar panels series to 370volts.
Did you consider using a solid bus bar from the main + & - terminals down to your double terminal on the shelf? For torqueing the nuts on the terminals, I like to hold the grub screw with an allen wrench and use a crows foot on the nut. You need to do an adjustment to the torque setting for the additional leverage but that is easy. that way you are applying tension to the screw terminal but no torque.
I didn't have a suitable copper busbar here for that, so went with the cables. I used to do the same an held down the set screw. But it's actually not necessary. The nut will pull on the set screw and therefore prevent it from going in deeper. There is no movement of the set screw not holding it.
If you want to ventilate the BMS you may consider make a ventilation holes below the acrylic or simply put the BMS above the floor by any other supporting method. BTW I really enjoy your videos! Congrats!
Maybe its nothing, but do you worry about increased resistance in those bent busbars? When bending or deforming metals at low (room) temperatures the internal structure changes (stiffens) and ohmic restistance increases aswell. But I cant say how much an if it would cause heat problems. Maybe you could do a test with one straight bar an the other one #bended measuring resistance with your meter normally used for internal resistance? And/or look at it with your thermal imaging camera. If its a problem, you could solve it by using another bent ring lug connected to a straight busbar. Those ring lugs should come without increased resistance at the bent area from the factory
@@OffGridGarageAustralia Caps and switching transistors. But my initial comment was for your concerns about the balance lead fuses (5 amp) being too small.
Hi Andy, do you use any kind of isolators between the cells? I forgot them setting up my 16s battery pack, everything is working fine so far, and I can only hardly imagine that a shortcut between the cells could happen. However, people recommended me to add the isolators. Meaning I have to disassemble the whole battery back (which I'm really afraid of). Would be nice to hear about your experience here, as I have so far never seen you using any kind of isolators.
I us 2mm air as an isolator between my cells 😉 I designed it like this as no touch installation in the shelf. If you have them compressed they could rub against each other and over them the unthinkable may happen.
@@OffGridGarageAustralia - you most likely developed the best electrical isolator in the world! Congrats! ;-) My cells are compressed, but I can hardly believe that they start rubbing on each other. There may be some forces due to expansion, but how shout they destroy the blue isolator foil around the cells (imagine you have two of them which must get destroyed at the same position). I really don't know what to do. Having a lot of work to add the isolators or let everything as it is as I do not really see a big risk...
How about putting something under “bended” bus bars “ insulator” so they don’t come in contact with cell case. You do have a little leverage there and maybe some heat shrink color-coded?
@@OffGridGarageAustralia sorry Andy I’m not nearly as patient as you. You have definitely inspired me to try this at my residence. There are very few people In this World that I would like to have a “spat” with but you are definitely one of them! Thanks for all the hard work, nicely done!
4:20 ah, now I can understand that this terminal is based on single elements put together and then on a rail. I had thought there would be a 2x 16 pole terminal which I could not find. Now in this video finally I was able to recognice that this terminal is simply put together. Glad that the search for that part is over cause I had already used google pic search to find that one.
You can always find all material, tools and devices I'm using under every single video and also on my website 😊 Here are the terminals: off-grid-garage.com/cables-and-connectors/
talking about safety: you should put an additive isolation between the cell housings and IMHO you should press them, 'cause they tend to expand by design and that would decrease lifetime
@@ManfredBrauchle where does the pressure go if you computers them together. If one cell expands a bit more than the neighbouring cell, would that not push into the 'weaker' cell?
@@OffGridGarageAustralia The probability that a one cell is 'weaker' is much lower than the generally existing desire of cells to expand. To make long story short, I am happy with my cellpack, which is prevented from expanding. schau'mer'mal, dann seh'mer ja - wie der ⚽ Kaiser zu sagen pflegte ;-) BTW: are you online again? have the floods receded? fingers crossed!
I am very concerned about the bent bus bars for battery + and - connections. They are close enough to each other that they may move and short against each other. Very bad!!! Perhaps a 1mm sheet of plexiglas between those two cells sticking up to prevent such contact if either bus bar were to rotate around its attachment point. What do you think?😩
I considered that. They can only rotate if: - both nuts got loose at the same time AND - the negative cable would be loose and also came off the small busbar (that would imply the entire cable can be taken off the battery terminal and the small busbar at the same time) AND - the positive cable allows enough slack so the busbar can rotate (which it does not allow) AND - both heatshrink would be faulty at the same location So, I think it is far more likely something else happens than all of the above 😊
@@OffGridGarageAustralia I was mostly concerned that they get shorted before installation is completed. Easy to attach a insulating spacer between them so they can’t rotate?
