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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.
Jesus. Nope, nope, nope. Dying in a fire isn't my preferred way to go.
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
But this seems to be a really, really bad idea. Just on the face of it.
"UNIX is very simple, it just needs a genius to understand its simplicity." -Dennis Ritchie
Just asking...
I think there's a huge stash of "almost new" Samsung Galaxy Note 7 batteries that aren't being used now.
Dear Sir/Madam, I am writing to inform you of a fire that has broken out on the premises of 123 Cavendon Road... no, that's too formal.
[deletes text, starts again]
Fire - exclamation mark - fire - exclamation mark - help me - exclamation mark. 123 Cavendon Road. Looking forward to hearing from you. Yours truly, Maurice Moss.
I run my flash lights, USB battery packs, and e-cigarette with 18650 cells salvaged from old laptop batteries. And working in IT gives me an unlimited supply of them.
Of course, like fryer oil, they won't be free once enough people find a use for them.
heh...
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.
The problem with using laptop batteries is not the batteries, the tesla uses them. The problem is the smart battery circuitry needed to monitor currents and voltages, balance cells, thermally monitor strings (or ideally individual cells), gas gauge, and safely disconnect problem cells from the system. The major advancement in the tesla is the amazing cooling/heating system and the ability to rewire itself to stop using problem cells. Simply wiring up a bank of unmonitored cells is a disaster waiting to happen. The vast majority of home hobbiests lack the knowledge and wherewithal to implement proper battery safety. The packs in the stock photos, if lithium cells, are a disaster in the making. Disclaimer: have designed smart battery circuits for lithium batteries used in actual products.
Unless these people built a cinderblock bunker roofed with a galvanized steel roof (i.e. no wood in the structure at all) and a steel fire rated door that is completely removed from their main residence, the first time one of these Lithium batteries fails thermally, their entire "wall" will likely go up and burn down their house. If they have each battery in a ceramic, isolated cubby outside their house, they are marginally better, but this is definitely not a good way to go about powering your house or living off grid... You are better off building your own lead acid battery array with deep cycle batteries...
If you disagree, please post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like
Those would probably be perfectly fine for use in a static enclosure.
The problem that caused the fires was related to those battery packs being overflexed due to their size and the limited rigidity of the note 7 case for those size batteries was it not?
I have a mental image of a house down the street exploding after a minor earthquake. The neighbors are all loafing around the sidewalk looking at the debris. "A-yep. Samsung batteries. Shouldna used 'em."
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
Most power my home with DIY batteries folks use the Nickel-Iron Battery.
It's not the most efficient battery, but it tolerates abuse (aka DIY stupidity) and usually doesn't explode unless you do something really dumb.
Trying this DIY approach with Lithium batteries?
Let's not and say we did.
Your powerwall might turn into a firewall
Where are they getting these used laptop batteries that still have life in them?
My experience has been that a typical laptop battery will last about 2 years. 3 if you're will to work in small spurts before hunting down a power outlet. Most are run till the batteries are useless, and then spend a while as a makeshift desktop by constantly being connected to the charger. In a couple cases, the laptop was still useful enough to spring for a replacement battery.
I just don't see where enough recycle-able batteries will come from for this "movement" to ever be anything other than an oddity. With the tedium of:
- connecting hundreds of cells that you've already determined are not new, if not at the end of their usable life
-purchasing or building your own controllers with failsafe features
-replacing cells as they begin dying off
I would think it would make most people opt for buying one of Tesla's products.
Aah, change is good. -- Rafiki
Yeah, but it ain't easy. -- Simba
When I reached out to the laptop manufacturers, both Dell and HP discouraged hobbyists from reusing their batteries. "Dell laptop batteries are designed to be used within Dell-branded products only and we do not recommend or endorse any other use," a spokesperson from Dell told Motherboard in an email.
And they shouldn't. Companies can't dance this legal knife's edge, endorsing alternate battery usage, on the hope that DIYers* know what they are doing and the pinky promise that they or their families won't sue if they get hurt by fucking around with batteries.
*Some DIYers are very competent and understand engineering for safety, and may in fact be engineers. Some DIYers are very enthusiastic idiots.
Seems like they could sign a waiver and take care of that part. I think another worry, and possibly a bigger one, may be finding a bunch of them improperly disposed of and getting blamed for it. Hard to sign that away in a waiver because the cells are not traceable.
bad mod
In a few years, all the thermal issue with lithium batteries are going to be a thing of the past. If not for improved safety then you should at wait because the new batteries are going to cause the price of the preset battery forms to plummet. Before installing this shit, do check with your insurance company to see if they will cover you if a battery fire does burn down your house because when one battery goes, they ALL go.
