Making Busbars, wiring batteries together, DIY Powerwall (Chevy Volt) 

Hey David: Your entire series pulls me in as it so very interesting and well crafted. Your teaching style is super effective.

Hey David, love that Elinor seems inquisitive, for example the package of splice connectors. I can remember being about two or three and Oma had given me a bottle with a childproof lid that was filled with probably buttons. Loved it, spend hours trying to figure out. Just tossing that out there.

I just got inspired again to know I love this person's style and ability to capitalize on purchasing the battery system on a salvaged hybrid to combine with his solar system that should be more efficient compared to the unrealistic. Lead type of bank power not designed to function as the hybrid due to the different types of initial surge or 50 percent limits on non solar part of each evening

Change the fuses to 20amp ones, You want them to blow well before the wire heats up and is at its limit. 30amp fuses dont blow at 30 amps but closer to 40amps. The fuse amp rating is its max continuous rating and not its blow rating.

good choice on the magna inverter

Nice video buddy and thanks for sharing

Nice setup I found in research best to fuse each group in bank as if one cell goes in a group amps go up, pulling in power and fuse protects all other groups.

David I am using 1" copper tube from Lowe's 10 ft long ThicK wall. i split the type and flatten it I then use a template for my primo8h cells, if you compare the original they are same flat I use a plate on top of the copper plate this to me is the best as you have copper for conductor aluminum top plate for rigidity, AND HEAT ANTICIPATION . I like your idea of angle it avoids short circuit incidents which get scary WHEN YOUR TIGHTENING THE CIRCUIT, i always use stainless bolts less corrosion. I enjoy your videos . KEEP UP THE GOOD WORK. .

Nice job! Let’s not forget that this is DIY, everyone might have a different style on setting up there powerwall!

your doing a fine job

Looks great David. 13 months full time off grid taught me this about the Magnum. The voltage fluctuates. You will notice it if you have an old incandescent light, or perhaps you'll hear a fan speed up and slow down. I've recorded it going from 119 to 123 volts, up and down. They replaced my slave under warranty and it was somewhat better. The other problem is the hertz does not hold on 60, you'll see it float from 58-60. This means any clocks or timers you have that rely on frequency to keep time will be off. Our microwave will lose a couple minutes per day and the outside light timer is forever lagging. Not that big of a deal, just annoying. You would think they could get this right. Perhaps all inverters are like this- I suspect not. Otherwise I'm happy with the Magnum. Someone made a comment on heat, they remain cool to the touch. I was really tempted to try a Schneider 6848, and totally tossed a coin at the end. I'm hoping John Novak reads this and gives his impression on the 6848 - does it hold voltage, does it hold hertz.... and any other observations he might have :-)

I would run some kind of wrap around the wire to prevent any chafing against the brackets.

Love the channel.

You could smelt your "cooper pipe" scrapes into a new copper bus bar; that would give you another show to record, edit, and post. >:)

HOWdy D-P, Reviewing some of your "older" Videos, THANKS COOP ...

the fine print of your homeowners insurance policy will provide direction

Great job

David, Couple things, Be careful of compatibility of different metals in contact. Dissimilar metal contact can cause corrosion over time. I have a home from the late 70's that has aluminum wiring in it. All of the outlets have a compatible coating on the wiring terminals that will not corrode over time. They cost 10X normal outlets to replace ( C0/ALR. ) I'm not for sure what the coating is, but it is important to use them with wiring. I have discussed this with a licensed electrician. Also, If i use wire nuts to tie copper and aluminum wire together, I use special wire nuts that are filled with anti corrosive paste that can suppress corrosion. I don't want my house to burn down. If you start to get corrosion on the terminals to the aluminum bus bar, the resistance at the corrosion goes up and it will start to heat up. Don't mess around with this stuff. Your wooden battery box with the blower fan's to feed the flame can torch your garage. When you get done with this, run a stress test with max load and look at all of the terminals and wiring with a thermal camera. The second thing: Calculate the maximum amperage you need to pass. Then, go to the link below and find the equivalent wire gauge for that maximum amperage. Listed in the power stream Chart is the cross section area for copper wire gage. Find the equivalent wire gauge. The Cerro wire link lists copper and Aluminum for each ampacity based on wire gauge. So armed with this knowledge of Cross section area needed for the buss bar, Measure the cross sectional area of your copper pipe flattened and also your Aluminum angle measured. Since Copper is more conductive than Aluminum, the aluminum cross section will be larger. An example from the chart. 12 gauge copper can handle 20 amps. 12 gauge aluminum can handle only 15 amps. I would love for you to show your measurements and calculations. www.powerstream.com/Wire_Size.htm www.cerrowire.com/ampacity-charts