@@philipmorgan1438 Not that easy actually as there is nowhere to mount the spacer. I could have a long strip of acrylic form the shelf upwards to the top of the cells... I'll look into it again but think this is not a concern at the moment.
@@OffGridGarageAustralia I get that… maybe the bus bars (+ and -) could be bent down at different points (distances) from the mounting studs so that, if rotated, they would pass below each other and not be able to touch?
@@OffGridGarageAustralia yes you told it, but this means you have only 1 to 1.5mm for each cell to expand, and when you have no pressure between the cells they expand more than 1-1.5’mm and have contact. The pressure avoid this expansion and you need the isolation. But my knowledge is only a youtube-knowledge not from my own experiance. You need pressure to avoid expansion and so you need isolation plates. Only a hint. 😃✌🏽
@@superquax1 Well, with my low C rate of charging and discharging I haven't seen any bloating, expansion or contracting. Maybe they have used different/cheaper cells. I could never see or measure a difference between and empty or full battery.
@@OffGridGarageAustralia Thought you may have had an offcut from all the other sheets you mounted on the wall, looked like the thickness of it would have been ideal for the BMS :)
@@AndyM... not a problem and no need to apologise 😉 I probably don't want a holder for the BMS as I may want to replace it with another one at some stage for testing purposes. The holder may be in the way. But let's see...
put all the p on a bus-bar then to your line in, all neg on a buss bar line in, that way you can take out the bad battery when needed and fuse or breaker it to, that way the one battery does not take the full load.
No compress. Hmm. I did charge 2 of my cells freely, they got a nice belly. I have 320 AH cells. Total new and changed them with 5A over 3 days. The result was not good. Now i keep them all in a Schraubzwinge, so they cant expand more.
Where did you buy them? Mine don't swell or at least I can't see it. What do you think will happen when you clamp them together but the internal forces will get so large because they cannot expand?
If you can't wait to order the correct fuses you could parallel two 5 amp fuses. But it just wouldn't be right. Even under heat shrink, you would know what is underneath.
Hallo Andy, denk bitte daran, dass die Zellengehäuse alle das Minuspotential der Zelle haben. Der blaue Schrumpfschlauch um die Zelle ist keine ausreichende Isolierung. Alle Zellen stehen auf einer Metallplatte!!! Sollte die dünne Folie an einem Akku beschädigt sein, oder durchscheuern dann hast Du einen fetten Kurzschluss.
Klingt vernünftig, da jedoch 5mm Abstand zwischen den Zellen sind, wird da aber vermutlich nicht viel scheuern. Sofern sie press stehen, sollte da gewiss etwas dazwischen, so wie bei quasi jedem industriellen Akkupack.
By the way: I am digging your tiny little jokes (polishing the terminals or that you realized it would have made more sense to put in the second row first). That‘s why we love your channel. Your approach to the project is very serious with high attention to every detail - but you never take yourself to serious!
030522/1159h PST 🇺🇸. 0306022/0559h Brisbane 🇦🇺 Danke Herr Andy. Guten Morgen. It’ll take many many hours of thought to design, redesign, alter, re-alter then change everything, altogether…. Mind boggling…. May be requiring Glucose for the grey matter or 500mL of original Oettinger export 1731! I understand. It’s nice to hear NO COMPRESSION. There were tons of fuss regarding the same. Good to see those single Buss Bars being used. Also nice to see the showers outdoors. Looking forward to the continuation of the job. Have a great day ahead.
73s…
Thank you very much, Sree!
I think the fusing of the balance leads is a bit of „german overengineering“ (and I am not sure whether it would actuslly save the BMS.) But I very much like the „visually logic“ concept and can totally relate to that!
Proper fusing is not overengineering. Not fusing is asking for trouble. Fusing did save my BMS, btw.
