I haven't commented on your videos much yet, because I hadn't realised what it was that I was thinking. However it just dawned on me that it's awesome to be refreshed on what things people experience when they're first using a tool, product, type of wire or lug, or even just the thought process to stitch together to make things work. There are so many of the UA-camrs that are so experienced, that these finer details are often missed or just glossed over. But while watching your videos, it's reminding me of a lot of the things that I should be thinking more of. It's so easy to forget these details, but when building new things, it's so important to strip the process back to the basics, and doing that normally provides a much better result. While mistakes and changes may feel frustrating, they're so educational for everyone watching. Well done for keeping these finer details intact.
Thank you for the kind words. I feel like I'm always struggling to keep the videos interesting, but not to cut out the process of learning. The whole purpose is to show how normal it is to ponder, make mistakes, change your mind, etc while learning and doing new things. ^_^
@@TheDigitalMermaid yes whatever you do, keep that stuff in. There's an annoying culture of people going online and asking "what's the best...?". They will get a thousand un-considered and ultimately incorrect (for them) answers. So seeing the polar opposite in your videos is a relief. You go into the whole process of why your decision is the best decision for your needs, we need more of that online. That process gives people the info needed for them to make their own decision, and to take ownership of those decisions and consequences. There's a lot of pride that comes from building something that isn't just from a set of IKEA instructions. That's especially true for something that needs to be just right, and is critically functional like your battery.
Thanks so much for this very normal video of how a person does this stuff. I learned so much. thanks for showing and speaking your thoughts as you were doing it. It made it more relatable to me
Just in case you can rectify it, always connect from the corners of the battery. That way it always draws from all the cells instead of the nearest one doing more work.
Just came across your channel from suggested videos of the algorithm. And once you said you were a fellow Canuck and then said skookum, I subbed, lol. Was going to anyway, but that helped.
Your videos are great. I don't know if you read your comments but anyways I have stage 4 cancer and I'm in the middle of building a off grid power system for my camper so if I get sicker me and my wife have power. We lived with my mom while I did chemo and radiation but I'm back to work now so I spend every extra dollar we get trying to ensure our survival if the cancer gets worse. Your builds inspire me and the wife likes them also
By trial and error your entire battery has gotten So Pro looking. Connections are clear, crisp, direct and logical. You have come a long way, baby😊. (No sexism intended).
Thank for the video. I was distracted by your cup of soup for more than half of the video. It was a relief to see it disappear, but then there was a glass of another drink. UA-cam will like this video for its algorithm. You can't stop watching that cup or glass. Great project for a snowy day in Canada. It is 36C here in South Australia! Have a nice day.
I did essentially the same build using a Seplos metal battery box without the cells. These come in various sizes for various a/h rating cells. I purchased one for larger than my cells to allow room for the bms, etc. I thought of using a flamable substance such as wood, however, I felt this would defeat the purpose of the enclosure. My feeling is that if at some point there was a cell failure and it let go, the metal box would offer a much better solution than wood, etc. Time matters, especially on the water, in a boat. Having metal was for me a no brainer. I have seen video where these go off and explode under certain condtions. Plus, too age will become a factor over time as well. For me, safety rather than $$.
Rust and corrosion is a bigger concern on the boat, particularly is salty air. Most pre-made cases are steel, and I'd want stainless or aluminium if I was going to go with a metal box. If the cells swell, not really anything is going to contain them, the case will rupture. I'd rather that happen at a lower pressure than a higher one, if it comes to it. I'd like to have aluminum cases, but that's expensive. For the final boxes (recall these plywood boxes were "get home" boxes only), I'm probably going to use white oak; very rot resistant and still fairly easy to work and affordable.
I have been watching your videos. They are very informative and have a interesting delivery of knowledge. Keep them coming , I really enjoy them. 👍❤️😉😁
Now that you have container, consider 12psi compression of your batteries when 50% SOC. I use springs to maintain that range of pressure (8-17 psi) during charge and discharge cycles…. Anticipating 5000 cycles to 80% LiFeP04.
@@gkeith4120 I've discussed in earlier videos why I'm not bothering with compression. TL;DW is that I will certainly calendar age out these cells before they even hit the 2500 cycle count.
Maddie. Having sailed and lived on a sailboat for a couple of years myself just one suggestion, change out the ring terminals for terminals that have a closed end where the wire is enclosed not open like the ones you use. When you heat shrink the ring terminals they are totally sealed from the salt in the air.... Also ancor terminals are a better quality. Great quality content I just finished watching everything you have put up so far.
It's hard to get ancor stuff, getting their wire is tricky enough. I agree that closed end barrels would be better on a boat, but liquid electric tape or some other barrier will do the job I think. The ring terminals I'm using are TE Connect, a good brand, good thickness and tinned.
This reminds me of the old knob and tube wiring with wire-mold wooden channels I ran into in very old homes in the city. These were notorious for catching fire and burning the entire place to the ground. As it happens wood is very flamable and entirely inappropriate next to conductors (or batteries). I wouldn't sleep at night knowing any of this while out on the water.
The interiors of boats are largely plywood and fiberglass... If something electrical heats up enough to flash ignite this plywood, something else was going to go, too. The trick there is, like anything on boats, check that all connections are tight and not corroded. Again, these plywood boxes were never meant to last beyond a few months, which they did and have since been removed.
Awesome work - thankyou! Also DIYing a marine lithium power bank so your frustrations are my learnings! Gromet analysis very useful although think I need to take a remedial class in Anderson connectors (lol).
That's going to be really heavy to lift. I hope you have a cart for transporting it so all you have to do is slide it on and off, though getting in on the boat will still be a challenge.
The plan is to install the cells into the finishes boxes in the boat. I don't think there's any practical way to lift these batteries already-complete into the boat otherwise. Certainly not alone.
Great video - I have virtually the same idea on how to build (my first) the 16s/280AH EVE battery box and connections to BMS/fuse/switch/ inverter. I was looking for Andrerson connectors and for 48V blue is required (red one is for 24v or so) - what conector are you using? And you mentioned that there will be final product made of other material - did you build one finaly?
Food for thought, using anderson connector in this way may over time have a major problem, in the boat there will inevitably be some movement of this connector and that movement will lead to work hardening of the copper and may in time cause it to fracture, a better solution might be to have a bulkhead fitting on the box and a plug. The external cables may have to be replaced over time but the battery box should be ok.