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
If one of the laptop battery is on recall list that's one ticking fuse in your powerwall
i would switch to 12 volt DC and use automotive electronics, like a car stereo for entertainment, lights meant for a camper motor home, just use coleman multi-fuel stove, no refrigerator, just keep my food storage as canned goods and dry goods
Politics is Treachery, Religion is Brainwashing
Broken laptop batteries often have some perfectly good cells inside, and they are free or next to. Lead-acid is heavy, wears out quickly and is not that efficient.
The giant battery system will be able to store 1 megawatt of power—1000 kWh
I... don't even know what to do with that sentence. Watts are not equivalent to kilowatt-hours.
Sounds good. Those things never explode, right?
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
The battery in my laptop lasts only a few years before it's basically a brick. And they are using used batteries to build this thing?
I've got probably a 5 gallon buckets worth of bad laptop batteries i've yet to come up with a good use for them.
Minimum threshold fixed. Thanks!
Lead acid is inefficient and short-lived. And when they go bad they can swell, crack, leak or even explode. If overcharged, they vent a perfect mix of hydrogen and oxygen that will ignite from any spark. If not kept near full charge they will go bad over time. Discharged batteries are frost-sensitive because the electrolyte is theb modtly water. And since they are not as finicky as Li-ion they are often charged by crude chargers and not closely monitored.
I have a better idea. Let's get a hundred hamsters, and put them into a hundred wheels. Or maybe rats, as they are stronger. We can harvest rats in large cities and feed them with refuse. Wheels will provide with electricity whole houses, maybe even hospitals and schools! And it's clean, simple, efficient and powerful! It's natural, organic synergy! Where should I apply for a patent? Although I recall this idea was already featured in one of the Gummi Bears episodes, but this time it's for real!
Looks like it'll take more than $3000 worth of work - time and materials - to make this a reasonable endeavor.
However, more power to those that indulge! (pun intended!).
Self-importance and self-indulgence is the root of ALL evil.
Pleas stop saying "supplying energy". Gas and coal are something that "supplies energy". Batteries store and release energy. (unless you're burning them and turning that heat into energy I suppose)
You still have to charge them, storage isn't anything very incredible here. And old batteries can be pretty wasteful at that too. The manufacturers don't make the packs easy to take apart and separate the cells, and most of those packs have one or more cells that are performing much worse (or not at all) compared to the rest in the pack. You can't just chain together different grades of cells without introducing big performance hits, where you turn a lot of power into heat during charge and discharge due to the imbalance or bad cells in the string. If you want anywhere near decent performance you're going to have to tear the packs apart, separate the cells, test them, and group them together by current performance.
And when you compare the storage capacity of these packs with say, the capacity you can get from a used battery at a junkyard, they immediately reveal themselves to be a very bad investment of your money and time. The only advantage laptop packs have right now is they're often free because large users (like schools and businesses) find it difficult to get anything for them and end up giving them away when they pull the bad ones to replace them with new. (or replace them on a rotating schedule, which increases your chances of getting a pack that's still got some decent cells in it) Schools are less likely to rotate out on schedule because they are more careful with their spending. Businesses are much more likely to swap out batteries on some sort of a schedule where batteries that are still mostly useful are being pulled out of use. The school I work at only throws batteries in the "battery recycle box" when they have dropped below 1/2 of original capacity. (and often only get noticed when they have failed completely or nearly completely, indicating a totally open cell or several failing cells at the very least)
Comare the storage capacity of a new car battery and a new laptop battery. An average car battery is around 45 amp hours, which is a bit under 550 watt hours, which is what most laptop batteries are rate in. And the average laptop battery capacity is around 50WH, which is less than 1/10th that of a car battery. Now look at a typical used car battery you'd get at a junkyard for around $20. It won't have any bad cells either. (they won't bother trying to sell one that does because it won't start a car reliably with one or two dead cells dropping it to 8 or 10 volts) Then there's all the work involved in tearing apart old laptop packs, testing and matching cells, stringing them back together, setting up balanced charging... you'll quickly reach the $20/battery price point in supplies and added gear you could have spent at the junkyard. There's simply no chance of it possibly being worth it unless you think your time is free, and even then it just approaches break-even with lead acid, so you're just wasting your time. I don't consider my time free. Maybe if you're retired or something and looking for a hobby I suppose?
I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
i couldnt put a windmill in the yard because its "a hazard" ... using solar panels without passing it through the grid ( read 21% tax plus use and transfer costs and what not) is illegal and producing enough to store makes you technically "a provider" so thats also illegal unless you get a license which costs SO much you couldnt possibly produce enough from one home to make that viable
and people always lol like you exaggerate and me like "well come live here then"
Free speech was meant to be free for all... how can anyone grow up in a nanny state ?