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What would be the best way to charge a ton of 18650's?

Fudgey Finger

Silver Contributor
Member For 2 Years
Member For 1 Year
Hey everyone. Maybe this should be in off-topic, but it's about batteries so I thought it would be ok here.

For half the year I live on an island 18 miles off-shore. I don't have electricity out there and I don't want to set up a solar system or anything like that. I wouldn't need alot of power, but I would like to be able to charge electronics, use a lamp, charge my vape gear, etc. I was thinking that I could rig up a power bank with 18650s that would last me a week. I go to the mainland for a day about once a week and I would like to bring the battery bank with me back and forth. I would charge it on the mainland and bring it back out to use the power. I'm thinking it will be around 30 cells to make the pack, but I haven't put pen to paper to figure out just how much power I will need.

So my question is, what would be the quickest and safest way to charge the pack? I've heard Mooch talk about direct voltage charging or something like that. What is he talking about?

If anyone has any links or could point me in a better direction that would be appreciated. Everything I came up with on google was either for single cell power banks or huge 18650 power walls with a computer hooked up and everything permanently mounted.
 

SteveS45

Diamond Contributor
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Member For 5 Years
It would be cheaper to just buy a power bank or bring a Battery backup out with you that will provide plenty of power. You can get a 10,000 mAh for less than $20.
 

Fudgey Finger

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Member For 2 Years
Member For 1 Year
It would be cheaper to just buy a power bank or bring a Battery backup out with you that will provide plenty of power. You can get a 10,000 mAh for less than $20.
What kind of battery or power bank? Over the years I have tried different batteries like deep cycle marine 12v batteries and golf cart batteries, but both are a real pain in the ass and take a long time to charge.
 

SteveS45

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ECF Refugee
Member For 5 Years
What kind of battery or power bank? Over the years I have tried different batteries like deep cycle marine 12v batteries and golf cart batteries, but both are a real pain in the ass and take a long time to charge.

You could use a $50 battery back up for a PC that would give you a couple of hours run time for a lamp. All depends on how much load you intend to put on it.

Something like this for light duty usage
upload_2018-2-20_16-27-7.jpeg

Or more extravagant
upload_2018-2-20_16-28-6.jpeg

Your choices are pretty much endless
 

Fudgey Finger

Silver Contributor
Member For 2 Years
Member For 1 Year

Fudgey Finger

Silver Contributor
Member For 2 Years
Member For 1 Year
You could use a $50 battery back up for a PC that would give you a couple of hours run time for a lamp. All depends on how much load you intend to put on it.

Something like this for light duty usage
View attachment 104393

Or more extravagant
View attachment 104394

Your choices are pretty much endless
The first one for $17 would be pretty much useless unless I had a bunch of them. The bigger one could work for me but why would I drop $250 on something I could make for a fraction of the price with 18650s?I was hoping to get some guidance on how to charge a pack like I'm describing.
 

SteveS45

Diamond Contributor
ECF Refugee
Member For 5 Years
Like I said before the possibilities are endless and something like this would charge 18650 batteries for a long time.

cyberpower-ups-battery-back-up-se425g-64_1000.jpg


https://www.homedepot.com/p/CyberPo...gclsrc=aw.ds&dclid=CKGumtO6tdkCFQKtyAodC3QD4A
 

Fudgey Finger

Silver Contributor
Member For 2 Years
Member For 1 Year
If someone who isn't here to troll would give me some help on charging a pack of 18650s I would really appreciate it.
 
I use a power pack called vault made by a company called ridgemonkey for fishing, it’s the best alternative I could find without taking a 12v car battery with me.
I do 24-48hrs with my phone and tablet always charging


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 

Mattp169

Platinum Contributor
Vape Media
Member For 5 Years
ok so do you get dropped off at the island or do you have a boat with a battery??
if you have a boat with a battery, does it have a cigarette charger plug thing?
If so then many battery chargers have an adapter to plug into the car
 

Mattp169

Platinum Contributor
Vape Media
Member For 5 Years
oh I missed the point of using other thing sas well off your power pack.

That a bit beyond me but also chargers like the efest luc v6 let you use one 18650 to power electronics through a built in usb port and it can plug into a car cigarrette lighter so if you got something like that to plug into the boat that would work i think to recharge batteries and to power a usb port at least
 

Fudgey Finger

Silver Contributor
Member For 2 Years
Member For 1 Year
Trying to give you portable power and this is how you respond? GFY
I didn't ask for portable power. I asked for ideas on how I could charge a pack of somewhere around 30 18650s quickly. Instead you do like I see people do all the time on this forum. You ignored what I was asking for help with and then said "Do this instead, it's better than your idea". I gave you a reason why that wasn't practical and you respond with a link to a backup power strip. Something that I might be able to charge a few 18650s off but nowhere near how much power I need. It looked like a troll to me.