Speaking of fusing, having both terminals on the side of the battery and not having the positive one fused at the terminal would make me very nervous. Why not install something like a 300amp AMG catastrophic fuse right on the end of the positive terminal bus bar and then heat shrink it all closed? Knowing me, I would slip when installing the side panel and it would arc against the terminals. I’d much rather blow a fuse than a cell or two. Just a thought.
Strongly suggest fixture.
Keep in mind that the weight of the internal materials inside each cell, is constantly pulling down on each plate a little bit.
If you have a strong top end charge coming in, and experience a little expansion, and there is no pressure on the outside of the cell, the plates can develop a curve in them and separate from the plate (Or that area of the wrapped lithium film, however its designed) that is next to them. Also known as delamination.
Delamination can reduce cycle life as much as 50% in short order.
In my packs, I use a Fiber Tape wrap, tightly pulled, to give me a firm but flexible wrap that imparts 1-2 lbs of pressure on the walls of the cells.
Then either a plastic banding strap gun, and some good plastic edging to prevent corner damage, and tighten that around your wrapped fiber taped packs. I usually do 2-4 in each wrap, get them tight enough they move around easily together as a module without moving. Then Band the entire construct together. With 2 Rows of cells, I'd band each one individually.
This way you are still flexible enough to expand without issue, and you can use flexible bus bars to prevent terminal stress during that expansion.
This way fixture is accomplished, without creating any stress points on the materials of the cell or its terminals.
Great video!
System looks GREAT!
Thanks for this suggestion. I could already see from the length of your comment that this would be a lot of work ;)
Delamination may only occur with high currents (0.7C-1c and higher) which we usually don't have in solar installations. I charge only to 3.45V and absorb then. This is mostly in the afternoon when the sun is not as strong any more, so a lower current anyway. I also will have three battery banks in parallel so the current will split up into ~1/3 for each bank which lowers the impact even further.
My cells will degrade from calendar life not from anything else.
@@OffGridGarageAustralia Yes. This is a much lower rate than what I am pulling / demanding from my systems. And an even slightly lower top end charge. I stop my charge at 56v and absorb.
I am living on the system entirely 24/7 and in sunny Florida that means Air conditioning and a 80 amp average inverter load with 120+ amp charging. Add tools, fridge, computers, lights, 12v coach charger, and more.
Top pull for my system is close to 1C.
So, I can see limited delamination in your use case.
Your absorption explanation video for lithium taught me a lot. Thank you for all the excellent content!
@@theway-offgrid9853 thank you for sharing. That sounds like a great setup you have there. So no power connection at all or most not using it?
Ok, if you pull almost 1C I probably would look into compression as well. It depends if you do close to a full cycle every day as well. My cycle profile is very shallow and with more battery banks coming I'm taking away more stress from the batteries. At least in terms of charging/discharging current.
@@OffGridGarageAustralia Nope. No hard connection to power. Too far away from the nearest junction. (3900ft)
Fully off-grid for going on 5 years now. Just finished building my 5th large format pack.
This pack is cycling 500-650 amp hour per day typically. Air Conditioning in an RV pulls a ton of power.
Its certainly a different lifestyle that must be built around the pack. Watching your usage, turning off things that aren't being used, switching off heavy loads to run the microwave, or dishwasher, or washer/dryer, watching the electrical devices you add to your home and how much they draw. The overall power footprint is always a consideration.
Plus this pack is mobile, so for me, fixture was an absolute must.
@@theway-offgrid9853 thanks again. Fascinating experience you have there. I like that your are so power aware and run things accordingly to other loads and availability of sunshine and battery. I wish more people would be like this. It would save us all a lot of money. On-grid or off-grid.
Wow, still raining, it looks like Scotland 👍 nice progress again, and indeed with all those measurements and small tasks you loose an enourmous amount of time but it looks like a Swiss clock!
Thankyou Edward. The time I spent in this garage is INSANE!
Suggestion/questions: so, you won't compress the Eve cells..? OK, but I read compression increase cycle numbers and it is even written on the manual of your cell as "fixture". You don't use conductive paste either and you don't recommend polishing as well. I suggest you polish a terminal and the bus bar and then tou check the resistance, you should see 10-25% better due the good contact, especially with the conductive paste. There too, in the PDF you attached from the Eve cell there is a recommendation for polishing. I always use a thin layer of plastic in between cells with the compression method. Moreover, it s better to make sure the bus bar are perfectly flat, we want to avoid contact on a reduced area, even worse on the edge of the bars. What BMS do you use? Thank you, good channel!
