Make A Battery Bank (for almost $0)

[VK3ZYZ]

As mentioned on the 80M net, I have picked up some electronic cigarettes. These devices are the single use versions and can often be found tossed out (or collected from a friend who uses them).

The case is Aluminum with the ends pushed in.
Grabbing the mouth piece with pliers, and applying a bit of brute force, it can be pulled out.

Then the "guts" can be slid out, or the other end removed and the pushed out.

Do not short the battery wires unless you want some fire! I did and it is pretty spectacular.
Cut the red from the battery, then the black. If you want, the pressure switch and heater can be salvaged too, along with any other parts you want. But I am just interested in the battery.

So far, I have about a dozen of these, so, with a suitable battery management board, a reasonably power supply can be built.
I've added a pdf of this FYI.

 

[VK3ZYZ]

So far, here are the capacities tested...
867mAh (this cell was run over and flattened a bit)
1464mAh
1495mAh
1421mAh
1485mAh

next batch...
1444mAh
1474mAh
1559mAh
1400mAh

and the final batch I've tested...
1489mAh
1443mAh
1459mAh
So, you can see they are pretty good capacities.

 

[VK3ZYZ]

This is the charger/capacity tester in operation.
EDIT: The cells in this have been tested.....
1437mAh
1496mAh
1500mAh

 

[VK3ZYZ]

So far, I have over 40 cells and the average capacity is 1.464AH, giving a total of over 65AH.
Not bad for free!

 

[BillC]

Good on you Denys, hope you can get some good use out of those batteries of cells. Cells can be very good to supply power for test gear when you want to avoid the noise and interference from modern switchmode power supplies, also if you want to isolate from the mains. Just think of all the wasted batteries of cells throughout the country. Maybe a sig. gen. could be a good project to use a few cells.

 

[VK3ZYZ]

Some of the dead ECig cases.

 

[VK3ZYZ]

Big Clive has found another version...

 

[VK3ZYZ]

I've done a spreadsheet that indicated what I can make with these cells when installed in an old gell cell case.
the cells will be 4 lots in series with each lot a group of 6.
24 cells is about all I can fit in the gel cell case, otherwise it could be a bigger battery in a different case.
This is made up of 3 cells from the min capacity and another 3 from the max capacity end of the test table, giving each group of 6 cells in parrallel around the same capacity.

So, around 35AH each.
Not to bad for the cost of a battery management board!
And I have 13 left over just waiting for more cells to turn up.

 

[Josh]

you might find this useful.

rePackr - 18650 pack builder

 

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Pretty rough!

Here is #1 battery with 4x6 Ecig cells.

 

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I forgot to take a picture of the assemble. But this is the charge controller installed...

 

[VK3ZYZ]

Here is a 12V version.
For the connecting wiring some flat speaker cable from Jaycar was used.
CAT.NO: WB1740
Soldering was "fun" as it likes to work well as solder wick!
It is easy to strip the plastic off. The high temperature tape was added as an afterthought for where the wires cross over.
Starting to connect up after the cells were wired together.

Other side.

And top.

Here it is wired up and I have added an 8 Amp Polyswitch in the interest of smoke reduction.

Notice the charge controller/balancer board is a 3 cell version, not the 4 cell one on the first battery.
I'll bring it along to the next meeting just wrapped in clear tape so it can be examined. Ideally, it will end up in a protective enclosure, maybe.

 

[VK3ZYZ]

My haul from the SADARC meeting today... (And I did not take them all)

The big red one in the bottom right corner is rechargeable so I will be quite interested to see if it has a proper charger circuit included, and not just a fire starter!
EDIT: The squarish and some of those odd shaped ones at that corner of the picture are rechargeable too.

 

[VK3YNV]

Impressive collection...

It amazes me why they aren't all rechargeable.

Regards
Ray

 

[vk3vsm]

I got a bagful , Thanks Denys for letting me take some
I spent the evening ripping them apart which was a fun exercise , a few times i must've activated the pressure mechanism and got a facefull of vape.
Hey Denys , in the interest of stopping stuff going to landfill , would you be able to save the metal casings for me? Think of melting them down and doing some metal casting

 

[VK3ZYZ]

I may be doing that as well

 

[VK3ZYZ]

Here is one of the rechargeable vapes.

There is micro USB socket in the base and it appears to have an actual charge controller in it as when plugged in, it lights up blue, then after a time, the LED goes out. The cell is a 550mAH one.
I am wondering if the clear part has room for a small OLED display?
These could be handy for some small projects!

 

[VK3ZYZ]

I finally got my new charger going. It came with USB-C 5V inputs so of course, I modified it to plug into an old PC power supply. I did order some USB-C leads that should have had USB-A plugs on the end but they came with USB-C both ends. The seller said they would send the correct ones but.......
This charger/capacity meter has 4 x 18650 sockets as well as screw terminals for each cell so I have added clip leads. Upon running it is plain that the wires are to thin as they are warm so the next bod will be to put thicker wire on the clips. Also, a dob of super glue as the clip covers slip around the clips when squeezed making it annoying to try to open the clips.

As the voltage drop across the cables is significant (I may measure it later), the capacity info will be wrong so that is something to fix ASAP. It is a bit hot in my shed so I'm taking a break.

 

[VK3ZYZ]

I did not measure the voltage drop but from the above photo, you can see the charge current was 0.69A, now with better leads, it is around 1.2Amps. Much better!

 

[VK3ZYZ]

Here is a detailed video of the device if you are interested.