Great job so far, but you should really put your shunt between battery and BMS, this way the shunt will still monitor if the bms shuts down at any time. just a thought, as this is how I always do the ones I setup.
Two reasons I didn't; First is that I want the BMS to have the best/closest view of the pack. Second is that the SmartShunt is designed to run outside of batteries, which means they would almost always be used after the BMS.
@@TheDigitalMermaid it will cause it to lose its calibration after a while as it will not take into account the energy required and losses of the bms itself. Just a thought
@@TheDigitalMermaid The BMS will get it's "view" of the batteries from the sense wires, not the main negative. It would also give you a more convenient way to terminate the 2 7 gauge wires coming off of the BMS to make the wiring a little bit cleaner. The shunt won't care what side of the BMS it is on. The BMS won't either. It's how I did mine, but for different reasons.
There's a place in the connector that a bolt could go through and that would let you panel mount it. In my case, it would foul with the IP65 cover, and I'd rather the improved water resistance at the cost of it being floppy. You can see the center-line mount points in the Anderson connector spec sheet - www.mouser.ca/datasheet/2/22/DS_SB175-1667988.pdf
I doubt there is a solid number as the variables are so many, however the concept is well known and often taken into account during design, maybe others will be able to add helpfully on this. My thought was to bring up the idea so others with more experience could chime in.
New to your channel. I understand that you are building all this on a Moon haul sailboat and you haven’t built your structure yet? I started a project like this on a power boat and came to the realization that the amount of solar panels was my limiting factor. So i had 4 marine grade stainless steel kind a like a drawer slide to be able to make an additional drawer to slide out to double the solar panels once you were not underway. Each slide is rated at 800 pound load which is overkill and they will slide out more than the length of a solar panel. Since then I bought a much bigger power mode and had the roof area to get what I wanted without using my sliding drawers. If you might be interested in doing something like this and want to buy the slides from me at very reduced price I would love to hear from you. Ross
You changed the fuse rating when you put the heatshrink around it. By how much I don't know but it's probably better to leave in air and have some standoffs to hold each side(or use a fuse holder). Those Heyco sealed connectors should come with nuts. Countersink the hole with your new forstner bits so the nut will reach on the sealed connectors. Looking really good!
I'm honestly not that worried. If the T-class is coming into play, the current is so high that it won't matter. 150A, 200A, 300A... It'll be breaking a dead-short which is in the thousands of amps.
I install .... Mostly repair lift gates on delivery trucks that pull 145 off of amg batteries, I instructed to put a 150 amp fuse in Line with heat shrink on mega fuses. Heat matters but safe vs sorry is a thing. They last two years and that's my battery maintenance preference anyways for all batteries.
@@TheDigitalMermaid Fuses trip fast with high currents, which won't be a problem...BMS will probably trip too. But a fuse can blow under their rating when they heat up and have a 1hr+ load. You probably want a 120A fuse based on your wire size, which means you can only pull 95A continuous(about a 4000W output inverter running at max over an hour).
Hi have you somewhere read that positive and negative cable should be same length? Because i do not see any reason for it, positive terminal wire can be shorter so resistance of whole pack will be smaller.. Also i plug victron smartshunt between cells and BMS, so i can read state even after BMS shuts down discharge. Smartshunt takes about 15mA so unless you do not leave discharged battery for more than a week it should be OK to have it like that. Than you can also avoid two more connections so again - less resistance, less heat, less things to fail..
winging it is the only way to go D.M. It is what i do most os the time and the best way to learn from your mistakes, and yes everyone makes them. Now i measure 4 times and then check again before i cut.
Nice video and very inspiring. I myself am currently considering what to put the batteries in, and I really like this because of the cleanness of the processing. I wanted to ask how much the BMS heats up during operation and whether it does not matter if it is closed without ventilation. Is this the 100A or 200A variant?
I've not done a high current discharge test, so I can't speak to heat yet. I suspect being closed is fine, as most commercial batteries are enclosed. So long as there's some room around the BMS, it's probably OK. Try building the box, place the battery under the highest load you can imagine happening in your use case, and see how it handles the heat. If it gets too warm, then you can add slots or add more air space.
Thanks! I charged them to 100% before starting the box build, so they should be as big as they'll get. If they do swell more though, there's 2mm of foam padding on all side that will give some.
@@TheDigitalMermaid My experience is that they will swell a little more as the grow older. The effect of 100% charging before the assembly will not overcome this. I've seen LiPo's expand at least 1/4. Still working fine. Anyway, good luck ! Btw, I can recommend an IR flame detector sensor in combination with a temp. sensor. You never know...
Amen. You don’t want tight-fitting batteries - or, in my case, battery-holders - as they can be a to get in and out of the box. Give them room. How much - good question. I wish I’d gone a sixteenth wider and a quarter longer on the (much smaller) box I made years ago.
The grommets have standard threads which are available in standards junctions boxes so sometimes they are not supplied with the grommets. Depending on geo location you might find these in M or PG sizes. Hardware stores might sell the nuts separately.
Ooooooh! OK, that makes sense! So then I wonder if I can find my own nuts for them fairly easily. Thanks, I'll take 'em with me to the hardware store next time I go. I'd still love to give the metal ones a go.
Just tripped over a large bag of Cat Food, fell though the upstairs window, and found myself in your youtube channel space. Love the Tabby Cat, your camera angle, and production style. Feel like I'm right there with you on the journey. Have you considering using MRBF's instead of the Class-T fuses? The fuses are much cheaper, small in dimension, and still have a high AIC rating that you want for safety when dealing with Lithium. Might be easier to work with in future builds?
Tatters is adorable. 😻 I'm also wondering: if your battery box goes onto a boat, and you situate it somewhere below the waterline, does that make it a sub box? 😬 Ok, I'm done.
That's looking really good, could you use Rhynoboard to build the waterproof box? I'm using it for my boat floor, I doesn't float so good for hatches in the floor.
Nice video. To be honest i'm planning doing something similar as second battery ..also i wasn't sure what kind of bms to use and i think i will use the same one as you.. Btw that resistor should be mounted onto that wall and not just loose ..that would be the way.. Once you will put it together ..let us know your experience with all and all that. Thanks.