Nice looking setup and that 4448 PAE will be awesome. If I was going to change anything it would be configuration to accommodate shorter wire length. Nice sharing with Eleanor she's a cutie. Keep up the good work and videos. Now you will need the heavy wire to feed the inverter.

Great job. If I did not have a balancing charger for each cell, I would put a 2 Kohm resistor on each cell and monitor them with an arduino or rasberry pie for bad cells. The 2 K ohms on each cell will balance them a bit and is put over the cell on + and -

The idea is nice, I would of put the batteries closer to the floor (heavy weight) than above your head. The bus bar I would of had one half (+) to the right horizontally and the other (-) on the left horizontally, that way it's divided and can be set farther apart so you wouldn't have needed the 2x4 block and it makes it a little safer when connecting the wire and u can use cable clamps to hold each wire neatly in place on the back wall out of the way when you add the solar charger and inverter(s) later. Just a thought for later modifications.

amperage=current, a much better descriptor. In electrical terms: Amperage=current, wattage=power, kw-hr = energy, coulombs = charge, we do use voltage for emf (electro-motive-force)

Enough criticism with wall rack and all great job... Well done and with thicker wire things would be perfect... 👍 Tell us about bms that you attempt to use or how are your thoughts about it... 👍

I woudnt worry to much about wire lenght David

I would use a breaker box for a bus bar. Wood and rubber are flammable

Your understanding of wire gauge, and how it affects voltage drop (actually you didn't mention this at all iirc), and how much it can carry safely, may be flawed. The ratings for wire are usually based on 110 volt use, with AC power in your house. When you are dealing with so many variables, these ratings and rule of thumb things for wire, stop being accurate. While in your case, the 10 gauge wire will be moderately sufficient provided your runs are all under 10 feet, in the future, be mindful of the voltage drop over the length of wire. Even if the wire is rated for that amount of current, that does not mean that the voltage will not drop unacceptably over a longer distance. Not only must you be careful that pushing a certain amount of amps through a wire could heat up the wire and cause an issue, but be careful about causing unexpected voltage drops, which can seriously harm or hinder the operation of your equipment.

Fuses must blow BEFORE cables heat goes up. You must use fuses that have lower amps than your cables, like 20 amps if cable is rated at 30 amps.

Great job, didn't notice how new the videos are and was looking for what you used for the invertor. Currently doing a 18650 smaller power wall to feed my work shop and expand. I want to be able to run a 48 v system as the amp damand is way lower.

Well I don't use bms also but balancers are necessary to hold cells in line everything else is inverter's job.... One thing only I don't use whole capacity of the battery by the voltage it goes 57-50v so I don't go over low threshold... Victron BMV 700 have alarm if is go below 47v and also small relay..... 14s configuration and 12kw/36kw peak inverter 18650 diy powerwall /300Ah but is getting bigger Balancers are Del green single cells balancers wired in loop on the "secondary" side...

10 kwh for $2000? Sign me up!!!

I have been running that very model of magnum inverter for 4 Year’s and have never had an issue with it. I also made my own bus bar but I had a copper bar given to me for it. The angle alum bar you used is great. I had to deal with the flat bar which took some doing. I used Batteries from a computer dc ups but wish I had the batteries you have. I used much heavier wire just because I could. Single aught did it for me. However I did not fuse each one. I have a single dc breaker instead. I am moving and will be disassembling it all very soon. When I put it back I will incorporate some of you design in it. Good soultioneering on your part.

