- This electric bike is finished! I know I haven’t mentioned it before, but it is a key learning step toward building the electric plane. Back Story There a lot to talk about with this bike, and I haven’t blogged any of it. In future blogs I’ll break it down and...
- To summarize the 4 months since my last post: I’ve been educating myself. Primarily, my time has been spent learning how to build a BMS (Battery Management Sysytem). And there was a lot for me to learn. There were several attempts at a BMS that I’d like to share with...
- Li-ion cells, especially 18650 cells, are ripe for fraud. They are such a commodity these days that sketchy distributors can make a handy profit by wrapping cheap low-quality cells in name brand skins and selling them for a premium. They get creative. Sometimes they’ll take low-end cells from a certain...
- It’s been nearly a month since my last post! Why? Well, there’s been lots to learn. Testing Battery Authenticity In the last post, you saw a picture of 3000 Li-ion batteries that arrived. Although the vendor has a good reputation and seems trust worthy, it seemed like a good idea...
- Batteries! They arrived today. 3,000 LG Chem MJ1 cells. These are 18650 Li-ion cells with a nominal voltage of 3.6 V and a capacity of 3.5 Ah. That’s 12.6 Wh in each cell. 37.8 kWh in the whole pile of batteries. Sound like a lot? Well it’s about the same...
