Ever Lasting Battery Pack

So far i have replace 3 time battery of my MSI laptop. and when i replace the old one i harvest for 18650 batteries which have still life in them left more like each cell still have 1200 mah capacity left in them so i use them in torches etc.

So the idea of Ever Lasting battery pack is that we should create casing of battery as such so that user can replace 18650 batteries in it instead of buying new battery pack. i mean when i break old laptop batteries i find cheap blue 18650 batteries in it. so imagine when we have battery casing where we could install 18650 batteries in it by ourselves that would be pretty interesting like panasonic 18650 green batteries which are of high quality on alixpress normally cost 4$ and that mean 9x4 = 36$ so for 36$ dollar u can get 9 high quality made in japan panasonic cells which have capacity of 3400 mah mean 9 x 3400 = 30600 mah overall capacity which 113wh biggest battery.

let me know how is the idea , if idea is ok i think FW16 battery module based on it can be easily created as its just about some blank plastic casing have battery connectors in it and top removable cover and FW16 compatible battery connectors as am sure FW will have battery connectors design already there on github

concept images

thanks

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This is kind of neat. I have a charger that can charge these, but no 18650s to actually charge.

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This is an awesome idea that I wish more manufacturers would do. It’s really the best way to do “sustainability” for a battery pack. Often one cell fails.

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Great for reuse/sustainability, maybe less than great for safety. Makes it virtually certain that fake cells from less than honest sellers will find their way into packs, and perhaps e.g. airliner holds.

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Do I smell a Kickstarter?

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Something like these?
These have been around Aliexpress for quite a long while.
https://a.aliexpress.com/_EIaJ1Zz

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You should consider redesigning the battery pack to have less than 100 Wh total, as you’d run into trouble if you try to board a plane with a >100 Wh battery pack in your luggage…

Or by doing a split somewhere in the circuitry of the battery cans to stay under 100Wh and be able to remove the extra batterie before taking the plane. Like a base part (under 100Wk) and an extension (when you’re home/not taking flight).

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If keeping under 100Wh adds some room to the design would be great to have a cell tester which can report the health of each 18650. That way when tearing down an old battery you can weed out the bad cells. Alternative would be buying a tester separately but would be neat to have it built into the expansion.

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I have the XTAR PB2S which is pretty similar. Its listed as a “battery charger” on amazon but it has USB ports and functions exactly like any other external battery pack. It is, however, SIGNIFICANTLY less capacity than your photo since it only fits 2x 18650 or 21700. Its good for fully charging 1.5 cellphones or giving your laptop just enough extra power to make it through class.

How about this? Add external connectors and a mechanical latch [1] so that an arbitrary number of packs can be easily stacked to satisfy expected power needs or flight safety regulations.

[1] Both in one, experimental: embed mechanical press studs on top and bottom into the case. It works: half a century ago, my model railroad had some controlling parts with this system, and the connectors looked suspiciously like the press studs on garments.

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Build this for the GPU slot and I’ll be handing you money so fast its untrue

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Has anyone here successfully powered a mainboard with these types of DIY banks or something similar?

I had recently ordered a IP2368 bidirectional charging module that can power up to 100W and planning to use it with some 18650s. It’s not as sophisticated as commercial power banks, but it’s still a charger/power controller with USB-C and hopefully I could get it working with the Framework.

hi so bit of background for the kind of user i am and what
computer science student
mostly use the laptop for uni but i do play games on it and i will be travelling
had the laptop about a week and got the 13 amd 7640u
i love the idea of this my main concern is that this expansion would be bulky
now i know this is for the 16 not 13 so this isnt aimed at me but i can see that the design of the 16 expects there to be fans in the expansion bay and though im not an engineer im aware that even a very small amount of constant air flow is SIGNIFICANTLY better than not air flow so i would want this to do 1 of 2 things

  1. charge the FW this way you can plug it in while your on the move and then swap it out for the fan expansion when you take it out or
  2. can so very small fans and air holes to cool the damn thing keep in mind that these cells are gonna warm up as well so the air around them is also gonna be warm so youre gonna have a hot cpu connected with heat pipe leading to a warm battery pack the second you try and do anything this thing is gonna thermal throttle
    i dont have a solution for how exactly youll deal with this but its a concern id have for sure

yes i will work on this project , once i get hands on FW16

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Same. I would want to bring GPU and a battery pack like this on the road so while mobile = Battery pack. While on the wall, GPU.

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Great idea and great rendering! However keep in mind that big tech doesn’t like it, as they want to extort your money by selling overpriced battery packs. As you may already know, buying individual cells and DIY assembly is way cheaper. Many laptop battery manufacturers has kill-switch built-in the BMS’s program, which will brick the pack upon cell removal. The purpose of this is to deter DIY cell replacement, railroading users into buying overpriced pre-built battery packs. Some of them even have encryption on their BMS. Advanced users have little problems getting around this as they know how to use interface modules like the EV2400 although they might have a hard time cracking the encryption.

To make matters worse, I have bought many of these DIY power banks, all but one of them died out of circuit failure instead of worn batteries, so quality control of these things are a must.

There are two approaches, either connect the battery pack directly using a BMS identical to most of laptops, or using a DC-DC converter and pack it into 20V5A PD. In the former case an interface module with USB connection is required for the user to set voltage limits and capacity. In the latter case the battery pack is less efficient as it converts the voltage to 20V, send to the laptop then the laptop’s PSU converts it again. In either case, diverting power is required as the laptop can’t accept multiple inputs at the same time. Power management is hard to deal with. You might want to research the topology of the laptop’s and the controller program as the ELBP should be designed in a way. For example the computer should use the ELBP first, then the internal battery, charge the internal battery to the possible max rate nd only use excessive power from the source to charge the ELBP. It may or may not be possible to get 240W if the ELBP and the laptop is charging at the same time. A USBC PD is required either way as for charging and using the ELBP as a power bank.

Good luck with your module development!

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We are working on something like this in another thread here: Simple extra battery for the expansion bay

Over there are some calculaitions on what is theoratically possible for capacity in the Expansion Bay.

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