@@s.mendez7160 Hello No friend. I mean that resistor that is only dangling in the breeze i believe it has also holes in it so it could be mounted to that wall ..Because if it isn't properly mounted leads will probably brake from it
You put no insulators between cells? If the plastic wears off and the 2 cells touch because there in series it's a short, the outside casing is what the negative terminal connect to😢
I have a technical question if you could be so kind and let me tap you’re knowledge, I have the DALIY BMS 24v 3.2v 280Ah I want to wire 2 batteries in Parallel = 560Ah x 8 = ing 16 batteries 2 x 2 the Amp Hour that high should not bother the DAILY BMS correct ?
I can barely wait until you fire up the JK-BMS, I bought a few of them and they would not fire up for me....you mentioned that they are tricky to initialise...so I am hanging on your every word now ....the factory have not been helpful at all....so at this stage I sill do not know if I have a batch of faulty units or I need your special sauce to get them going. The independent display sounds interesting too...I look forward to this info too
Ah, I don't want you to have to wait. The way I got it to fire up is by connecting the vicrton quattro and turning in on charger mode and waiting. It took a minute or two, but it eventually pulsed enough voltage to boot the BMS. It needs battery voltage + 5v to start. It's ... annoying. I've recorded the video for the next video, but I am leaving for vacation today, so I don't know when I'll get it edited and uploaded. Hopefully soonish. :)
@@TheDigitalMermaid Thank you for your speedy response and I hope you have a great holiday....As one of your new subscribers...I will now patiently anticipate your next video
Just curious. When you put heat shrink on the positive fuse, did you realize heat is what opens it up inside? Do you think you may have damaged it and made it less capacity? I found a plastic enclosure for mine with a removable clear cover. Just sayin'.
Yes I realize and no I'm not worried. The plates that burn during an over-current event are surrounded by silica, which will be much more of an insulator that the heat shrink. More, the thermal rise from a dead short, which is what these fuses are here to protect against, is so staggeringly sharp that the insulation from the heat shrink is not even worth calculating. The current dump from LFP is just insane. :)
Just a quick question since they’re going in a boat in salt water wouldn’t have been better to make them out of HDPE or some other man-made material instead of wood?
I think its great that most of us seem to be settling on the Heltec/JK BMS with active balance BMS, or the Seplos BMS for case type batteries using the Pylontech protocol. Have you figured out the comms yet between the BMS and your inverter?
Not yet. I had hoped to make some progress before the holidays, but didn't get that far. I've got a USB to RS485 adapter on order, and the new year's focus will be programming the victron gear and tying in the JK BMS if I can.
Hey. Great videos. Was wondering, how do you plan to get you JK BMS talking to your multiplus? Or do you just plan to allow the low cell volt MS setting to shut the DC off to your multiplus?
Quattro*, and that's to be determined. I've got the RS-485 and the Canbus adapters, hoping one of them will work. Failing that, I've got a longer term plan to collect data from various sources into my own central database for processing.
@@TheDigitalMermaid I made my first battery system using a victron inverter/charger a couple of years back and really like their equipment. Very reliable and good quality. I learnt alot on my first build. Just for info found cutting the DC off to the I/C at low cell volt was not the best form of control. I found that with Victron equipment you can disable invertering and charging via MQTT or Modbus. I now pull data via canbus from my BMS and use node red on the CCGX to control charging and discharging. I'm in the process of building battery system number 2 :-) and have a JKBMS that I may use for my BMS. I'm going to trail the diybms to and see which works best. I will be interested to see how you intergrate yours in the future.
@@GarethJones-dk9yp Once the battery is re-assembled (working on that today), the next step will be starting to program the Victron gear, and likely by using Node Red. My first goal will be to setup load-shifting / time-shifting, using my server rack as the load. I expect it's going to be good fun to learn.
@@TheDigitalMermaid JK-BMS with canbus or rs484 won't work with GX, need some kind of driver. hopefully someone did an amazing job to add dbus driver for a bunch of serial BMS including JK-BMS. it works with any GX device.
It looks like those batteries fit in there snug, but are they going to be compressed to 300kgf as per the manufacturers specification? It's my understanding that there's significant reduction of the number of cycles if not compressed.
They will not be compressed, and I spoke to the reasoning why in past videos. In short; uncompressed is ~2500 cycles to 80% capacity, compressed is ~3500 cycles to 80%. Sounds like a big difference, but 2500 is already 6.9 _years_ of daily full charge/discharge cycles, which I will never do. So even uncompressed, calendar ageing will kill them before cycle ageing does. Given this, I prefer to not have to deal with the space needed and general hassle of compression.
Hello I have a question about the BMS I just get the someone and I have 16s bat and 48v but how to turn on the BMS the instructions are most in Chinese but I find one photo where they show connect charger and controller do I need that or there is different way to start the bms thank you for ur time
Assuming you mean the JK BMS, it depends on the age. With the older ones, you had to apply a 5v DC signal across the two sides of the BMS (I can't remember the details, but if you look back, the earliest JK BMS video I did covers it in detail). If it's a newer one, there should have been a switch that plugs into the BMS you can press to boot it.
Ok I just get few days ago and come with switch so should be OK I don't conect yet still making the battery bank to finish and fund out people have a problem to start up so I start looking for solutions already and I find your video. So assuming I have the new one so if I connect the battery to inventer and press the power should be OK? Thanks for ur fast replay grateful for that.
How long it’s take 2 charges the battery 🔋 with alternator & solar panels & how many watts solar panel u use plz educate me thx 🙏 Digital Mermaid 🧜♀️😂
The answer to that question is very much "it depends". The rough math is "total solar panel wattage * 5" (roughly 5 optimal sun hours per day). Then divide that by the total wattage in your battery. So in my case, I have 1340w of solar, so in theory that's 4060wh/day, and my pack has 14.2kw, so you would very roughly say 3.5 days to recharge from totally dead. Now, the reality is not even close to being that idea. What season is it and what's the angle of the sun to the panels? How long or short is the day? How many clouds or shading from trees is there? How efficient is your charge controller? And so and so on. This also assumes no load at all on the battery, so subtract the load from the charging wattage.
Did I miss something ? Nothing between each cell ? I mentioned it before and you said there would be on final build, although they sure seem tight in box to do that now....Just saying
If you look for a "50w, 50 ohms wire-wound panel mount resistor" you will find one like it. I don't remember if this is the exact one I bought, but here's an example in Canada of the type - www.mouser.ca/ProductDetail/TE-Connectivity-Holsworthy/HSA50R05J?qs=DfH2yQaBz6tDGps14C42Pw%3D%3D
@@TheDigitalMermaid Thanks a lot :). I will copy your system with the momentanary switch & this dump load resistor. Great job btw. I think I will pick up as well the JKBMS.