I know this is an old video. But from my understanding in house wiring, you need twice the thickness of the copper counterpart to handle the current. so 12 gage copper and 6 for the aluminum wire. I think that is what I have heard.

Didn't read through all the comments but BMS is important with Lithium-Ion cells....much more than with Lead-Acid. I was hoping you would find a way to use the BMS that came with the pack.

Awesome awesome setup so how is it working out with the 10 gauge wire I think he's a bit too small but at the inverter should be at least 0/2 so I could give the power what the inverter says ...so wating for the video of the charge controller...Ps ✔ out the PCM60X...

im not sure but when you did your cut is the negative wire the same length as your pos wire with your fuse wire added on ?great looking project sir cant wait to see it done and bringing you power

nice, did you notice any current flow between the packs?

heya 1 more nice video getting some nice idees of how it can be than too

I would turn the yellow wires around so the fuses would be as close to the battery attachment points as possible

Great - Is there more to this series? Please link as I am having problems finding them.

the aluminium is the way to go. you can drill and tap into it instead of using nuts and bolts and it can be fastened to the cabinet easier

Its kinda late now but there is fuse holders that don’t have the wire built in. So they are just the spades on the backside and can be mounted ..... so you can actually make a nice deal thats all in line. You just use insulated female spades. Using all those butt connectors is asking for trouble. Also temco 8 or 6 awg wire would have been nice to use.

So what is the voltage for each cell ?? ...Try to figure out a plan to do a similar set up ..

Use 30 amp fuses for max power! The 10AWG length you have will handle 50 AMPS. QUESTION: are you running the Chevy 44v in a 48 volt system charging to52Volts? EEng worried about your heating of the cells without cooling

I would suggest removing the rubber mat material and use rubber bushings. As stainless steel washers will conduct electricity. Also wood makes for a poor electric conductor unless its wet. Was the reasoning for the rubber matting was for heat insulation? Also are you heat shrink tubing the connection points? You may also want to use dielectric grease to coat the connectors so they wont oxidize.

I heard from a guy I work with says those batteries are on recall right now with no fix ready yet.

What charge controller works best for recharging these chevy volt batteries i have a total of three, that are 44 volts each.

how many amp hours are each of the 8x chevy batteries?

Aluminum buss causes electrical battery action causing corrosion and resistance. I would and do always use copper

what are you using for a BMS? or are going to use one.

Hi David you have a good channel, where did you put your ground bus bar?

I'm trying to figure out if you're running a 48 volt system you can go up to 60 volts 44 volts to me seems a little bit low and I'm not trash-talking you I'm just curious

I am a subscriber at your channel

why 44 volts if the inverters are 12, 24, and 48 volts? I just both a chevy volt car and today I removed the batteries..everything match to 48 volts, the two 24 battery an add it together,.. you are my master!!!

Looking through the comments and there's one thing I haven't seen yet so I'll mention it now, 2 years too late: The thickness of the bus bar doesn't matter much. Electrons tend to flow near the surface of any given metal, so surface area is far more important than thickness. Thickness more reliably determines how much heat the bar can handle as the electricity moves through it (thicker bars are harder to melt) but that can also be solved by using a longer bar and/or closer spacing of the connection points.

Aluminum should work well.

Also, second major issue, those fuses are NOT rated to break 30A at 44V. They are AT MOST 24V rated auto fuses (given the origin I'd be inclined to think only 12V), that means if they trip it will be a loud BANG followed by molten metal flying out (30A at 12V is only 360W, compared to 1.3kW at 44V). You can also find a 250A Class T fuse and block right here www.solar-electric.com/fb250ampfuwi.html or you could use the 175A Midnite breaker cl.ly/rYZU

what if you use iron or steel for a bus bar?

For cheap inverters, if you find old UPS's. People throw these out when the batteries die.

chopper has more conductivity then aluminum you would have to use 2x the thickness of aluminum then copper

Did you retain the bms on each of the 8 battery groups? If not you are setting this up totally wrong. They will go out of ballance very quickly like this.