That is (partly) correct but:
Compression is necessary if you drive high currents. In and out. This likely won't occur with our solar installations. I will have 3 battery banks ins parallel and more in the future. My battery will degrade and die from calendar age and definitely not from cycling.
I use conductive paste as shown in other videos. I also made two videos about compression of the EVE cells. I think it's totally overrated and a lot of effort for minimal benefit (if at all).
I like your style Andy! Your brain works a lot like mine.
Excellent Andy, excellent. Stay dry as possible. Best of luck keen for the next one
Thank you 🙂
Good one Andy! You got my heart rate up and me screaming NOOO! When you had that polisher out.
Hahaha, got you! 😂😉
Hey Andy, perhaps see if you can use the lugs from the BMS on either side of the joiner bus bar. This way it helps ensure both cables share the load the same way.
Or you could even use a single post, and put the 90 deg terminal between the two lugs coming from the BMS. This removes some more connection points.
Right, that's the picture you've sent me... OK, but what if I want to replace the BMS? That would not be as easy then. The whole purpose of this small busbar was to make it easy and flexible to replace, swap and explore other devices. Also, it holds the BMS in place 😉
@@OffGridGarageAustralia could still put all of the lugs just on the one post without the short bus bar. Slightly more fiddly but I think the result is possibly worthwhile. You could test the difference in current through each wire with the clamp meter first. If it's close enough, then probably not worth the extra effort.
with my mining rigs in our heat, my gpu's need re-seating every so many days .. nothing is ever moved .. and they are always on so thermal movement is minimal .. but still suddenly communications errors cause random faults .. and i just wiggle or touch around and it is suddenly ok .. these very tiny amounts of resistance can cause havic with multiplicity of connections as u have .. a trouble shooting catalogue of isolating to find the cause is long and difficult in any one of those connections over the yrs .. write it while u still ahve all the problems spots in mind as it should work well for long while .. but when ?! .. smiles .. u shall reward urself with what u may b chasing .. love ur channel .. and hope u didnt float away like we did down here in beerwah
We have this a lot here in Australia due to air moisture and oxidatio0n on RAM module contacts. As you said, just wiggle or re-seat and it's good for another 6 months 😊
@@OffGridGarageAustralia smiles .. pc's of clients on beaches ..... aahhhhhhhhhhhh .. sometimes the corrosion was hard to believe the machines even booted net alone could run code ...lol... much better out here .. and u up in the clouds ... even better .. the water went below gound level today ... yeah !.. cheers .. and if you need any AS solar standards i have yrs old forms ... but need to find revisions to be legal as they can make the smallest changes as i am sure u r aware with building electrical equipement
Absolutely love your enthusiasm its class ❤
Hi Andy - i have a question to your battery storage shelf- i saw in the video that you placed the batteries on a kind of acrylic plate (5mm?)- is this mounted directly on the shelf wood,or is under the acrylic plate an additional metal plate in between? Thx Josef
Hi Andy, I recomend you instead of applying torque, apply it by increasing slowly and step by step, and between each step measure resistence with your ohmmeter, probable there is a point in which more torque doesn't give your better connection
It's hard to measure the resistance as I don't have access to the actual busbar any more. I can only measure from one busbar to the other across the cell.
@@OffGridGarageAustralia you can measure this way:
1. Measure cell #1 internal resistance by touching flat terminals, or bus bars near terminals)
2. Measure between cell #1 negative flat terminal (or bus bar near it) and cell #2 negative terminal (or bus bars near it).
This way you have: internal resistance + connection in cell #1 positive terminal + bus bar.
Your are measuring one connection.
Next:
3. Cell #2 internal resistance
4. Between cell #1 positive terminal and cell #2 positive terminal (you now...or near bus bars), so now you measure internal resistance of cell #2 + bus bar + cell #2 negative connection
May be you haven't now a good access. I don't know this.
Hi Andy, if you want to fuse them why not just screw the fuse into the dinrailconnectors and weld other side to balance cable so you have all fuses in line together for better optics and overview. And saves you 16 extra weldings times 3 banks.