Dzięki! Użyłem drutowego rezystora 50 W, 50 omów do wstępnego ładowania i użyłem przełącznika akumulatora Bluesea 6006, który może wytrzymać ciągłe rozładowanie 300 A.
My only question is why do u have a disconnect when u r using the anderson cant that disconnect your power instead of spending the money for a disconnect?
It's entirely likely that I'll want to physically connect/disconnect the Anderson while the battery is unable to provide/receive power. In theory, you could turn the charge/discharge off during the physical wire-up, and that would save you money. I like the idea though of having an integrated mechanical disconnect though.
@@TheDigitalMermaid Thank u for such a quick answer. Im learning from u and others about all this stuff because i bought a 40 ft Van Hool commercial bus that im turning in to a motorhome and i want to add solar so i can live off grid and those anderson connectors really look like the way im gonna go.
Absolutely do so! Ask any questions you might have. I plan to release proper plans for the box when I make the final version, but that might be a few months from now.
It might, yes, but that would be the case any time the smart shunt was used with pre-built batteries as well. So I assume it's internal logging will keep state info. Something to figure out later.
i dont know about your size cells but my 200ah cell battery box is impossible to lift and im 4 cells short for a 48v pack, how are you gonna more that thing lol
@@TheDigitalMermaid That was the same conclusion I had come to, if I would move the pack in the future. But always tape those terminals up when moving though. But I know you know that 😁. I don't know how some of these people are building big banks in those plastic totes seems like it would deform depending on how the tote was molded
Makes sense, I've got an overkill solar BMS and thinking about how to integrate it with my MultiPlus-II. It's got a header for canbus, but no idea if it's usable. Starting to think maybe I should have gone with the JK.
@@AndrewLeCody I've never used canbus yet, so maybe I could have tied the canbus into victron as well. I decided to take Andy's suggestion and switched to the JK. Both are great BMSes, and if I had not been able to switch to JK for some reason, I'd still have been happy with OverkillSolar. For me, the real biggest argument was being able to bump up to a sustained 150A continuous output. This gives me more flexibility/redundancy in powering the electric motor.
It's a pretty hot topic in the community. Some argue that you should compress the cells, some say to just fix them in place, some say to leave space. In my case, I charged them to 100% so they'd get as big as they normally will, and then I used 2mm foam on all sides. So if somehow they still swell, they can compress the foam. Given they're going on a boat, they have to be fixed securely in case the boat rolls over. So having them loose is not an option.
I haven't commented on your videos much yet, because I hadn't realised what it was that I was thinking. However it just dawned on me that it's awesome to be refreshed on what things people experience when they're first using a tool, product, type of wire or lug, or even just the thought process to stitch together to make things work. There are so many of the UA-camrs that are so experienced, that these finer details are often missed or just glossed over. But while watching your videos, it's reminding me of a lot of the things that I should be thinking more of. It's so easy to forget these details, but when building new things, it's so important to strip the process back to the basics, and doing that normally provides a much better result. While mistakes and changes may feel frustrating, they're so educational for everyone watching. Well done for keeping these finer details intact.
Oh and it's always fun to see the cats putting on a show. Mine feature in photo's often too.
Thank you for the kind words. I feel like I'm always struggling to keep the videos interesting, but not to cut out the process of learning. The whole purpose is to show how normal it is to ponder, make mistakes, change your mind, etc while learning and doing new things. ^_^
@@TheDigitalMermaid yes whatever you do, keep that stuff in. There's an annoying culture of people going online and asking "what's the best...?". They will get a thousand un-considered and ultimately incorrect (for them) answers. So seeing the polar opposite in your videos is a relief.
You go into the whole process of why your decision is the best decision for your needs, we need more of that online.
That process gives people the info needed for them to make their own decision, and to take ownership of those decisions and consequences. There's a lot of pride that comes from building something that isn't just from a set of IKEA instructions. That's especially true for something that needs to be just right, and is critically functional like your battery.
@@PowerPaulAu "There's a lot of pride that comes from building something" - That's the very essence of DIY, right there.
Thanks so much for this very normal video of how a person does this stuff. I learned so much. thanks for showing and speaking your thoughts as you were doing it. It made it more relatable to me
I am impressed how you can help yourself and how much fun you have to try it out. 👍😁
Very nice, and fun to watch. I wish I had half your woodworking skills.
Just in case you can rectify it, always connect from the corners of the battery. That way it always draws from all the cells instead of the nearest one doing more work.
Just came across your channel from suggested videos of the algorithm. And once you said you were a fellow Canuck and then said skookum, I subbed, lol. Was going to anyway, but that helped.
Your videos are great. I don't know if you read your comments but anyways I have stage 4 cancer and I'm in the middle of building a off grid power system for my camper so if I get sicker me and my wife have power. We lived with my mom while I did chemo and radiation but I'm back to work now so I spend every extra dollar we get trying to ensure our survival if the cancer gets worse. Your builds inspire me and the wife likes them also
I'm so glad to hear that I've inspired you. ^_^ - Fuck cancer, keep kicking ass!
Entertained by the SWITCH from
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an ALCOHOL Drink
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COOP
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By trial and error your entire battery has gotten So Pro looking. Connections are clear, crisp, direct and logical. You have come a long way, baby😊. (No sexism intended).
Hehe, thanks Rex! I can't wait until their final boxes are made!
Thank for the video. I was distracted by your cup of soup for more than half of the video. It was a relief to see it disappear, but then there was a glass of another drink. UA-cam will like this video for its algorithm. You can't stop watching that cup or glass. Great project for a snowy day in Canada. It is 36C here in South Australia! Have a nice day.
Maybe I should use my GoPro to create a soup-and-juice consumption time lapse. lol
I was afraid you were going to knock over the soup. It was so close to your knees.
That looks really awesome! 🥳
That box is beautiful. I am so jealous!
Don't be, build your own! Let me know if you need anything to do it. It was frustrating, but the end product is so worth it! ^_^
This is a much better design. Nice job. I am going to copy it for my home battery. Thanks.
Nice, the box is ready and looking good!