David, I understand we're in the realm of personal opinion here - but - reference material size/gauge? Simple. Open your home's grid electrical panel and look at the lug size on the main 200A Circuit Breaker. That will instantly give you a visual clue of how thick/wide your own bus-bar material should be. You could turn off that main breaker and measure it if you want. As young as your are, you may not be aware that back in the 1960's it was thought that aluminum wiring would be cheaper and easier to use for wiring houses and the industry went to that. Numerous house fires nation-wide later, that idea went up in flames (pun intended) when it was discovered that electric flow over aluminum caused an oxide reaction and heat buildup. So - back to copper and a very expensive cost to replace that aluminum wiring with copper. It's apparent you've given lots of thought to your bus-bar and it may be okay for your application. I would keep a wary eye on it - might even put a temperature probe there to keep it honest. Just a thought. Keep it up! John

Can I connect a 24v 100ah gel battery and 24v 200 ah gel battery to the same busbar?

LOL, I wouldn't be sleeping in that house ... Your as good as your weakest link and man do you have some weak links.

You could buy a copper bar used for Ham radios from places like DXengineering.com or Hamradio.com. That would work.

Found a quick calculator and copper is 1.2A per mm2 of size, aluminium is 0.8mm I'm not an Electrical engineer though, so have no idea if this is true or accurate So to find out how many amps it can carry multiply these * W * H in MM For the Copper (1 3/8" * 1/8" * 1.2) - 34.92*3.17*1.2 = 132 Amps (Supposedly) For the Aluminium (2" * 1/4" * 0.8) - 50*6.35*0.8 = 254 Amps (Supposedly) I know the Aluminium is right angle, so I figure this is per "section" / side or rails. If you cut them in half and double them up this would be 1/2" thick so could carry 508 Amps based on above calc Hope that makes sense.

i know there's probably a good reason, but why use stainless steel bolts for the connector mounting? why not plated bolts, plus they wont corrode the Aluminum like SSt bolt will.

Im an electrician and im laughing my ass off right now!

Didn't chevy recently recall their batteries?

Hey, why 44 volts? I want to do same but my inverter is 48 volts. Will it work?

Question. For added safety on the wooden wall cabinet. Was is worth to paint in insumecent fire proof paint? Also I know this is 3 years down the line. But would it be possible to make a video on a custom metal or wood cabinet for 48 or 64 Eve/Lishen 3.2v cells with locking wheel casters and locking door. That would be cool. Alternatively any alteration of an existing metal cabinet that would neatly hold 64 of said cells. 🇬🇧

Flatten the copper, bolt it to the aluminum. You have the angle mount and extra conductivity.

Fuses on the battery, not on the busbar.

So what is going to happen is that one fuse will blow, then draw on remaining 7 strings will go up and all the fuses will blow....

I realize this is an older video but at one point you make a joke about a magnetic parts tray and stainless steel not being magnetic. While that is true for some alloys of stainless steel there are stainless steel alloys that are magnetic. I believe this depends mainly on the chromium composition but may also depend on nickel composition.

Don't guess - look it up And pounding copper tube flat just produces crappy copper bar. Laying 3 in a stack produces crappy^3 bar! Al requires special connectors for safety. Using them??!?

can you make me a BMS just like the one you made for the Chevy Volt batteries i need 2 BMS's i have double what you have...

DEAR GOD NO. That copper pipe doesn’t have nearly enough meat to it for a 250A bus bar (nor is it the right alloy), you want at least 1in wide by 3/8in thick type 110 electrical copper, buy it ready to go in lengths up to 6ft from McMaster-Carr. Aluminum bus bars are hardly used in industry since they require extreme care to bust through the much tougher oxide layer, very tricky to get right in the home shop, not to mention that you would need almost double the size as copper to get the same amount of ampacity

Bla bla you have li-ion battery's they not have to be changed to the top...that's the one and the second dubbing the thickness of the wires would make more sense than the same length... Current ac 30A =dc 10-12A on the long run.... Alternating current produces less heat in the wires as direct current Magnum is excellent choice 👍 victron multiplus is also not bad and 1/2 the price....

You are way over thinking wire length for such short wire runs. AScT,BScEEng, BAEd

"My guess is..." How about googling a real answer?