Good day  I am a Google engineer and have and probably will continue to learn alot from Google. I am fortunate enough to have stumbled across this group of very helpful individuals. Thank you guys for taking the time to assist myself and others in this field. I appreciate it alot.

Now the question that I have is has anyone here experimented with laptop salvaged lithium batteries and made a power wall with then I have been on you tube. I find this kinda of stuff every interesting as you could build a battery bank with alot of reserve. Please look for  jehu Garcia on YouTube for reference.

I know @Mad Mike and @seant have salvaged 18650 Lion packs.

If you want to, take a look over here: https://powerforum.co.za/topic/1597-diy-powerwall-with-18650-batteries/?tab=comments#comment-28379

@PJJ, guilty as charged but I will deny everything!

My "powerwall" has been up and running now for a few months, it is still an active work in progress with it slowly moving from a certifiable fire hazard to a tamed beast. so by way of recapping it is:

1. 18650 cells in a 7S 180P  configuration all between 1800 mAh and 3000mAh (original plan was 14S 80P). the cells were each tested for capacity and internal resistance and the packs built using Repakr. it was a pain the proverbial posterior to sort through all 1120 cells and get them into the various packs but well worth the effort as the packs even without the BMS remained within 0.03 of each other after a full month of daily cycling.
2. cells are individually fused with fuse wire but 3A glass fuses (thumb suck choice) just arrived that will eventually replace the fuse wire.
3. 24V 2400W off grid inverter.
4. 4No 330W canadian panels in series
5. tied into the part of the secondary DB via contactors switches blah blah and originally meant to work in a backup configuration assuming ESKOM load shedding in winter (how disappointing at the moment) will revisit this when time and grey matter allows.
6. Cheap solar charger.
7. cheaper Chinese BMS (no blue no output screen just faith that it works; and faith confirmed once a week now with my trusty meter).
8. beautiful fully sheet metal server cabinet to keep everything enclosed and pretty (hopefully also keep any catastrophic failure and subsequent fire contained). 

For now I manually cycle the system daily charging the cells to 3.8V - 3.9V max and discharge down to 2.8V. I get a sold 3.5 - 4 hours run time each evening.

The bug has truly bitten me as I am already building another 7S 180P (all cells above 2000mAh)  unit that I intend to add to the existing setup. A third 7S 180P unit is possible if i use all my remain cells from 1400mAh through to 2000mAh but that is a story for another day.

Nice Mike, like to see some more pics of your build. What BMS did you end up using?

The box is untidy but I will post current pictures in a day or two! Will most likely get a tongue lashing from tthe electrical gurus ....

I will so post the details on the BMS. This one was very entry level as it was factory set on the top and bottom values (4.1v and 2.8v) the only thing you can do with this BMS apart from connecting as instructed is to burn it!

I

8 hours ago, Mad Mike said:

@seant there you go, a quick collage of the cabinet and my first 14 80P packs arranged in a 7S configurations and the second collage is of the solar charger, inverter and Additional Sub DB boxes. Third collage is the Chinese BMS and the second pack I am building with the glass fuses.

 

Like the glass fuses, but yes , like mine still a work in progress