I did essentially the same build using a Seplos metal battery box without the cells. These come in various sizes for various a/h rating cells. I purchased one for larger than my cells to allow room for the bms, etc. I thought of using a flamable substance such as wood, however, I felt this would defeat the purpose of the enclosure. My feeling is that if at some point there was a cell failure and it let go, the metal box would offer a much better solution than wood, etc. Time matters, especially on the water, in a boat. Having metal was for me a no brainer. I have seen video where these go off and explode under certain condtions. Plus, too age will become a factor over time as well. For me, safety rather than $$.
Rust and corrosion is a bigger concern on the boat, particularly is salty air. Most pre-made cases are steel, and I'd want stainless or aluminium if I was going to go with a metal box. If the cells swell, not really anything is going to contain them, the case will rupture. I'd rather that happen at a lower pressure than a higher one, if it comes to it. I'd like to have aluminum cases, but that's expensive. For the final boxes (recall these plywood boxes were "get home" boxes only), I'm probably going to use white oak; very rot resistant and still fairly easy to work and affordable.
I have been watching your videos. They are very informative and have a interesting delivery of knowledge. Keep them coming , I really enjoy them. 👍❤️😉😁
your batt. box has also inspired me to build my own battery box. i love how you terminated everything and the disconnect very nice!
That's awesome! Have fun ^_^
Now that you have container, consider 12psi compression of your batteries when 50% SOC. I use springs to maintain that range of pressure (8-17 psi) during charge and discharge cycles…. Anticipating 5000 cycles to 80% LiFeP04.
@@gkeith4120 I've discussed in earlier videos why I'm not bothering with compression. TL;DW is that I will certainly calendar age out these cells before they even hit the 2500 cycle count.
= Revisiting some of your "older" videos
Thanks again for posting your "instructional" VIDEOS
COOP
the WiSeNhEiMeR from Richmond, INDIANA
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Maddie. Having sailed and lived on a sailboat for a couple of years myself just one suggestion, change out the ring terminals for terminals that have a closed end where the wire is enclosed not open like the ones you use. When you heat shrink the ring terminals they are totally sealed from the salt in the air.... Also ancor terminals are a better quality. Great quality content I just finished watching everything you have put up so far.
It's hard to get ancor stuff, getting their wire is tricky enough. I agree that closed end barrels would be better on a boat, but liquid electric tape or some other barrier will do the job I think. The ring terminals I'm using are TE Connect, a good brand, good thickness and tinned.
This girl should be playing cello! Nice one!!
Very nice, and fun to watch.
This reminds me of the old knob and tube wiring with wire-mold wooden channels I ran into in very old homes in the city. These were notorious for catching fire and burning the entire place to the ground. As it happens wood is very flamable and entirely inappropriate next to conductors (or batteries). I wouldn't sleep at night knowing any of this while out on the water.
The interiors of boats are largely plywood and fiberglass... If something electrical heats up enough to flash ignite this plywood, something else was going to go, too. The trick there is, like anything on boats, check that all connections are tight and not corroded. Again, these plywood boxes were never meant to last beyond a few months, which they did and have since been removed.
I learn alot from this channel. Keep up the great work.
Awesome work - thankyou! Also DIYing a marine lithium power bank so your frustrations are my learnings! Gromet analysis very useful although think I need to take a remedial class in Anderson connectors (lol).
I always solder my anderson plugs with a small blowlamp. So then you can re use them
That's going to be really heavy to lift. I hope you have a cart for transporting it so all you have to do is slide it on and off, though getting in on the boat will still be a challenge.
The plan is to install the cells into the finishes boxes in the boat. I don't think there's any practical way to lift these batteries already-complete into the boat otherwise. Certainly not alone.
If you mount the bms the right way up and put the smartshunt on the other side you do not need to extend the bms leads.
So nice and so fun to wacht. Thanks
Great video - I have virtually the same idea on how to build (my first) the 16s/280AH EVE battery box and connections to BMS/fuse/switch/ inverter. I was looking for Andrerson connectors and for 48V blue is required (red one is for 24v or so) - what conector are you using? And you mentioned that there will be final product made of other material - did you build one finaly?
Food for thought, using anderson connector in this way may over time have a major problem, in the boat there will inevitably be some movement of this connector and that movement will lead to work hardening of the copper and may in time cause it to fracture, a better solution might be to have a bulkhead fitting on the box and a plug. The external cables may have to be replaced over time but the battery box should be ok.
Any numbers or references on how many cycles are needed to cause failure?
Great job so far, but you should really put your shunt between battery and BMS, this way the shunt will still monitor if the bms shuts down at any time. just a thought, as this is how I always do the ones I setup.
Two reasons I didn't; First is that I want the BMS to have the best/closest view of the pack. Second is that the SmartShunt is designed to run outside of batteries, which means they would almost always be used after the BMS.
@@TheDigitalMermaid it will cause it to lose its calibration after a while as it will not take into account the energy required and losses of the bms itself. Just a thought
@@TheDigitalMermaid The BMS will get it's "view" of the batteries from the sense wires, not the main negative. It would also give you a more convenient way to terminate the 2 7 gauge wires coming off of the BMS to make the wiring a little bit cleaner. The shunt won't care what side of the BMS it is on. The BMS won't either. It's how I did mine, but for different reasons.
The Zen of how to use your toes to assemble a battery. Yoga's new Downward Disconnect Position
The JK BMS has a screen add-on you can connect to it. Might be nice to add to the face plate.
Oh really!? Do you have a link?
@@TheDigitalMermaid YT keeps removing my comments, even without the link just mentioning the A store. Check Andy's favorite store.
@@upnorthandpersonal Found it and ordered! I'll be sure to show it in a video once I get it.
Great video, and well done! I wonder, Don't they make surface mounted Anderson Connectors? Would clean up the out side a bit.
There's a place in the connector that a bolt could go through and that would let you panel mount it. In my case, it would foul with the IP65 cover, and I'd rather the improved water resistance at the cost of it being floppy. You can see the center-line mount points in the Anderson connector spec sheet - www.mouser.ca/datasheet/2/22/DS_SB175-1667988.pdf
@@TheDigitalMermaid Fair enough, Great job by the way I am learning a lot. I am also watching the Victron training videos on the side :D
@@TheDigitalMermaid look up silicone. Then mount 🤣
I doubt there is a solid number as the variables are so many, however the concept is well known and often taken into account during design, maybe others will be able to add helpfully on this. My thought was to bring up the idea so others with more experience could chime in.
