People Are Using Recycled Laptop Batteries To Power Their Homes (vice.com)

New submitter gooddogsgotoheaven writes: DIY Powerwall builders from around the world are harvesting old laptop batteries and turning them into powerful batteries capable of supplying energy to their entire homes. "It's the future. It's clean, simple, efficient and powerful," Jehu Garcia, one of the most popular powerwall builders, told me. He and people like him are deciding for themselves what the future of alternative energy will look like, instead of waiting for technology companies to shape it for them. "The end result is being able to rely on something I not only built myself but understand the ins and outs of to power some or all of my electricity in my home. That is inspiring," Joe Williams, another powerwall builder, told me.

Comments

Lithium batteries are not to be taken lightly

[stikves]

They are very power efficient, and also very dangerous:

- Overcharge it too much: boom
- Drain it completely, and then try to charge: boom
- Puncture: boom
- Overheat: boom
- Make your own battery with cells you found around, and not use a good controller: boom, boom, boom

Of course it is possible to use lots of cheap batteries, with a very good controller system. This is what Tesla does for its current cars. However the system needs to monitor each cell and pack, and have safety precautions to disconnect them if them become faulty.

Basically, do not try this at home.

Disaster waiting to happen

[Anonymous Coward]

If one of the laptop battery is on recall list that's one ticking fuse in your powerwall

Re:IDTS

[AmiMoJo]

Laptop batteries are made up for several individual cells. Often only one or two cells die, and the rest are fine. Take the pack apart, test each cell and discard the duff ones.

This happens because cheap cells have variable quality, and because heat kills batteries but tends to be very uneven in a laptop, mostly on one side where the CPU is.

Between old laptop batteries and old power tool batteries, and even written off cars, you can get a nearly infinite supply of very cheap/free LiPo cells that just need disassembling and testing.