I have spent years doing the off grid thing. Vaping has introduced me to 18650s and I'm intrigued that they can be used in so many applications. I was just hoping to get some advice from someone who knows something about mass charging 18650s.
 

zephyr

Dirty Pirate Meg
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Hey everyone. Maybe this should be in off-topic, but it's about batteries so I thought it would be ok here.

For half the year I live on an island 18 miles off-shore. I don't have electricity out there and I don't want to set up a solar system or anything like that. I wouldn't need alot of power, but I would like to be able to charge electronics, use a lamp, charge my vape gear, etc. I was thinking that I could rig up a power bank with 18650s that would last me a week. I go to the mainland for a day about once a week and I would like to bring the battery bank with me back and forth. I would charge it on the mainland and bring it back out to use the power. I'm thinking it will be around 30 cells to make the pack, but I haven't put pen to paper to figure out just how much power I will need.

So my question is, what would be the quickest and safest way to charge the pack? I've heard Mooch talk about direct voltage charging or something like that. What is he talking about?

If anyone has any links or could point me in a better direction that would be appreciated. Everything I came up with on google was either for single cell power banks or huge 18650 power walls with a computer hooked up and everything permanently mounted.

I think making a power bank out of 18650s may be beyond the scope of this forum, good luck to you though.

I had to read your post twice, it wasn't clear whether you just wanted to charge a bunch of 18650s at once, for vaping, or that you wanted to charge a big Pack of 18650s to use as a power source.

Edit: Check out some electric skateboard forums, if you haven't yet, bet they have the know-how
 
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Time

Platinum Contributor
Member For 4 Years
I didn't ask for portable power. I asked for ideas on how I could charge a pack of somewhere around 30 18650s quickly. Instead you do like I see people do all the time on this forum. You ignored what I was asking for help with and then said "Do this instead, it's better than your idea". I gave you a reason why that wasn't practical and you respond with a link to a backup power strip. Something that I might be able to charge a few 18650s off but nowhere near how much power I need. It looked like a troll to me.

I have spent years doing the off grid thing. Vaping has introduced me to 18650s and I'm intrigued that they can be used in so many applications. I was just hoping to get some advice from someone who knows something about mass charging 18650s.

There are too many variables that you have not provided. A pack of 30 isn't enough information.

Do you mean that you are going to use a bunch of 18650's as cells to make a larger single battery bank?

If you want to charge them all together, rather than individually, you need to know how they will be connected to each other(series, parallel, series/parallel) and what the combined voltage is going to be. I'd shoot for 12V(give or take).

Then you can start to look for a charger that meets you needs. Or find a charger and plan your bank connections to match the charger.

Anyway, It's not a good idea. But I found this and maybe it will help you out. https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/166530/creating-a-large-18650-array
 
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have you checked out goalzero? they have a lot of energy storage options with solar charging products designed to work with their power banks.
Depending on your budget it might be a little pricey but everythings pretty plug and play

http://www.goalzero.com/?gclid=Cj0K...4rdabtWfPsNJAn99t-BhrBecd-3udL7MaAq_cEALw_wcB

if youre dead set on making youre own power pack then yea an ebike battery charger would probably be the safest option as it usually has some form of BMS to keep the bricks ballanced
 

Fudgey Finger

Silver Contributor
Member For 2 Years
Member For 1 Year
In case anyone was interested I figured I would share this. I built a battery pack for portable power. This has 13 cells in series and 4 cells in parallel. The pack had a nominal voltage of 48v. Each cell is a 10A LG cell. Since there are 4 in parallel on each series connection I should be able to draw 40 amps. The BMS I have installed only allows for 30A output though, so I should be well within the realm of safety.

I have most of what I need to build another one, except enough batteries. Originally I was going to make the pack with 3 cells in parallel for each series connection, but I decided to go with 4 so I will need to order another 26 batteries to build the next pack.

I plan to mount the pack into a hard carrying case, possibly with a fan built in but I'm not sure about that part yet. I want to have any wires that I need for daily use to be accessible from the outside of the carrying case. That way I can just toss the pack on the boat each week when we go to the mainland and throw it on the charger. If I have two then I can always have one on the mainland fully charged in case I don't have the time to charge whichever pack I was using that week.

I have tested the pack to make sure it works. It has charged with no problem and I was even running my computer from it this morning.

Anyway, I just thought I would share this. Thanks for the help and resources shared in this thread.
343d757e18d3ec3140461f03c35b0db6.jpg
d90e048b7991afe895a7ff585206f2de.jpg


Sent from my LGL64VL using Tapatalk
 

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