New to your channel. I understand that you are building all this on a Moon haul sailboat and you haven’t built your structure yet? I started a project like this on a power boat and came to the realization that the amount of solar panels was my limiting factor. So i had 4 marine grade stainless steel kind a like a drawer slide to be able to make an additional drawer to slide out to double the solar panels once you were not underway. Each slide is rated at 800 pound load which is overkill and they will slide out more than the length of a solar panel. Since then I bought a much bigger power mode and had the roof area to get what I wanted without using my sliding drawers. If you might be interested in doing something like this and want to buy the slides from me at very reduced price I would love to hear from you.
Ross
You changed the fuse rating when you put the heatshrink around it. By how much I don't know but it's probably better to leave in air and have some standoffs to hold each side(or use a fuse holder).
Those Heyco sealed connectors should come with nuts. Countersink the hole with your new forstner bits so the nut will reach on the sealed connectors.
Looking really good!
I'm honestly not that worried. If the T-class is coming into play, the current is so high that it won't matter. 150A, 200A, 300A... It'll be breaking a dead-short which is in the thousands of amps.
I install .... Mostly repair lift gates on delivery trucks that pull 145 off of amg batteries, I instructed to put a 150 amp fuse in Line with heat shrink on mega fuses. Heat matters but safe vs sorry is a thing. They last two years and that's my battery maintenance preference anyways for all batteries.
@@joevasquez1776 Liftgates are short duration, so you would need to pull above the fuse rating to trip it.
@@TheDigitalMermaid Fuses trip fast with high currents, which won't be a problem...BMS will probably trip too. But a fuse can blow under their rating when they heat up and have a 1hr+ load. You probably want a 120A fuse based on your wire size, which means you can only pull 95A continuous(about a 4000W output inverter running at max over an hour).
@@jmaus2k The new BMS is rated for 150A continuous, and the fuse is rated for 200A.
I use 1/4” cement board on bottom and sides of my batteries. No wood in contact with these cells or close to wiring.
Thank U I Hope your well Have a Great Day BeSafe
Hi have you somewhere read that positive and negative cable should be same length? Because i do not see any reason for it, positive terminal wire can be shorter so resistance of whole pack will be smaller.. Also i plug victron smartshunt between cells and BMS, so i can read state even after BMS shuts down discharge. Smartshunt takes about 15mA so unless you do not leave discharged battery for more than a week it should be OK to have it like that. Than you can also avoid two more connections so again - less resistance, less heat, less things to fail..
winging it is the only way to go D.M. It is what i do most os the time and the best way to learn from your mistakes, and yes everyone makes them. Now i measure 4 times and then check again before i cut.
full respect for you
Nice video and very inspiring. I myself am currently considering what to put the batteries in, and I really like this because of the cleanness of the processing.
I wanted to ask how much the BMS heats up during operation and whether it does not matter if it is closed without ventilation. Is this the 100A or 200A variant?
I've not done a high current discharge test, so I can't speak to heat yet. I suspect being closed is fine, as most commercial batteries are enclosed. So long as there's some room around the BMS, it's probably OK. Try building the box, place the battery under the highest load you can imagine happening in your use case, and see how it handles the heat. If it gets too warm, then you can add slots or add more air space.
Great build ! I noticed that the batteries fit exactely into the box. What about if they expand a little ?
Thanks! I charged them to 100% before starting the box build, so they should be as big as they'll get. If they do swell more though, there's 2mm of foam padding on all side that will give some.
@@TheDigitalMermaid My experience is that they will swell a little more as the grow older. The effect of 100% charging before the assembly will not overcome this. I've seen LiPo's expand at least 1/4. Still working fine. Anyway, good luck ! Btw, I can recommend an IR flame detector sensor in combination with a temp. sensor. You never know...
@@PhG1961 Do you have a make/model number for the IR/temp sensor?
Amen. You don’t want tight-fitting batteries - or, in my case, battery-holders - as they can be a to get in and out of the box. Give them room. How much - good question. I wish I’d gone a sixteenth wider and a quarter longer on the (much smaller) box I made years ago.
Good Job
I know this is not PC but your demeanor is cute
The grommets have standard threads which are available in standards junctions boxes so sometimes they are not supplied with the grommets. Depending on geo location you might find these in M or PG sizes. Hardware stores might sell the nuts separately.
Correct. Standard sizes are M20 or 1/2" NPT.
Ooooooh! OK, that makes sense! So then I wonder if I can find my own nuts for them fairly easily. Thanks, I'll take 'em with me to the hardware store next time I go. I'd still love to give the metal ones a go.
Just tripped over a large bag of Cat Food, fell though the upstairs window, and found myself in your youtube channel space. Love the Tabby Cat, your camera angle, and production style. Feel like I'm right there with you on the journey. Have you considering using MRBF's instead of the Class-T fuses? The fuses are much cheaper, small in dimension, and still have a high AIC rating that you want for safety when dealing with Lithium. Might be easier to work with in future builds?
Tatters is adorable. 😻 I'm also wondering: if your battery box goes onto a boat, and you situate it somewhere below the waterline, does that make it a sub box? 😬 Ok, I'm done.
Tatters is an adorable old chonk. :)
Hi DM I know you are not using bus bars but are the ones u were sent brass? Ray Makes Cool Things discovered his are not copper.
When I drilled into them, they seemed to be actual copper, yes
@@TheDigitalMermaid U are lucky
Awesome human. You are lovable.
maddi, the shunt should be directly on the battery negative, then the BMS. Bob. UK
Very nice presentation...im from Philippines
Thanks, Ranel!
i notice you switched the cold coffee for the warm scotch !
Nice workmanship, but wouldn't putting the batteries sideways make it harder to compress them properly?
Thanks! I'm not compressing the batteries, so it's not a design concern.
Very nice vídeo
the one with no screws on the end at 13:00 they are ment to screw in to a connector box with internal threads
HOWdy D-M,
Thanks for your IDEAS
Nice " Class-"T" Fuse " solution
COOP
...
That's looking really good, could you use Rhynoboard to build the waterproof box? I'm using it for my boat floor, I doesn't float so good for hatches in the floor.
Nice video. To be honest i'm planning doing something similar as second battery ..also i wasn't sure what kind of bms to use and i think i will use the same one as you..