But what about if I replace the BMS or want to connect a balancer? I would need to solder new fuses on these cables as well every time I swap them. That does not make sense.
Every BMS, balancer or device has it's own cabling harness.
@@OffGridGarageAustralia No, you misunderstood.
The fuses coming on the other side of the cable from where you made them now. The balancer cable is on the other side off the rowclambs.
Now you have to search for broken fuses above the cells which isn’t easy. Besides someone mentioned the fuseholderrowclambs that’s what I’m using but only on the black wire from the bms.
Heya, that looks very good those batteries in that chat very good indeed
This great but quite complicated. after watching you first battery build, Went phocos way and reduced components to just battery bank, phocos anygrid inverter, some MCB, SPD and solar panels series to 370volts.
Enfin une des étapes que j'attends depuis des semaines ! la nouvelles batteries 😅😉
Did you consider using a solid bus bar from the main + & - terminals down to your double terminal on the shelf? For torqueing the nuts on the terminals, I like to hold the grub screw with an allen wrench and use a crows foot on the nut. You need to do an adjustment to the torque setting for the additional leverage but that is easy. that way you are applying tension to the screw terminal but no torque.
I didn't have a suitable copper busbar here for that, so went with the cables.
I used to do the same an held down the set screw. But it's actually not necessary. The nut will pull on the set screw and therefore prevent it from going in deeper. There is no movement of the set screw not holding it.
Im am late to this video. I find the battery case visually appealing. Wherever did you get it? Love the channel by the way!
Thanks, Ray. I built it all myself. You will find the videos here on the channel, how I did it.
And welcome to the channel.
If you want to ventilate the BMS you may consider make a ventilation holes below the acrylic or simply put the BMS above the floor by any other supporting method. BTW I really enjoy your videos! Congrats!
Hallo Andy 🤝 ottima configurazione bravo 👏
Thank you, Guiseppe
Maybe its nothing, but do you worry about increased resistance in those bent busbars? When bending or deforming metals at low (room) temperatures the internal structure changes (stiffens) and ohmic restistance increases aswell. But I cant say how much an if it would cause heat problems. Maybe you could do a test with one straight bar an the other one #bended measuring resistance with your meter normally used for internal resistance? And/or look at it with your thermal imaging camera.
If its a problem, you could solve it by using another bent ring lug connected to a straight busbar. Those ring lugs should come without increased resistance at the bent area from the factory
You are such motivation!
Do it! 😉
5 Amp fuses are made to handle 5A continuous. They only open if the current is a decent percent higher for a long time.
We will see if I get the 💩 and replace them with something bigger if they constantly blow 😂
I don't know if anyone has mentioned it - but you could use fuse terminals for the BMS :D
Hi Andy why do you connect the BMS leads to the busbars instead of the battery terminal?
Because of the sharp 90° bend. The cables are not flexible enough to bend them in such a sharp radius.
You can set a lower the balance current of the JK-BMS from the phone app. That might even extend the life of the BMS...
Because we don't use the caps that excessively?
@@OffGridGarageAustralia Caps and switching transistors. But my initial comment was for your concerns about the balance lead fuses (5 amp) being too small.
Maybe needing a boat! The off grid boat! 😀
The Off-Grid Ark!
Hi Andy, do you use any kind of isolators between the cells? I forgot them setting up my 16s battery pack, everything is working fine so far, and I can only hardly imagine that a shortcut between the cells could happen. However, people recommended me to add the isolators. Meaning I have to disassemble the whole battery back (which I'm really afraid of). Would be nice to hear about your experience here, as I have so far never seen you using any kind of isolators.
I us 2mm air as an isolator between my cells 😉 I designed it like this as no touch installation in the shelf.
If you have them compressed they could rub against each other and over them the unthinkable may happen.
@@OffGridGarageAustralia - you most likely developed the best electrical isolator in the world! Congrats! ;-)
My cells are compressed, but I can hardly believe that they start rubbing on each other. There may be some forces due to expansion, but how shout they destroy the blue isolator foil around the cells (imagine you have two of them which must get destroyed at the same position).
I really don't know what to do. Having a lot of work to add the isolators or let everything as it is as I do not really see a big risk...
