Recycle LapTop Batteries

[MarkE]

Tommey have you settled in on a topology for your batteries and the charge control electronics?

[joel321]

If you look on craigs list you might be able to snap a dewalt or Milwaukee (very popular industrial brands) lithium ion battery chargers for $15 bucks and hack them for your liking.

Or even get a battery and charger combo to harvest the balancers and monitoring sensors.

I know for a fact that their lithium ion chargers charge 3, 4, or 8 cells...so there is a regulator built in those chargers.

There are some RC chargers that you can snag on Cragslist for cheap too...link for reference....

https://www.google.com/search?q=rc+chargers&biw=1238&bih=915&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=_GQ7VP_gN5OM8gGtwIC4DQ&sqi=2&ved=0CAgQ_AUoAw

[MarkE]

There are dozens of Lithium battery management ICs on the market of varying levels of sophistication.  Some manage a single cell and others manage typically 2 - 6 cells each.  Some of those can be chained to manage 30 cells in series or more.  However, virtually all of them assume that the cells are in similar condition.  Managing cells that are in disparate conditions presents a lot of challenges that all end up costing money to address.  Rather than throw tons of money and real estate at cells that can be in any condition, most OEMs concentrate on making sure the cells are in similar condition when they ship, trying to keep them in similar condition in the product, and when they vary too much, shutting the battery down.

[TommeyLReed]

Hi all,

Mark, I'm using a Imax B6 balance/charger.

So far 98% of recycle lithium cell are very good and hold a charge,  i have 100 laptop batteries (600+cells) for under $340.00

My design is to use all cells in a single 4v parallel or no greater then 12-16v in series.
This will allow more efficient way to control each pack using my Matrix design.

If I have 150 cells in parallel and 4 packs in series to run a 1000 watt inverter for 60vdc, the amp per cell is only need a constant of 1amp.

1 amp draw or 2a max with built in cell fuse
4V peek to 3v cut off=
4v@150a =600w, 600w x 4(banks) =2.4kwh
3v@150a =450w, 450w x 4(banks)=1.8kwh

This is the best way I believe these battery should be used on my Trike project with a range of 60+ miles.

10 miles full power test run, using 12v@10ah lead acid batteries in series to make 48v@10A.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fzV05QNZ17w

Tom.