Btw that resistor should be mounted onto that wall and not just loose ..that would be the way..
Once you will put it together ..let us know your experience with all and all that. Thanks.
You mean the fuse?
@@s.mendez7160 Hello No friend. I mean that resistor that is only dangling in the breeze i believe it has also holes in it so it could be mounted to that wall ..Because if it isn't properly mounted leads will probably brake from it
You put no insulators between cells? If the plastic wears off and the 2 cells touch because there in series it's a short, the outside casing is what the negative terminal connect to😢
I used 2mm neoprene later in the build
Why didn't you use an insulator between the batteries?
Progress! Designing stuff from scratch alway keeps my mind busy 24x7. Are you able to get enough sleep?
Yeeees.
I have a technical question if you could be so kind and let me tap you’re knowledge, I have the DALIY BMS 24v 3.2v 280Ah I want to wire 2 batteries in Parallel = 560Ah x 8 = ing 16 batteries 2 x 2 the Amp Hour that high should not bother the DAILY BMS correct ?
I'd give anything for a big battery bank like you have
The battery tech is getting better and more accessible all the time.
I can barely wait until you fire up the JK-BMS, I bought a few of them and they would not fire up for me....you mentioned that they are tricky to initialise...so I am hanging on your every word now ....the factory have not been helpful at all....so at this stage I sill do not know if I have a batch of faulty units or I need your special sauce to get them going. The independent display sounds interesting too...I look forward to this info too
Ah, I don't want you to have to wait. The way I got it to fire up is by connecting the vicrton quattro and turning in on charger mode and waiting. It took a minute or two, but it eventually pulsed enough voltage to boot the BMS. It needs battery voltage + 5v to start. It's ... annoying. I've recorded the video for the next video, but I am leaving for vacation today, so I don't know when I'll get it edited and uploaded. Hopefully soonish. :)
@@TheDigitalMermaid Thank you for your speedy response and I hope you have a great holiday....As one of your new subscribers...I will now patiently anticipate your next video
@@mekuranda happy holidays!
@@TheDigitalMermaidhello do u have the video how to start the bms thank you
@@EdeksuperBob ua-cam.com/video/OlY5WyYoXzg/v-deo.html
Just curious. When you put heat shrink on the positive fuse, did you realize heat is what opens it up inside? Do you think you may have damaged it and made it less capacity? I found a plastic enclosure for mine with a removable clear cover. Just sayin'.
Yes I realize and no I'm not worried. The plates that burn during an over-current event are surrounded by silica, which will be much more of an insulator that the heat shrink. More, the thermal rise from a dead short, which is what these fuses are here to protect against, is so staggeringly sharp that the insulation from the heat shrink is not even worth calculating. The current dump from LFP is just insane. :)
Nice and very informative video. How do you know what type and size of pre-charge resistor you need?
But that box...... Does look good
Just a quick question since they’re going in a boat in salt water wouldn’t have been better to make them out of HDPE or some other man-made material instead of wood?
They'll be fiberglass. This was to prototype.
I think its great that most of us seem to be settling on the Heltec/JK BMS with active balance BMS, or the Seplos BMS for case type batteries using the Pylontech protocol.
Have you figured out the comms yet between the BMS and your inverter?
Not yet. I had hoped to make some progress before the holidays, but didn't get that far. I've got a USB to RS485 adapter on order, and the new year's focus will be programming the victron gear and tying in the JK BMS if I can.
Wow. I have a serrated nut also!
omg, that's a big battery bank ! i still don't get what is that gold metal thing next to the disconnect switch, behind the disconnect switch ?
That's the T-Class fuse.
I would like to build my own lithium battery but i keep thinking i would burn it up so i have not made the leap yet.
How will you pick up the box? The biggest box I can lift is 8x batteries and a bms still very heavy- 45kg
I'll pick the box up empty, page it where it's going to live, then install the cells in-situ.
Hello is the pre resistor button for 48v do u have a link to it?
Hey. Great videos. Was wondering, how do you plan to get you JK BMS talking to your multiplus? Or do you just plan to allow the low cell volt MS setting to shut the DC off to your multiplus?
Quattro*, and that's to be determined. I've got the RS-485 and the Canbus adapters, hoping one of them will work. Failing that, I've got a longer term plan to collect data from various sources into my own central database for processing.
@@TheDigitalMermaid I made my first battery system using a victron inverter/charger a couple of years back and really like their equipment. Very reliable and good quality. I learnt alot on my first build. Just for info found cutting the DC off to the I/C at low cell volt was not the best form of control. I found that with Victron equipment you can disable invertering and charging via MQTT or Modbus. I now pull data via canbus from my BMS and use node red on the CCGX to control charging and discharging. I'm in the process of building battery system number 2 :-) and have a JKBMS that I may use for my BMS. I'm going to trail the diybms to and see which works best. I will be interested to see how you intergrate yours in the future.
@@GarethJones-dk9yp Once the battery is re-assembled (working on that today), the next step will be starting to program the Victron gear, and likely by using Node Red. My first goal will be to setup load-shifting / time-shifting, using my server rack as the load. I expect it's going to be good fun to learn.
@@TheDigitalMermaid JK-BMS with canbus or rs484 won't work with GX, need some kind of driver. hopefully someone did an amazing job to add dbus driver for a bunch of serial BMS including JK-BMS. it works with any GX device.
It looks like those batteries fit in there snug, but are they going to be compressed to 300kgf as per the manufacturers specification? It's my understanding that there's significant reduction of the number of cycles if not compressed.
They will not be compressed, and I spoke to the reasoning why in past videos. In short; uncompressed is ~2500 cycles to 80% capacity, compressed is ~3500 cycles to 80%. Sounds like a big difference, but 2500 is already 6.9 _years_ of daily full charge/discharge cycles, which I will never do. So even uncompressed, calendar ageing will kill them before cycle ageing does. Given this, I prefer to not have to deal with the space needed and general hassle of compression.
Hi, love the box. Are the dimensions listed any where, would love to build one. I'm new to this, what size is the shunt on left and what is it for? 😁
The shunt is used to measure the current flow into and out of the LFP Bank. Size depends on Max estimated or designed electrical load.
Nice work! What BMS do you use?