Place the bms on something like maybe a bent piece of plexi-glass.give it that floating look
Uhhhh 🧐
How about putting something under “bended” bus bars “ insulator” so they don’t come in contact with cell case. You do have a little leverage there and maybe some heat shrink color-coded?
Wait for it...
@@OffGridGarageAustralia sorry Andy I’m not nearly as patient as you. You have definitely inspired me to try this at my residence. There are very few people In this World that I would like to have a “spat” with but you are definitely one of them! Thanks for all the hard work, nicely done!
wann Baust du eigentlich Kanus für deine Batterien?
Bei den Victron Geräten hast du ja Garantie daß die was tauchen !
Eine Arche! Mit Victron Gear!
Where did you get those longer busbars Andy?
4:20 ah, now I can understand that this terminal is based on single elements put together and then on a rail.
I had thought there would be a 2x 16 pole terminal which I could not find.
Now in this video finally I was able to recognice that this terminal is simply put together.
Glad that the search for that part is over cause I had already used google pic search to find that one.
You can always find all material, tools and devices I'm using under every single video and also on my website 😊
Here are the terminals: off-grid-garage.com/cables-and-connectors/
talking about safety: you should put an additive isolation between the cell housings
and IMHO you should press them, 'cause they tend to expand by design and that would decrease lifetime
I'll talk about compression in another video again. It's all BS in my opinion.
@@OffGridGarageAustralia OK, but let me put it another way: not compression, but prevention of expansion ...
@@ManfredBrauchle where does the pressure go if you computers them together. If one cell expands a bit more than the neighbouring cell, would that not push into the 'weaker' cell?
@@OffGridGarageAustralia The probability that a one cell is 'weaker' is much lower than the generally existing desire of cells to expand.
To make long story short, I am happy with my cellpack, which is prevented from expanding.
schau'mer'mal, dann seh'mer ja - wie der ⚽ Kaiser zu sagen pflegte ;-)
BTW: are you online again? have the floods receded? fingers crossed!
@@ManfredBrauchle got a crappy mobile access point. So half online, I would say. Upload takes foreeeeeever.
bended buss bars for the WIN!
Put the Battery Bank on hold Andy... Time to build an Ark !
I put my balance leads 25 mm from the positive post of bus bar with 4 mm thread.
I am very concerned about the bent bus bars for battery + and - connections. They are close enough to each other that they may move and short against each other. Very bad!!! Perhaps a 1mm sheet of plexiglas between those two cells sticking up to prevent such contact if either bus bar were to rotate around its attachment point. What do you think?😩
I considered that. They can only rotate if:
- both nuts got loose at the same time AND
- the negative cable would be loose and also came off the small busbar (that would imply the entire cable can be taken off the battery terminal and the small busbar at the same time) AND
- the positive cable allows enough slack so the busbar can rotate (which it does not allow) AND
- both heatshrink would be faulty at the same location
So, I think it is far more likely something else happens than all of the above 😊
@@OffGridGarageAustralia I was mostly concerned that they get shorted before installation is completed. Easy to attach a insulating spacer between them so they can’t rotate?
@@philipmorgan1438 ah nah, I started with these two and no other busbars where connected to any other cell.
@@philipmorgan1438 Not that easy actually as there is nowhere to mount the spacer. I could have a long strip of acrylic form the shelf upwards to the top of the cells... I'll look into it again but think this is not a concern at the moment.
@@OffGridGarageAustralia I get that… maybe the bus bars (+ and -) could be bent down at different points (distances) from the mounting studs so that, if rotated, they would pass below each other and not be able to touch?
Love your videos and wonder what height do you have on each shelf for the batteries?
You need an isolation plate between the cells, especially when they expand. Otherwise you will have a shortcut in the future !!!
There is a 2-3mm air gap in between the cells.
@@OffGridGarageAustralia yes you told it, but this means you have only 1 to 1.5mm for each cell to expand, and when you have no pressure between the cells they expand more than 1-1.5’mm and have contact. The pressure avoid this expansion and you need the isolation. But my knowledge is only a youtube-knowledge not from my own experiance. You need pressure to avoid expansion and so you need isolation plates. Only a hint. 😃✌🏽
@@superquax1 Well, with my low C rate of charging and discharging I haven't seen any bloating, expansion or contracting. Maybe they have used different/cheaper cells. I could never see or measure a difference between and empty or full battery.