Hello I have a question about the BMS I just get the someone and I have 16s bat and 48v but how to turn on the BMS the instructions are most in Chinese but I find one photo where they show connect charger and controller do I need that or there is different way to start the bms thank you for ur time
Assuming you mean the JK BMS, it depends on the age. With the older ones, you had to apply a 5v DC signal across the two sides of the BMS (I can't remember the details, but if you look back, the earliest JK BMS video I did covers it in detail). If it's a newer one, there should have been a switch that plugs into the BMS you can press to boot it.
Ok I just get few days ago and come with switch so should be OK I don't conect yet still making the battery bank to finish and fund out people have a problem to start up so I start looking for solutions already and I find your video. So assuming I have the new one so if I connect the battery to inventer and press the power should be OK? Thanks for ur fast replay grateful for that.
where did the red little wires come from
They're the balance leads that come with the BMS.
How long it’s take 2 charges the battery 🔋 with alternator & solar panels & how many watts solar panel u use plz educate me thx 🙏 Digital Mermaid 🧜♀️😂
The answer to that question is very much "it depends". The rough math is "total solar panel wattage * 5" (roughly 5 optimal sun hours per day). Then divide that by the total wattage in your battery. So in my case, I have 1340w of solar, so in theory that's 4060wh/day, and my pack has 14.2kw, so you would very roughly say 3.5 days to recharge from totally dead. Now, the reality is not even close to being that idea. What season is it and what's the angle of the sun to the panels? How long or short is the day? How many clouds or shading from trees is there? How efficient is your charge controller? And so and so on. This also assumes no load at all on the battery, so subtract the load from the charging wattage.
Hello, I want you to map bms 16S / 51V / 3,2V 32 batteries / 230Ah Thank you
Did I miss something ? Nothing between each cell ? I mentioned it before and you said there would be on final build, although they sure seem tight in box to do that now....Just saying
There's a 2mm foam pad between each cell, added in part 1. The cells were charged to 100% as well to make sure they were as large as they would get.
Hi from France. Did you installed a 50W/50ohm dump precharge resistor ? right ? Do you have some link ? Cheers
If you look for a "50w, 50 ohms wire-wound panel mount resistor" you will find one like it. I don't remember if this is the exact one I bought, but here's an example in Canada of the type - www.mouser.ca/ProductDetail/TE-Connectivity-Holsworthy/HSA50R05J?qs=DfH2yQaBz6tDGps14C42Pw%3D%3D
@@TheDigitalMermaid Thanks a lot :). I will copy your system with the momentanary switch & this dump load resistor. Great job btw. I think I will pick up as well the JKBMS.
super robota mam pytanie Mounting the main switch and precharge resistor jaki zastosowałaś rozłącznik ilu amper volt
Dzięki! Użyłem drutowego rezystora 50 W, 50 omów do wstępnego ładowania i użyłem przełącznika akumulatora Bluesea 6006, który może wytrzymać ciągłe rozładowanie 300 A.
My only question is why do u have a disconnect when u r using the anderson cant that disconnect your power instead of spending the money for a disconnect?
It's entirely likely that I'll want to physically connect/disconnect the Anderson while the battery is unable to provide/receive power. In theory, you could turn the charge/discharge off during the physical wire-up, and that would save you money. I like the idea though of having an integrated mechanical disconnect though.
@@TheDigitalMermaid Thank u for such a quick answer. Im learning from u and others about all this stuff because i bought a 40 ft Van Hool commercial bus that im turning in to a motorhome and i want to add solar so i can live off grid and those anderson connectors really look like the way im gonna go.
very good design, I will probably copy a lot from it
Absolutely do so! Ask any questions you might have. I plan to release proper plans for the box when I make the final version, but that might be a few months from now.
how much do you pay all together and where you get them , may i ask.
For what, exactly?
Won't having the smart shunt after the BMS make it lose the battery charge info if the BMS shuts down the battery for protection?
It might, yes, but that would be the case any time the smart shunt was used with pre-built batteries as well. So I assume it's internal logging will keep state info. Something to figure out later.
Your excellent lady
i was waiting for the cup or the glass to tip over! i am greatly disappointed.
Did you see part 2? Good shot of spilling why grown-up's apple juice over the wall. I aim to please the audience
i dont know about your size cells but my 200ah cell battery box is impossible to lift and im 4 cells short for a 48v pack, how are you gonna more that thing lol
Take the pack apart, place the box in the final place, resemble the pack in-situ.
@@TheDigitalMermaid That was the same conclusion I had come to, if I would move the pack in the future. But always tape those terminals up when moving though. But I know you know that 😁. I don't know how some of these people are building big banks in those plastic totes seems like it would deform depending on how the tote was molded
@@JbVest people using the totes seem to use them as a barrier, not a carrier. A way to keep anything from touching the parts
keren ... 👍👍
Why not make the final box slightly longer to make it less crowded in your component compartment?
I mentioned that I was going to add 10mm in the final design for just this reason.
@@TheDigitalMermaid I just started watching and am very impressed. "Great minds think alike."
Is the smart shunt because the BMS doesn't track state of charge or just for a less complicated integration with the inverter/charger?
Mainly for integration with the Victron ecosystem. That said, the JK BMS has a Canbus interface, so..... :)
Makes sense, I've got an overkill solar BMS and thinking about how to integrate it with my MultiPlus-II. It's got a header for canbus, but no idea if it's usable. Starting to think maybe I should have gone with the JK.
@@AndrewLeCody I've never used canbus yet, so maybe I could have tied the canbus into victron as well. I decided to take Andy's suggestion and switched to the JK. Both are great BMSes, and if I had not been able to switch to JK for some reason, I'd still have been happy with OverkillSolar. For me, the real biggest argument was being able to bump up to a sustained 150A continuous output. This gives me more flexibility/redundancy in powering the electric motor.
Too much connections.Unfortunately your battery will have to high internal resistant.
How do you figure? The flexible bus bars measured about 0.12mΩ resistance, and the cells are around 0.21mΩ. Not sure how much lower you can go.
HI there form ga usa nice ida i been ordering 304 amp hr
cool cat
I'm no expert, but isn't there supposed to be space in between the cells in case of swelling?
It's a pretty hot topic in the community. Some argue that you should compress the cells, some say to just fix them in place, some say to leave space. In my case, I charged them to 100% so they'd get as big as they normally will, and then I used 2mm foam on all sides. So if somehow they still swell, they can compress the foam. Given they're going on a boat, they have to be fixed securely in case the boat rolls over. So having them loose is not an option.