@@OffGridGarageAustralia okay this low current charging could be an advantage..good luck and greetings from Germany😃👍🏽✌🏽
Wrap one of the fuse leads around the screw that goes onto the bus bar. No crimp needed.
We all know you are going to use a fuse. 😉
What? How do you...
If you has a spare piece of the stainless steel sheeting, you could cut it the same size as the BMS and mount the BMS on that ?
Why stainless steel?
@@OffGridGarageAustralia Thought you may have had an offcut from all the other sheets you mounted on the wall, looked like the thickness of it would have been ideal for the BMS :)
@@AndyM... Ah, right, that is all aluminium. SS is painful to work with. Yeah, I have heaps of off-cuts from that...
@@OffGridGarageAustralia Apologies Andy, thought it was SS...aluminium will do !!!
@@AndyM... not a problem and no need to apologise 😉 I probably don't want a holder for the BMS as I may want to replace it with another one at some stage for testing purposes. The holder may be in the way. But let's see...
put all the p on a bus-bar then to your line in, all neg on a buss bar line in, that way you can take out the bad battery when needed and fuse or breaker it to, that way the one battery does not take the full load.
The (thin) cables to the balancer act as fuses themsevles, in case of...
But not the thick ones! They can carry a lot of current before they melt.
No compress. Hmm. I did charge 2 of my cells freely, they got a nice belly. I have 320 AH cells. Total new and changed them with 5A over 3 days. The result was not good. Now i keep them all in a Schraubzwinge, so they cant expand more.
Where did you buy them? Mine don't swell or at least I can't see it.
What do you think will happen when you clamp them together but the internal forces will get so large because they cannot expand?
I like your jokes and your accent.
What accent?
@@OffGridGarageAustralia reminds me of my old boss from Berlin
I think fuses on the balance leads, are an overkill.
I think so too. Still did it 😁
I would guess, that the small glass fuses don't have a sufficient breaking capability, you have to break the short circuit current of cell!
If you can't wait to order the correct fuses you could parallel two 5 amp fuses. But it just wouldn't be right. Even under heat shrink, you would know what is underneath.
I have left the fuses without heatshrink, so I can replace them if needed. I hope I never have to do that though.
Mantaps Oom Andy....👍👍
Hallo Andy, denk bitte daran, dass die Zellengehäuse alle das Minuspotential der Zelle haben. Der blaue Schrumpfschlauch um die Zelle ist keine ausreichende Isolierung. Alle Zellen stehen auf einer Metallplatte!!! Sollte die dünne Folie an einem Akku beschädigt sein, oder durchscheuern dann hast Du einen fetten Kurzschluss.
That's useful to know, I'd never have thought of that! Danke.
Er hat Plexiglas auf der Aluplatte, also keine Kurzschlussgefahr vorhanden. Der Gefahr war er sich bewußt und hat deshalb auf Isolierung geachtet.
Und genau deswegen befindet sich ja zwischen Aluminiumplatte und Zellen vollflächig eine Acrylglasscheibe...
Die Plexiglasplatte am Boden ist sehr gut, aber so etwas müsste auch zwischen den einzelnen Zellen sein.
Klingt vernünftig, da jedoch 5mm Abstand zwischen den Zellen sind, wird da aber vermutlich nicht viel scheuern. Sofern sie press stehen, sollte da gewiss etwas dazwischen, so wie bei quasi jedem industriellen Akkupack.
am I missing a reference to an old video? why not polish the terminals? it doesn't shout "wrong" to me yet...
I did this with the last battery. Worst decision ever. Yeah there are a few videos here on the channel from the past about that.
yay ... Magic Circle .... LOL :)
NAAAAHHH, DOOOON'T!
Thanks!
Thank you so much, Jimmy. Much appreciated!
I polish my terminal but not the one on my battery bank. lol...
So much phun!
FORTY FOURTH! ;-)
No BMS fuses….. overkill
TÜRKÇE 🇹🇷 altyazılı olarak tekrar yükleyebilir misin lütfen 🤲
0:52 "This all works amazing" and he points to Victron gear. Q.E.D.